Experience matters.
I've heard that time and again from bloggers, pundits, and my many ventures to Macromedia MAX conferences. Adobe talks about the "engagement platform," but it's still all about the experience the user has with your Web site.
This is especially true of eLearners -- more specifically, the working professionals for whom I build solutions. The don't have time to learn and re-learn complex interfaces and systems. They want knowledge and collaboration and they want it now. Customization is swell and all, but if the organization and navigational structure of every online learning experience from an institution is different, things get real old real fast for these folks. If you've got 15 minutes to download the reference readings for an assignment, you don't need to waste those 15 minutes hunting around the class Web sites for the appropriate .pdf file because in the last class you took, downloadable readings were in one location, but in this class, they're in a different location.
At my job, we don't use a commercial course/learning management system like Blackboard or WebCT. We don't even use Moodle or Sakai. We use a custom solution built and maintained in-house. Is that more expensive? Perhaps. Does it provide a better user experience for the people paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to take courses through our system? You bet. We consistently receive feedback from students who have taken online classes using other (insert big vendor name here) systems, and those students tell us that ours is not only simpler and easier to use, but, aesthetically, a whole heck of a lot nicer to be a part of.
Not only do we get to build a system that meets the needs of our faculty and students and not have to wrangle the system into kind of/sort of fulfilling some needs, but we also get to build a system that looks good, that is visually welcoming, and that helps users get tasks done in a consistent matter. They have a better experience with our courses and our technologies, and, as such, are much more likely to keep shelling out the big bucks to take classes from us.
It's not just the content. It's not just the multiplicity of tools available. It's the whole experience that matters.
