"LMS-ready" gets used as though it were a single checkbox. It is not. A module that loads in one company's platform can fail quietly in another's, report nothing useful, and lock out anyone working without a mouse. None of that shows up in a demo. It surfaces after handover, when the schedule has no room left for it.
Four decisions determine whether a module is ready for a given LMS. None of them are hard. All of them are cheaper to settle before a module is built than after.
SCORM 1.2 or 2004
Most life sciences platforms speak SCORM. The question is which version. SCORM 1.2 is older, simpler, and still the most widely supported. SCORM 2004 is more capable, and the capability that matters most is sequencing: it can enforce the order modules are taken in and carry richer completion and pass or fail states between them.
For a single self-contained module, the practical difference is small. 1.2 tracks completion and a score, and that covers most reporting needs. The difference appears with a multi-module curriculum, where one module has to be finished before the next unlocks, or where you want to record "completed" and "passed" as separate facts. That is a 2004 job.
The failure mode is a version mismatch. A package built for 2004 may not report at all in a platform configured for 1.2, and the reverse can drop data without warning. We ask for the platform and its SCORM version at kickoff, and we package to that version. Correcting the wrong choice later means rebuilding the tracking layer, not editing it.
Decide what you actually need to track
Every LMS can record that a learner reached the end of a module. Past that, the tracking model is a decision, and it should be a deliberate one.
The options are a ladder. Completion tells you who finished. Add a score and you know who passed. Add per-question data and you can see which items the group got wrong, which tells you where the content or the audience needs work. Add time-on-task and you can tell reading from clicking through.
More tracking is not automatically better. Each level adds design work, and adds data that someone has to be ready to read. Per-question analytics are worth nothing if no one looks at them. We recommend deciding which report you actually want in front of you, then tracking to that, rather than collecting everything on the theory that it might be useful one day.
The choices that make a module LMS-ready are cheap at the start and expensive to reverse.
Where the module has to run
A module that works on the open internet can still fail inside a client environment. Two constraints are common in life sciences.
The first is the firewall. Corporate networks block outbound requests. If a module pulls a font, a script, or a video from an outside host while it runs, that request can be refused and the module can break in a way that never appeared in testing on the open web. We build modules to be self-contained: every asset ships inside the package, and nothing is fetched at runtime.
The second is offline use. Field teams are not always connected. If a module has to run on a laptop at a congress, or in a clinic with no reliable signal, it cannot depend on a live connection to load or to record progress. That is a design constraint, and it is far easier to honor from the start than to reverse afterward.
Accessibility is a foundation, not a finish
Accessibility is where retrofitting costs the most, because it is structural rather than cosmetic.
A module built for the mouse assumes the mouse everywhere. Interactions are wired to clicks, focus order is whatever the markup happened to produce, images carry no text alternative, and custom controls announce nothing to a screen reader. Making that module accessible is not a pass at the end. It means rebuilding the interaction layer, because the assumption is set into it.
Built the other way, the same work costs almost nothing extra. Keyboard operation, a sensible focus order, text alternatives, and reduced-motion support are decisions made once, in the foundation, and inherited by everything after. The requirement is also not optional. Public-sector buyers and many large employers hold vendors to WCAG, and a module that cannot be operated without a mouse can hold an entire program short of approval.
None of these four questions need a finished module to answer. They need a short conversation with whoever owns your platform. Settled early, they cost nothing. Settled late, each one becomes a rebuild.