eLearning Build

One of the key quotes from this week's readings is from the Davis, Little and Stewart article.  They stated that "all teaching and learning systems should be built from two vantage points: the needs of the intended students, and the intended learning outcomes of the course of program" (p. 123)  I wonder how many eLearning programs have been built with this fundamental understanding in mind.  I can see how gaining a true understanding of the needs of the intended students could be taxing.  To be successful in an eLearning course, what would teachers and students need access to?  These authors ask us to consider such variables as "background with technology, expectations, financial and other resources, access to the web or other online networks, bandwidth limitations" (p. 123).  What other considerations could there be?
In 2004 Donald Norman wrote a book called Emotional Design where he proposed three levels of design: reflective, behavioural, and visceral.  For the purposes of this blog entry, I would like to focus on the behavioural level. At this level, Norman describes it as "the pleasure of using a good tool effectively" (p. 23).  Consider the feel of a comfortable automobile or contours of a piece of mobile technology.  In determining the needs of the user in an eLearning course, not only is it important to understand prior knowledge students bring to the course, but also the behavioural expectations users carry with them.  The technology must run well in order to cultivate a sense of trust on the part of the teachers and learners.  Davis, Little, and Stewart proposed a "user-friendly portal system so that, with a single login, they can also have access to their courses"(p. 127).
In our Board, we use a system full of multiple logins and it is an endless source of frustration.  The product fails miserably at the behavioural level.  Though as frustrating as this may be, I suspect designers of eLearning courses must weigh the needs of the users with the security needs of the institution.  I see this as an important consideration, one that Davis, Little, and Stewart did not address in the scope of their article.