Schedule kick-off meeting with the SMEs to understand the course needs.

Request all the resources necessary for the course from the kick-off meeting or within a follow-up email sent to SMEs. Establish realistic deadlines and expectations.

Review the resources and create the outline based on the course requirements while making adjustments and proposal ideas for the course content.

Have the first review call, or send the first review email to your SME, based on a "Content Review Guide" which should include:

• Accuracy
  Content accuracy/structure, grammar/style, objectives, and typos.

• Design
  Practice/assessments, fonts, broken links, WWL accessibility, and compliance.

• Media and templates
  Visual elements, navigation, screenshots, images, authoring tool templates, and other templates.

Implement the feedback received in the outline from the SMEs and make sure we are clear on what needs to be changed and added in order to start with a clear overview of what needs to be in the course.

Once the outline content is agreed upon and approved, we can start collaborating with the technical writers on the first course content document design. This document allows me to have the course written in order to use it as a resource for your eLearning course.

Ensure the SMEs are also working with the technical writers to review the course design document—to have a final version of the course story before starting the development with the authoring tool.

If the course design document is finally approved, now it’s time to work on the course design with the authoring tool. Here there are some important things to be taken into consideration:

• Use colors based on branding.

• Avoid too much text.

• Combine text and visuals.

• Use videos in presentation.

• Use animations for slides.

• Create a story from presentation.

During the course design process, I will start with your audience in mind, and use the welcoming part to include the introduction, course objectives, estimated time, and feedback. Add the course sections/modules, the activities within the modules, and the final assessment. At the end I will make sure to incorporate the closing/summary part with the congratulations part, key takeaways, and what’s next.

I will then send the course for feedback to the SMEs and peers as well. Usually, the SMEs will review the content accuracy, and the peers (other Instructional Designers or stakeholders) will review the design, media, and templates.

The published files will be prepared for an LMS if requested or delivered to the client. This is usually determined during the kick-off meeting.