When I was a kid discovering the phenomenon of the internet unfurling before my eyes, I was fascinated by one available — or simply the only sufficiently popular — educational platform named Coursera. Modern kids might be able to come up with a longer list of E-learning platforms: the promising endeavor of the past has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry, revolutionizing how people approach learning and teaching, offering dozens of opportunities to study art, history, design, IT & technology, and many other subjects people find enticing.
Yet, despite all its potential, creating a successful digital course is no easy feat that can enrage many enthusiasts wishing to share knowledge and generate income. Many courses fail to engage learners, meet their expectations, or deliver meaningful outcomes. In this article, we will delve into the most common pitfalls of digital courses, and offer actionable insights to help you avoid them, simultaneously ensuring your course stands out as both impactful and effective.
Statistics Takes the Floor
While there are people who consider statistics a vapid bit in any article, we tend to identify ourselves with affiliates who anticipate even an infinitesimal speck of statistics wedged between the lines. Digital courses are not a dog-and-pony show that entraps people with bright banners, omnipresent ads, and promises of luxury — in fact, they are nothing to sneeze at. If you want to take a glimpse at the most vital aspects of the market, we are happy to share.
People used to toy with digital courses before the pandemic: I, for one, started an Archaeology course on Coursera arranged by Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, US. My friend followed suit and chose Linguistics. Another acquaintance of mine switched from Creative Thinking to Art… The list goes on and on. However, this was far from a widespread phenomenon: we were a knot of nerds milling around the internet, quelling anxiety. But COVID changed everything: studying became a forced fashion re-invented by the people locked inside their homes.
The surge in online learning participation is obvious: I didn’t come here to feed you with tales and stories. According to Magnet ABA Therapy, 49% of students have engaged in online education. Even our good old friend Wikipedia provides the following insights: Coursera reported a 59% revenue growth year over year, largely due to the pandemic-induced boom in digital learning, and Google Classroom’s user base grew from 40 million to over 150 million users between 2020 and 2021, highlighting the rapid adoption of online educational tools.
In 2016, people may have been ready to sign up for any course: business owners barely had any idea how it should work, what prospects it should offer, and what structure their educational system should have. In 2025, the situation is different: customers dictate their own terms, lay out their requirements, and cherry-pick the option that fits the bill.
Mistake 1. Lack of Clear Learning Objectives
If your course is proudly titled Learn Mandarin Chinese or Learn to Program: Fundamentals, don’t divagate and provide said fundamentals on programming or Chinese. Courses that do not contain a well-defined goal leave learners flummoxed, confused, and directionless. Imagine you’re joining an activity out of sheer curiosity because you watched an inspiring movie: you want to resemble those characters; you want to feel one of them and make this TV show about you. This motivation works — for a month or so; you do what is implied by the curriculum, and then you start questioning all that as you don’t even know what to expect and what you are supposed to achieve by enrolling in this course in the first place. Does it keep you engaged? Hardly. And most people fit the pattern: if students — or learners, in this more par-for-the-course parlance — do not know what they receive at the end of the course, they are less likely to successfully complete it.
Unclear objectives may be different, from outright commercial to poorly spelled out. Need an illustration? Here it is: Learn How to Improve Your Writing Skills! Vague as it is, it doesn’t provide a sense of accomplishment at all, not by a long shot: are we going to work on the structure? Is it about handwriting? What kind of narrative is implied? Correct it just a bit to get to the impressive set of skills learners will acquire: Learn how to craft compelling, persuasive essays by the end of the course.
Bloom’s Taxonomy (image source: ThoughtCo.)
No wonder some educators struggle with this visibly unsophisticated task: they need to break it down and figure out the points, the very crux of the course, exploring different angles and trying newer tacks. However, a much simpler tactic exists: stick to Bloom’s Taxonomy, analyze your ideas, and come up with a definite objective.
Mistake 2. Overloading or Underloading Content
Educators are familiar with the problem of oversharing — not emotion-wise; professionally, rather. They want to stuff knowledge into your brain, pile you up underneath ancient tomes of Latin, and sprinkle things up with a speck of historical trivia just to add some flair.
In the blue corner, there’s another sort of teacher: they underestimate their students and hardly provide any material worthy of somebody’s heed.
Expectantly, both scenarios entail disengagement and dissatisfaction. The overloading course eventually leads to cognitive overload, causing learner fatigue and frustration — you surely can remember what you felt at school, but imagine feeling the same thing on your own dime, watching a long video with dense slides and lengthy reading assignments. The underloading course, on the contrary, leaves learners unchallenged. Treat it like a game: when Resident Evil Village suddenly got you cornered with Lady Dimitrescu’s daughters, you must’ve been thrilled… but when it happened several times in a row, you realized it was overkill, a catch-22 situation with only AI deciding whether you crawl out of this impasse or not. On the flip side, when a game becomes too easy, it inevitably turns into a boring routine, and you lose interest.
Tossing an example your way, so you don’t lose interest while reading this article.
Imagine a beginner-level coding course. At first, you’re inspired, and even the tiniest sign somewhere at the end of the line doesn’t fail to ignite the flame of curiosity. Then, little by little, you notice that this course only covers basic syntax without any real-world applications or projects. Result? At best, you feel dissatisfied. At worst, they spread the word about the zero value delivered by the course.
The only sure way to keep your learners engaged and motivated is to strike the right balance between too much content and too little content. Here are two main strategies to help you find that sweet spot:
Conduct Audience Research: Tailor your course to the needs and experience level of the target audience. Conduct surveys or interviews to understand the challenges and knowledge gaps your audience faces, and adjust the course content accordingly.
Break Material into Manageable Chunks: Microlearning — dividing content into small, digestible sections — helps learners process information more easily and increases retention. This can be especially effective for complex topics, where you can introduce concepts gradually through shorter lessons.
Mistake 3. Poor UX Design
Have you already approved your monthly budget? No? Then allocate a huge chunk of money to UX designers. You’ve seen people discuss it on various sites, criticizing this and ostracizing that, but if you’re dealing with digital courses, UX design is an essential you cannot do without. Despite the premium content quality, many courses fall short due to clunky, unintuitive platforms that frustrate learners and ultimately drive them away.
When learners encounter issues such as confusing navigation, inconsistent layouts, or features that are difficult to access, they lose valuable time and motivation. Sometimes people are left with no choice: for example, most higher education institutions insist that their students use Moodle, a sturdy, reliable platform that nonetheless shocks everyone with an absolute lack of… everything. Buttons? Here. Somewhere. Has it glitched or is it just slow to respond? Wait and you’ll see. Perhaps. Mobile devices? Nah, not working. Did you forget your password? Time to reach the dean of your department, there’s no other person in the entire university who can solve that problem —
Oops. That was my trauma speaking. If I got to choose, I would be one of those 88% of people who do not return to a website after a poor user experience.
You think I may be exaggerating, striving to humor you and cause a barely-there smile bloom on your face, but alas, this is the reality I faced every year of my studies. The negative impact caused by this quirky platform may have mitigated, but it still seems follow the fundamental Hamlet’s principle, to thine own self be true and rejects modernity, preferring to embrace tradition of poor UX design instead. Apart from buttons shoved in all the wrong places, UX issues can be quite diverse:
Unclear Navigation: Menus that are overly complex or lack logical organization.
Poor Mobile Compatibility: Content that doesn’t resize properly or interactive features that don’t work on smaller screens (hello, Moodle! Mwah!)
Slow Load Times: Videos or modules that take too long to load, especially for users with slower internet connections.
Cluttered Interfaces: Overwhelming designs with too much text, images, or unnecessary features that distract learners.
Luckily, if you apportioned your budget right, a decent designer will be able to enhance UX using a set of devious techniques:
Conduct Usability Testing: Involve a small group of users to test your course platform. Gather their feedback on navigation, accessibility, and overall user experience. Use this feedback to make iterative improvements.
Ensure Responsiveness Across Devices: Your course should work seamlessly on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Use responsive design principles to adapt layouts, fonts, and interactive elements to different screen sizes to ensure that your course looks impeccable across all devices: recent findings show a 25% increase in user engagement after optimizing its interface for mobile devices.
Simplify Navigation: Design clear and logical menus, and ensure learners can easily track their progress within the course. Breadcrumb trails or a well-organized dashboard can make navigation smoother.
To convince you to take care of UX design of the site, we’ve gleaned this incredible piece of statistics: a recent study indicates that a well-designed user interface could increase a website's conversion rate by up to 200%, and a better UX design could yield conversion rates up to 400%.
Mistake 4. Inadequate Engagement Strategies
Engaged learners — that’s what makes a digital course effective. Yet, many courses rely too heavily on passive learning formats, such as lengthy, static videos or walls of text, which can alienate learners and reduce retention rates.
Not to demonize passive learning (we’re all built different, and some may find this approach to studies particularly charming), but the modern world doesn’t keep you focused for very long. Learners may jump over one wall of text and scramble up the other one, but on the third task that requires all their concentration, if not earlier, they will feel… bored. For instance, a 45-minute video lecture without checkpoints or interactive elements can become a perfect lullaby and improve your sleep schedule rather than become a firm ground for a successful career switch. Interactive elements are key to keeping learners engaged and active in their learning process. Sounds far-fetched? Alas, it’s a stated fact: a study by Michigan Virtual discovered a positive correlation between student engagement with interactive course elements and their grades, indicating that interactive components can enhance learning outcomes.
Features like quizzes, discussion boards, and assignments not only reinforce understanding but also provide opportunities for learners to apply what they've learned. For example, a well-placed quiz at the end of a module can help learners assess their comprehension and retain information better.
Here are the tools and techniques you can implement in your course to keep learners motivated throughout the process:
Quizzes and Polls: Incorporate short quizzes or polls throughout the course to break up content and encourage active participation.
Gamification: Add gamified elements such as badges, leaderboards, or rewards for completing tasks to motivate learners and make the experience enjoyable.
Interactive Videos: Use tools like interactive videos where learners can click on hotspots, answer embedded questions, or explore additional resources.
Discussion Boards: Create forums or group discussions where learners can share ideas, ask questions, and engage with peers and instructors.
Assignments and Projects: Include hands-on assignments or projects that encourage learners to apply their knowledge in practical scenarios.
Mistake 5. Ignoring Feedback and Updates
Don’t be like Moodle! Embrace modernity instead of tradition: don’t let your course grow stale.
The problem is that sometimes course creators, no matter how successful and all the hype, tend to abandon their own brainchild and ignore learner feedback: this attitude entails nothing but an apparition of obsoletion hovering over your pet project.
As a creator, you might be a little partial: you may neglect obvious mistakes or put up with certain issues; in other cases, you fail to recognize the problem because you just haven’t dug that deep. Learners, however, often have valuable insights about what works and what doesn’t; they highlight areas where the course may be lacking, such as unclear explanations or missing content; they experience the platform, the course, and separate tasks regularly enough to tell you where you’re failing to deliver the seamless experience everybody’s hoping for. Over time, this can lead to lower engagement, poor reviews, and declining enrollment. Additionally, courses that don’t stay updated with current industry trends or advancements risk becoming irrelevant.
As in affiliate marketing in general, course creation has a few strategies that allow you to implement feedback and updates:
Regular Surveys: Conduct post-course surveys or gather feedback at specific checkpoints. Ask learners about the clarity of the material, areas for improvement, and their overall experience.
Scheduled Content Reviews: Set a schedule to review and refresh your course content, such as every 6-12 months. This allows you to update outdated information, improve the user experience, and integrate new trends or tools.
Feedback Channels: Create a space within your course platform for learners to provide feedback in real time, such as a dedicated discussion board or a suggestion box.
Pilot New Features: Test new ideas or features with a small group of learners before rolling them out broadly.
Mistake 6. Lack of Certification or Real-World Applications
Many learners enroll in digital courses not just for knowledge but for tangible outcomes they can use in their personal or professional lives. The writer of this article, for one, failed to receive a certificate in Archaeology when it was free. So, if you occasionally hear mysterious weeping and howling over the swamps, it's my doing. I am dedicating my dirge to the missed opportunity. Had I got the certificate, I would’ve been so powerful… kidding, of course. But such a diploma, serious or not, never fails to stroke your ego — that’s why courses without diplomas, certifications, or real-world applications often leave learners feeling unfulfilled and less motivated to complete the material.
Are tangible outcomes important? Without question. Certificates, badges, or demonstrable skills give learners a sense of achievement and prove their efforts. Certifications can boost a learner's resume, increase their job prospects, or help them meet professional development requirements. In addition, courses that emphasize real-world applications equip learners with practical skills they can immediately apply in their careers or personal endeavors.
Tips for Creating Meaningful Assessments and Certifications:
Offer Certificates of Completion: Provide downloadable certificates or digital badges upon course completion. Use platforms like Credly to make these credentials verifiable and shareable on professional networks like LinkedIn.
Focus on Practical Assessments: Include assignments or projects that mimic real-world scenarios, such as case studies, coding exercises, or role-playing activities.
Partner with Industry Leaders: Collaborate with companies or organizations to make your certifications more valuable and recognized.
Build Portfolio Opportunities: Give learners the chance to create tangible outputs, such as a design portfolio, marketing campaign, or business plan, that they can showcase in their careers.
Track Skill Application: Offer follow-up surveys or case studies to see how learners have used their new skills, demonstrating your course's impact.
Wrapping Up
Creating a successful digital course requires careful planning and attention to detail. By addressing common pitfalls, you can significantly enhance the learner experience.
As a course creator, your commitment to quality and continuous improvement will ensure your course stands out in the competitive e-learning landscape. By putting learners first, you can create educational experiences that are rewarding and memorable.
