What eLearning Designers Need to Know

In 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, examines the science and research of how people interact and behave in order to better understand how to design for them.  Her application of psychological principles makes for an enjoyable read focusing on how people see, read, remember, think, and focus their attention.  She further investigates motivation, social interactions, feelings, mistakes, and decisions.  Each of the 100 things includes an examination of research, examples (with abundant graphics), and takeaways in a concise few pages.  The book is enjoyable and useful both as a cohesive read and a flip-through reference to help you make better design decisions.  Below, we’ll examine 10 of her design principles and how they apply to eLearning design.

Scanning Screens

As learners interact with your modules, they have certain expectations based on how they interact with media throughout their day.  Next buttons should be to the right of previous buttons, titles appear at the top, and text below images describes those images.  While sometimes you want to think outside the box, the constructs of how people interact with media has certain expectations to which the designer should adhere. 

Text Line Length

Shorter is easier to read, but longer lines read faster.  As an eLearning designer, it is important to keep your text lines short when using body copy.  Eye strain is another factor to consider as people are typically reading on backlit devices such as monitors or tablets.  Keeping the lines short makes it easier for your learner to read and process the information.

Use It or Lose It

To move information from working memory to long-term memory, people have to use it or make connections with it.  You can better understand the concept of a black squirrel if you already know what a squirrel is so you can pin the information to something known.  Designing your interactions to have people use and connect the new concepts will help them to remember better.  With those interactions, you’ll also want to be certain to highlight the most essential information from your module to ensure they are remembering what you have designed for them to take away.

Chunk Your Content

Rather than providing all the steps to a process on a single page, chunk the content in order to make it more manageable for the learner.  By providing digestible nuggets of information, you can help the learner to understand portions or perform a small subset of tasks as opposed to overwhelming them with the entire system at one time.  This will help them focus on and master a portion before moving on to the next section.

Use Stories

As you sit through presentations, do you remember the pages of data or the interesting stories that are shared by the presenter?  Unfortunately, this may mean that you leave presentations remembering more about the travel difficulties of the presenter getting to your site as opposed to the primary content she intended for you to understand.  Stories help people process information, hold attention, and provide context for material.  As such, they are much more memorable than data, facts, and figures.

Focus Attention

As you are walking onto the stage to give a presentation on color theory, you look into the audience and are surprised to see your childhood friend Pam sitting in the front row. 

Without re-reading the sentence above, do you remember what the presentation was about?  Do you remember who was in the audience?  By bolding text, changing color, size, using images, or otherwise emphasizing a portion of the material presented, you draw the learner’s attention to that element.  People often can’t focus on everything, but you can help them better understand the material by providing consistent layout and text clues to pique their attention to the most important information. 

Keep It Short

Based on the research presented by Dr. Weinschenk, most people can focus for 7-10 minutes.  After a break, they can focus for another 7-10 minutes.  By chunking your content to be digested in 7-10 minutes or including interactions or other activities to break up the flow of the module, you can ensure that your learners will be at their best to receive the information you are presenting to them.

Reward Structure

If you are creating modules with elements of gamification, you are probably using points, coins, tokens, or some other form of reward to engage the learner and helping them release dopamine.  There are two methods of providing reward: ratio and interval.  Ratios are provided based on the number of times someone does something.  Intervals are provided based on a particular amount of time.  Each method can also be fixed, rewarding every 10 minutes, or variable, rewarding at a random period.  The most effective reward structure is variable ratio.  If you are designing these sorts of rewards into your modules or games, you are best to reward people based on their interaction with your product at a variable amount of interactions.

Mistakes Happen

Have you ever watched someone use one of your eLearning modules?  It can be an eye-opening experience.  You designed it in the best possible way for everyone to simply understand how it works, but then you are shocked to see someone stare blankly at the screen without knowing what to do next.  “CLICK!” you want to scream. 

People make mistakes and behave in seemingly unforeseeable ways.  When you are designing a module, be sure to provide feedback and information to help the most confused of your learners.  At times, this can be difficult as you don’t want to clutter the experience of the many based on the confusion of the few.  In those instances, it can be helpful to provide feedback at a certain time period that wouldn’t appear for learners who know how to use the module, but can assist the confused user.  For example, having a next button become highlighted or flash after the screen has been stagnant for 10 seconds to help someone who doesn’t know what to click next.  Your seasoned users won’t ever see the indicator as they will have already moved to the next page, but it can then unobtrusively assist those who need the extra direction.

Provide Choices

Animal research has demonstrated that the perception of choice makes one feel in control of a situation, making it more enticing to them.  Branching scenarios, non-linear navigation, and interactions help a learner feel in control of their learning experience, even if the amount of non-essential information presented outside of the primary path is minimal.  Non-linear modules are a simple way to provide choice without sacrificing information, assuming the content doesn’t build on itself.  If there are three key elements to the concept, let the learner choose which concept to tackle first.  You can build your module to require they see all three of them before proceeding, so the information shared will be the same, but they will be in control of their learning experience. 

Summary

Dr. Weinschenk’s book is an excellent, approachable guide to essential knowledge related to design.  While not focused on instructional or interface design, the concepts are all essential to eLearning designers (or even classroom teachers).  As a developer, you wear the hats of instructional designer, graphic designer, interface designer, developer, marketer, and communicator.  All of the concepts covered in her book will help you better understand your craft.  While some are common sense, others seem almost counter-intuitive.  As you look to expand your knowledge, building your toolset and bookshelf, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People is a welcome tool in your arsenal.