Aurion High5: Our journey to innovation

Since 2000, the team at Aurion Learning have been creating custom eLearning modules for our clients on every perceivable topic, all tailored to their needs and crafted to achieve impact with their learners.

If you are a regular reader of our news and insights you will have noticed references to our new custom eLearning design framework, Aurion High5. In this blog, our Managing Director, Gavin Woods, explores the story and innovations behind Aurion High5. He takes a closer look at this new learning design approach, examining how it pushes the boundaries of eLearning and how it’s helping to address learning challenges.

Take it away Gavin...

“One of the things I have always valued about our team is that alongside our eLearning designers and developers, we have technical developers and eLearning standards specialists, so we just don’t have to take the tools and technologies that others provide to us. We have the know-how to take things into our own hands, often providing the ability to overcome technical challenges where others have failed.

Through completing client projects over recent years, we identified an opportunity to improve the starting point of some of our flagship custom work. We wanted to ensure these projects all had one thing in common; the content developed was fully accessible, was multi-device and future-ready.

We felt that if we could invest dedicated time through a deliberate innovation exercise, we could define a custom eLearning development and design approach that could be better, faster and more closely aligned to trends we were seeing relating to accessibility and multi-device content.

We had already laid a good bit of groundwork, having delivered mobile-first and multi-device projects for a range of clients in the UK, Ireland and further afield. Therefore, we understood what great learning experiences needed and we had a track record of delivering just that.

Fully accessible: We were tired of seeing others pay lip service to accessibility or suggesting that their tool could magically produce accessible content. Having worked in the area of web accessibility before joining Aurion Learning and having since delivered projects for organisations like the RNIB and NDA, I know the effort and discipline that went into creating our accessible learning checklist that we use on every project. It is not hard work if you know what you are doing, but it is work.

Achieving high levels of accessibility means utilising the right tools, combined with know-how, to achieve the best results.

It has previously been a grey area on how far accessibility guidelines created for the web apply to online content like eLearning, particularly when it might be hidden on an LMS. That is being cleared up now through legislation like the European Accessibility Act - we wanted to maintain our leading approach in the creation of this new design system.

Multi-device: Accessing content on any device is a must-have for the modern learner. So, we didn’t want to create something that didn’t work on mobile or was only designed for mobile. We wanted a truly responsive solution that could give the best experience on any device – taking that device type into account without compromise.

Future-ready: Technology moves so fast, so we needed to ensure we kept moving and remained progressive too. We felt there were ways we could harness the best of the web, but we needed to look deeper. Key technology choices were needed to accommodate quality, front-end interactivity and the basis for maintenance and future developments.

We captured these requirements and more in a vision document for discussion internally. We then progressed this into a project plan, with key stages and milestones, drawing in others from the team where needed.

There are five key strengths of Aurion High5:

 Accessibility

Using a web-style approach has allowed us to stay really close to the WCAG accessibility guidelines, more so than if we were using an authoring tool. We have also had Aurion High5 independently tested by leading accessibility experts, who have accredited the output and the testing process we use to confirm that they deliver on the guidelines.

Mobile experience

Aurion High5 provides a seamless learning experience across all devices. Our work never stops while we innovate, so we have been able to deliver projects using Aurion High5 already and I’m really happy with the consistency and comparison of the mobile experience.

Control

We have used a component-based architecture to create Aurion High5. What that really means is that we don’t start a project from scratch, but still have the flexibility we need to get creative and fully reflect your brand and/or your learning vision.

We have delivered sessions internally to ensure all relevant teams in Aurion Learning understand how Aurion High5 works and how they can apply their expertise using it to achieve the best solution.

Flexibility

We have seen a really big shift in when and where eLearning is happening, really since the pandemic. More and more organisations are seeking to increase their reach outside the typical employee audience, to train customers, volunteers, business communities and the public on really important learning initiatives that are tackling the issues in our society, and our world.

At the same time, employee learning and engagement is more important than ever. Delivering effective learning that builds skills and changes behaviours is key.

We are happy to say that Aurion High5 delivers for both these use cases.

Aurion High5 feels like a website and can be delivered like a website to help maximise reach. Pairing Aurion High5 with another of our innovations, the Aurion Learning Portal, gives you an incredibly effective and scalable solution for delivering and reporting on even the largest initiatives.

Aurion High5 can also be deployed on any standards-based learning platform like your new or existing learning management system. We have used our tech know-how to apply SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) tracking to the Aurion High5 module, meaning we can zip everything up and deploy it to your learning platform with ease.

Some clients are even using the same module for both use cases – a great learning experience and great value.

Future-readiness

We have leveraged modern web technologies to futureproof your Aurion High5 content (technologies like Vue.js and Tailwind).

We have carefully picked a combination of technologies that allow us to achieve the vision we had for the solution, but also ‘harness the web’ by staying close to the latest developments and updates.

We are going to continue to develop and enhance Aurion High5, allowing our multi-projects to continue to benefit from new ideas and custom elements that are created across all our client projects using this approach.

Keep an eye on our website and social channels for the latest developments and innovations being realised by the Aurion High5 design system.”