Does In App eLearning Replace Product Training?

As a product enablement expert, many colleagues and customers have asked me about in app learning solutions and their ability to replace instructor led training or more traditional e-learning. The market is starting to fill up with solutions such as WalkMe, Userlane, and Pendo.

I'll preface this with two things: 1. I have not personally implemented one of these solutions yet so my advice is centered on my expectations and not proven reality, and 2. I absolutely believe that in app / in context learning solutions are the holy grail for SaaS products and most beneficial to users when well executed.

With that said, do these solutions entirely replace more traditional learning solutions?

No, they do not.

The most important thing for us to be conscious of in all learning design is that knowledge transfer is multi-modal and each user is unique in how they best receive (and want to acquire) knowledge. If your product is simple and errors are low risk, this may be the primary solution you deploy and augment with videos or simulations - many early stage products I have worked with have fit nicely into this category and should seriously consider deploying one of these products if their development team won't build it in house. However, for more nuanced products or ones with higher risk in execution errors, these solutions should be seen as a secondary medium in the learning journey versus the primary medium.

If you're just kicking off your product enablement learning solution and need help figuring out if one of these is a good fit and would like an objective expert's opinion, please feel free to reach out using our contact form.