Unlocking impact: How Genially empowers instructional designers to create engaging learning experiences

In the ever-evolving world of adult learning, instructional designers play a critical role in creating impactful learning experiences. With the advent of technology, their toolkit has expanded to include a wide range of digital tools and platforms. One such tool that is gaining immense popularity among instructional designers is Genially. This blog post will explore how instructional designers can utilize Genially to enhance their craft, create visually stunning content, captivate learners and win-over stakeholders.

This blog is one part informational and interactive. It will offer some of my favorite product features and show examples while also challenging each of us to apply these features to our next, or possibly first Genially.

Key Terms

Before delving into its applications for instructional design, it is essential to understand what Genially is and the role of an instructional designer.

Genially is a dynamic online platform that empowers users to create interactive and visually appealing presentations, infographics, microlearning, and more. Its intuitive, usable, and accessible interface offer features that make it an ideal choice for instructional designers seeking to engage learners through captivating visuals and no-code interactivity.

An instructional designer is a professional who specializes in the design, development, and delivery of effective educational materials and experiences. They apply instructional theories, methodologies, and best practices to create engaging and interactive learning content that meets specific learning objectives. Instructional designers often collaborate with subject matter experts, utilizing their expertise to design and implement instructional strategies, multimedia elements, assessments, and evaluations to enhance the overall learning experience to solve current performance and business problems.

Using Genially for Instructional Design

Instructional designers are often faced with a short period of time to push out engaging and performance changing content to stakeholders. Genially offers a variety of key features that I have used to impact overall design, workflow and key performance indicators.  These features include:

1. Captivating Visual Storytelling 
2. Interactive assessments and gamification
3. Accessibility and responsive design

1. Captivating Visual Storytelling 

One of the greatest strengths of Genially lies in its ability to bring content to life through compelling and thoughtful visual storytelling. Using pre-made templates for customer education, brand kits, or gamified assessments, instructional designers can use Genially to create immersive narratives that grab learners’ attention and foster deep engagement. By incorporating images, videos, animations, and other multimedia elements, instructional designers can transform static learning content into dynamic and interactive learning experiences without knowing any code.

One of the critical ways Genially enhances visual storytelling is through its vast library of templates, animations, and interactive elements. Users can choose from a wide range of professionally designed templates as a starting point for their creations. These templates provide a visually appealing base, allowing users to focus on their content and message rather than starting from scratch. Likewise, more advanced designers can build their templates from scratch with the help of the Genially tutorials and design guides. 

GENIALLY ACADEMY

Course: visual storytelling

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Check out an example of a brand kit I created that promotes a mentoring program using genially interactive quiz features.

Design Decisions

In the above brand kit template, I edited to the learning needs of my own company by adding some pop-up, interactive questions about our product to deepen the perspective of customers’ understanding of the product.  

I added:

• Button links to my business website 
• Interactive quizzes that re-enforce the companies bottom lines.

2. Interactive Assessments and Gamification 

One of the key advantages of using Genially’s gamification feature for assessment is its ability to make learning more enjoyable. Traditional assessments can sometimes feel monotonous and uninspiring, leading to disengagement and limited retention of information.

However, by incorporating game elements such as quizzes, challenges, and rewards, Genially creates a fun and competitive environment that motivates learners to participate actively. This gamified approach increases student engagement, making the learning experience more enjoyable and memorable.

Furthermore, Genially’s gamification feature allows for personalized and adaptive learning. With the ability to track individual progress, learners can receive targeted feedback and adaptive challenges based on their performance. This customized approach ensures that each learner receives a tailored experience that meets their needs and encourages continuous growth.

In addition, the real-time feedback provided by Genially’s gamification feature enables learners to assess their understanding immediately. This timely feedback allows them to identify areas of improvement and reinforces learning objectives. Learners can track their progress, celebrate achievements, and set goals for further development, fostering a sense of accomplishment and self-motivation.

Check out this gamified assessment I created for tech teams learning about the benefits of peer coaching to problem solve.

Design Decisions

In the gamified assessment above, I used an interactive maze to reinforce new peer coaching concepts introduced to learning experience designers to deepen their basic understanding of the type of coaching skills required to support each other problem and solve through the design process. I added the following interactivity:

• Button links to go deeper around each concept on the map
• A badge for completing the assessment
• An accessibility button that links the user to a word-processing version of the design, which creates a more customized experience for screen-reading users.

3. Accessibility and Responsive Design

Genially recognizes the importance of accessibility and strives to ensure that its platform is inclusive and usable by all individuals, regardless of their abilities. By implementing various accessibility features, Genially aims to provide an equal opportunity for everyone to create, access, and engage with interactive content.

Genially provides various accessibility options that enhance usability for individuals with different needs. It supports screen readers, allowing visually impaired users to have content read aloud to them. Genially also offers keyboard navigation options, enabling individuals who cannot use a mouse to navigate through the interactive elements using only the keyboard.

Furthermore, Genially promotes accessibility through its commitment to standards compliance. The platform follows web accessibility guidelines, such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), to ensure all users’ designs are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Check out this demo video I created about accessible design with Genially.

Moreover, Genially encourages creators to design with accessibility in mind. The platform provides resources and tips on how to make interactive content more accessible, including recommendations for color contrast, font sizes, and alternative text descriptions for images.

• Check out this Voice-Over microlearning course I created for tech teams desiring to learn the basics of Voice Over.

Design decisions

The Voice Over Microlearning course shows how to use microlearning templates in Genially while embedding evidence-based instructional methodology into the learning design. These microlearning templates made it simple for me to facilitate learning experience designers to learn key accessibility features needed to for compliance and human-centered design.

Application

 Reflect on the following considerations:

1. Which one of the following Genially features would benefit your next learning experience design?
2. Envision how a Genially gamification template would impact your following learning experience design assessment process.  

Next Steps

1) Create a free Genially account

2) Start creating your interactive games, brand kits and assessment.

3) Review corporate plans that work for your training team.

Conclusion

Genially is a powerful tool in instructional design that empowers designers to create visually stunning and interactive learning experiences.

With its vast array of features, including captivating visual storytelling, interactive assessments, gamification, collaborative learning spaces, and accessibility support, Genially opens up endless possibilities for instructional designers to elevate their craft and engage learners at a deeper level.

By harnessing the potential of Genially, instructional designers can truly transform traditional training materials into immersive and influential learning experiences, paving the way for a more effective and optimized learning asset and product design.