Designing online courses for low-connectivity contexts

Many of the people our clients want to reach study on a shared phone, on mobile data, far from a city. Courses designed on an office connection often fail them in the first five minutes.

Six decisions we make early

• Keep each lesson under ten megabytes and test it on a throttled connection.

• Offer every video as audio and as a short text summary.

• Let learners download modules and study offline.

• Avoid features that need a live connection, such as timed quizzes.

• Write for small screens: short paragraphs and one idea per page.

• Give tutors a way to reach learners by message, not only in the platform.

Measure what happens

Completion rates hide where people drop out. We look at which lesson each learner stopped on and ask a short question when someone returns after a long break. Those answers usually point to a page that is too heavy or an activity that does not work on a phone.