E-Learning App Development: Comprehensive Guide

A person learns all his life, from the first word or the first step, he acquires new skills and knowledge necessary for survival and new achievements. Technologies have made the learning process convenient, accessible, and straightforward. Using e-learning apps, you can get remote education, learn a language, and undergo additional professional and specialized training. But the creation of such an application is extensive and comprehensive, so as an e-learning development services provider, we decided to write this comprehensive guide. In the following paragraphs, you will learn how to make an e-learning app from scratch, including:

• What types of desktop and mobile e-learning apps exist.
• What are the key benefits of creating an e-learning solution.
• How to create an app for e-learning in 7 steps.
• What features you should add to your own own e-learning app.
• How much the development costs.

Without further ado, let's dive in!

Main Types Of E-Learning Applications

Let's start with a bit of theory and facts. E-learning is the quickest-growing market in the education sphere. Recent forecasts state that the number of online learning platform users is expected to reach 57 million by 2027, so the e-learning industry will continue to thrive. However, what types of educational apps are there?

Depending on the criterion, there are several classifications, but it is most convenient to divide them into applications for personal (individual) use, academic training, and corporate types of e-learning applications.

1. Personal learning apps. You have surely seen many online courses, collected on e-learning platforms or separate applications, which offer to learn everything on your own, from mathematics to the basics of flying an airplane. This convenient learning method allows you to master knowledge at a comfortable pace with or without tutor checks. Many users note that this is a great way to try something new and find out if this or that profession suits you.
2. Applications of academic training. This is a whole niche for teachers and online tutors to share their learning materials or visual presentations, provide consulting and training services, and conduct lectures. Virtual classrooms and applications for students and pupils came in handy during the pandemic. Still, after proving their effectiveness, they became a new way of remote learning in foreign educational institutions and beyond.
3. Corporate education. Here is another interesting fact: nine out of ten businesses offer e-learning opportunities to their employees. Seminars have become webinars, and lectures can be viewed conveniently instead of rearranging each employee's schedule. This innovative way of training employees allows you to use the company's time and money wisely.

The popularity of online education is only growing, which is why it is so essential to grasp the idea of ​​e-learning application development and implement it now.

Key Benefits Of E-Learning Apps

Let's admit: taking online classes can be very engaging and convenient. It's evident that people choose online learning apps for some additional skills or knowledge, but modern educational institutions offer different programs for students allowing them even get a degree in various subjects remotely. But what exactly an e-learning application can bring to the business?

• High retention rate: the latest technologies and gamification of the learning process make e-learning applications incredibly useful, practical, and attractive to the user. Instead of a boring test with tasks and a white sheet – interactive situational lessons supplemented with astonishing graphics. Add the ability to do it all on the phone with one hand, and your target audience has expanded significantly. Research shows that companies that use e-Learning solutions for employee training increase employee retention by 24%.
• High customer loyalty and satisfaction: the primary goal of any business is to turn an occasional customer into a regular one. Learning is a continuous process, but not only the variety of courses offered matters. You can add elements of customization, convenient navigation, options for people with disabilities, etc. Your arsenal is always limitless, and so are the ways to attract a client.
• Flexible monetization strategy: you can choose one-time individual payments for each course or subscription, provide additional services or bonus programs to regular customers, conduct promotions and raffles, and introduce a flexible loyalty system that would allow you to increase profits.
• Better learning outcomes: multiple studies show that online learning apps educate more effectively than traditional learning. That's because the learning process is self-paced and hence less stressed, which contributes to the effectiveness. Besides, apps offer a more personalized learning experience (with gamification elements, and so on), allowing learners to choose the learning style that best fits their personality. 
• Cost-effectiveness: another benefit of online learning solutions is their cost-effectiveness. For example, IBM saved around $200 million by switching to an online learning process. Besides, building an e-learning app can help you reduce the overall learning time by 25-60%, ensuring faster corporate training.
• Flexibility: EdTech apps offer the flexibility of personalized learning. Learners have access to a vide variety of educational content and thus can find the best way to memorize new materials.
• Process automation: with e-learning app development, you can create a tool that will automate routine labor-intensive tasks, helping you save time and effort while increasing the operational efficiency of your organization. For instance, by using a learning management system, you can automate many course management and user management processes, freeing up your time for important business matters.

You will get even more from e-learning mobile app development because, according to recent surveys, 67% of American college learners have completed some, if not all, of their course activity on their mobile phones.

Steps For E-Learning App Development

E-learning application development is a long run, so be prepared that many different stages are waiting for you that you can delegate, control or directly participate in.

Step 1. Ideation. It's no secret that everything starts with a thought – an idea that is transformed into a finished product necessary for achieving business goals. Among this variety of implementation options, it is worth choosing the one that most realizes the primary idea. It may be online classes, discussion forums, video streaming, training platforms, or literally anything that helps virtual learning.

To ensure successful e-learning development, we recommend starting with the project discovery phase.  The discovery is the process of researching the market and gathering information about a specific project that is carried out before kicking off its development. This initial phase is focused on identifying your target audience as well as their pain points and needs. It will then help people involved in the project understand your project idea and get a clear vision of the final product; set realistic business goals; receive business and technical requirements; get an accurate development budget estimate; meticulously plan the development process; and prevent development risks.

Step 2. Market research. At the level of idea development, directly research the market to determine needs, requests, prominent trends, target audience, and potential competitors. Your task here is to check the idea's viability, refine it, and strengthen it. This can be delegated to special agencies or full-cycle e-learning application development companies that provide such services.

Step 3. UX/UI Design. Even before the start of development, it is worth thinking through everything to the smallest detail. And this is where interactive prototypes, mockups, and frameworks come to the rescue, helping to bring the idea to life and visualize it literally. An experienced development team will help you with basic options and advanced features, but you also need to have a vision of the future product that is clear enough to sketch. Usability and the basics of the interface are laid out precisely at this step.

Step 4. Minimal viable product. While full-cycle development using an agile methodology saves you time, the first thing you get is an MVP. This is not yet a finished product that can be launched and placed on the application stores or the website, but it is a good version for the first tests. Many companies perceive this as a starting point for further development of a full-fledged product because, at this stage, you can find out the program's pitfalls, weak points, and shortcomings.

Step 5. App features. As already mentioned above, you can vary the functionality of the application and the platform. The basic set can be expanded with specially developed or ready-made solutions already widely used in the industry.

Step 6. Monetization. Four main monetization schemes are acceptable for e-learning apps: in-app advertising, subscriptions, paid access to individual course blocks (certification), and e-commerce integration. You can choose one, or a combination of several, that best suits your idea. The e-learning app developers will consider this and integrate it into education apps during the app development process.

Step 7. Testing. Best practices encourage comprehensive testing, manual and automated, by beta users. It is necessary to ensure that the application works properly before publishing it on the App Store or Google Play. If everything is fine and no bugs are found, the application is ready for launch, and the next step is support and maintenance.

An E-learning app development company can become your partner at any step. However, it is recommended to entrust development to an expert development team from scratch to avoid unnecessary and annoying problems with code.