Digital learning is becoming a prevalent everyday human behavior. Effective digital learning services are integral for educational innovation and constitute competitive advantages for education businesses. Quality management in e-learning research and development is thus of utmost importance and needs both strong conceptual and empirical underpinnings. On the one hand, this work delineates a new model that conceptualizes main critical issues in e-learning research and development projects. The model will foster substantial progress in evaluation and theory development of digital learning. On the other hand, the evaluation of how central features of digital learning services affect learning is indispensable. Here, empirical studies will investigate three key stages of learning: the initial situation, the learning procedure, and the assessment procedure. With regard to the initial situation, how do existing learner characteristics relate to learning performance in digital learning modules? Second, how do visual features of the digital learning content affect the visual attention, cognitive load, and learning performance of the users? Third, how do additional information in textual feedback affect the learning performance in digital multiple-choice quizzes? Overall, this work presents a new model for the systematic evaluation of e-learning and investigates key learning stages to illustrate the importance of developing evidence-based guidelines. Turning both approaches into common practice in e-learning research and development will substantiate theory development, quality management, and project success. [For the complete proceedings, see ED579335.]