Clarity is key: Provide crystal-clear instructions for assignments and grading criteria. Avoid confusing instructions. For example, students expressed frustration with assignment details being posted in the LMS but professors requesting submissions via email. Stay in the loop: Communicate with students by offering due dates, announcements, and calendar reminders. Timely and clear feedback on grades on the LMS empower students to track their progress effectively.

Post everything: Make sure all relevant course materials, such as the syllabus, grading scales, study guides, lecture slides, assignment instructions, and rubrics, are readily available on the LMS.

Structuring course materials in a clear and consistent manner is paramount. Use folders and course menus to group related materials, ensuring that everything is easily accessible. For example, some of our instructors have folders for each week with readings and assignments, while others choose to organize by chapters or units.

shown in Table 5. Overall, participants in theChronological group were more successful at finding thelocation for completing the prescribed instructional activities,than those in the Functional grou

As shown in Figure 3, participants reportedthat submitting assignments and checking their grades werethe most common activities, followed by reviewing classannouncements and completing quizzes or tests

One area that is typically not discussed in faculty training ishow to design a course in the LMS. Without sufficient training,courses tend to suffer from a lack of attention to design (R.Oliver, 1999) and design plays a key role in how learnersinteract with the LMS

such, it is reasonable to infer that if a student cannot interactwith the LMS or find the content required, then the student’ssatisfaction would decrease (Green, Inan, & Denton, 2012;Inversini, Botturi, & Triacca, 2006) or performance wouldbe hindered (Wang, 2010). Thus, faculty learning how todesign an intuitive user interface in an LMS is necessary inorder to ease the interaction between the learner and thecontent

Students in the Functional group completed a set of typical instructional activities slightly faster overall than participants in the Chronological group. However, students in the Chronological group reported a higher ease of use and needed less help completing the activities.

The lines between the design of content and the design ofthe functionality in future learning systems is becomingmore blurred. With ambitions of providing adaptive andcustom-designed learning experiences, even in face-to-facesettings, more and more instructional activities are delivereddigitally. It seems timely for the fields of education and userexperience (UX) to be integrated for the benefit of studentsacross all levels in all disciplines.

the ideal course layout is a balance of both functional andchronological elements. The findings directly apply to instruc-tors at universities and colleges who teach using an LMS, byway of possibly helping instructors design their course sites inan informed, intuitive way for students.