At CyberPilot, we know that cyber security is an ongoing process that requires frequent evaluation. The same goes for how we view our own services, including our awareness training. Over the past year, we’ve made a lot of updates to our awareness training content and platform, and we’re excited to share these improvements with you! For example, our courses are now available in more than 19 different languages, and we redesigned the look of our courses. We hope that these updates will lead to an improved user experience and greater security awareness among our customers. They could even inspire some updates in your own awareness training programs.
New features developed with input from our customers
We believe that effective cyber security should be simple, efficient, and value-adding. We’ve learned a lot from our customers and used their feedback to improve our users’ experience with awareness training. From 2021 to today, we added new features to our training courses, like:
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Voice-overs
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New languages
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Information boxes within courses
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New design and layout
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9 new courses
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User ratings and feedback on courses
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Our top 10 courses
Behind all these updates are the important partnerships we have with our customers, who share feedback that helps us create awareness training that is accessible, engaging, and effective.
Accessibility and inclusion are at the core of our improvements
To be effective, cyber security should be easy for everyone to understand and practice. Accessibility and inclusion are crucial to this, as material that can reach a wider audience can create greater awareness. Through accessibility updates, like adding voice-overs to our courses, we’ve made our content easier for all to use. Additionally, with our updates geared towards inclusion, we’ve made our courses available in more languages and added quick access to more information, so that all users can achieve strong learning outcomes from our courses
Voice-overs on all courses
It’s important for everyone to be able to participate in training activities. But reading difficulties can make it hard for some to participate in or get the same outcome from courses. We now have voice-overs on all our course videos, and voice-overs on the text portion of most of our courses in Danish and English, so that it’s not just strong readers who can benefit from them. We even have real voice actors on the video part of our courses in several languages.
If you are interested in learning more about our course accessibility, we have a guide on how to use our course subtitle and voice-over functions.
More languages and counting!
Over the last year, we added and translated our courses into many new languages. A lot of companies are located in one country but have offices all over the world. Having our courses available in several languages enables users to learn in their native languages, which leads to better training outcomes.
Our courses are available in: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German, English, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Polish. We’ve streamlined the entire translation process, making it easy to add new languages as needed. If we are missing a language that you would like to see, let us know.
Information boxes with extra guidance
Our awareness training courses are designed to benefit all users, from beginners to those who have more experience with IT security. One of the biggest challenges in security training is tailoring courses so that you are giving the right amount of information. Too much text, and you’ve already lost the audience. Too little, and you risk there being a lot of outstanding questions. One step we’ve taken to solve this challenge is adding information boxes to our courses.
Here’s an example of what an information box looks like:
Users have the option to click the information boxes and brush up on the basics. These boxes also answer questions in real-time, so users get concrete takeaways from the training.
We design with our users in mind
Our users are what our work is all about, and they keep us motivated to deliver good learning experiences. To give our users the best possible experience, we designed a new layout, created new courses, and sought feedback directly from our users.
New layout to enhance the user experience
Every design needs a refresh from time to time, right? We created a new layout, which is now on all our courses. The new design makes courses easier to navigate for users on both desktop computers and mobile devices. We also improved the navigation through courses, so users always know what the next step is and can see their position in the course. All these changes improve how users experience our courses – plus, they look much nicer, too.
See for yourself!
New courses on relevant security topics
Over the last year and a half, we focused a lot on making new courses on important topics. We’re happy to share that from 2021 to today, we launched these nine new courses, giving our users many course options to choose from:
Is there a topic we are missing in our awareness training? We would love to hear from you. We are always creating new courses and open to new ideas.
We hear from our administrators and users
We believe people are the core of a strong cyber security defence, so naturally, our administrators and users always come first. Our administrators are the people at our customers’ organisations who oversee the awareness training among their colleagues. The employees at these organisations are our main users. Over the last year, we increased the role of administrators and users in our content creation process. The result has been better features for our customers and stronger relationships with our users – two great outcomes.
Our administrators help us create new features
Our partnerships with our administrators allow us to create new features, with the goal of giving our users the best service. Last year, we made getting their feedback at several stages of development a regular part of the process. You can read more about our how our customers use awareness training in their security work here.
It’s been great to get insights from our administrators because they know their users the best. The feedback from our administrators is part of what makes CyberPilot’s resources so user friendly
Our users can now rank courses and submit feedback
In addition to our administrators, we also value what our users have to say. Over the last year, we added a way to hear directly from our users. For example, we created a new feature that allows users to rate our courses and submit feedback to us after they take a course. This feedback helps us learn, improve our courses, and catch things that might be misunderstood soon after courses are released. It also gives us insight into our users’ favourite courses.
So, here’s what our users had to say. These are our top 10 courses from last year:
| Rank | Course | Average rating (scale of 1-5) |
| 1. | Passwords* | 4.45/5 |
| 2. | Phishing* | 4.42/5 |
| 3. | Two-factor authentication | 4.40/5 |
| 4. | Protect your work computer | 4.35/5 |
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5. |
4.34/5 |
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6. |
4.30/5 |
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7. |
4.29/5 |
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8. |
4.28/5 |
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9. |
4.28/5 |
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10. |
4.24/5 |
It’s all about communication
Our goal is to communicate about complex security topics in a simple way. The updates we’ve made over the last year should all help us achieve that goal. We use communication styles that are easy for everyone to understand, regardless of their level of IT expertise. This makes it possible for everyone to contribute to good security habits and helps users take more away from awareness training.
Basic descriptions of the need-to-know topics
Everything we do is in our users’ own language. We skip the fancy jargon and use words and examples that our users can actually relate to. We also don’t have to explain the nitty gritty of complicated topics, such as ransomware, to communicate what our users need to know about it. Instead, we give practical examples of why ransomware is dangerous and how it can be avoided. The result is more learning, stronger engagement, and a greater understanding of cyber security among our users.
Learning in small doses over time
We also keep all our awareness training courses to only 5-10 minutes, or less. Some might say, “But wait, that's not nearly enough time to teach everything there is to know about phishing!”
But that’s not our goal. Instead of giving our users one course with everything they could possibly need to know, we break learning up into small complimentary sessions throughout the year. This approach, also called microlearning, allows for continuous learning that is engaging, convenient, and helps users retain knowledge over time. The training courses can even become quick learning breaks that employees look forward to during a busy day.
Aside from quick and simple courses, you can see our other tips for effective awareness training here.
We have learned a lot from our users over the last year, and we have also launched a lot of exciting new features. We hope that our work has improved our users’ experiences with awareness training, and we are looking forward to continuing this work in the years to come. If you have any feedback or wishes about our awareness training, we would love to hear from you at info@cyberpilot.io.
