e-Learning environments provide exciting possibilities for learning and training, but dropout rates are high and the quality of e-Learning courses is being questioned. Capturing requirements, and developing usable e-Iearning courses, focusing on usability and user-centred design are of high importance. Such efforts must be redefmed for e-Iearning contexts. This paper stresses the need for usable and effective e-Iearning design and describes the authors' experience in adapting methods and techniques of human-centred design implementing a learner-centred approach to the design e-Learning. © 2008, IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology. All rights reserved.