A ‘very important’ writing tip from C.S. Lewis

I just came across a real gem of a letter on Letters of Note (a blog that’s definitely worth a look), sent by C.S. Lewis to a young American fan in 1956.

Isn’t it lovely and quite remarkable that he replied to his fan mail in such a thoughtful and personal way?

Aside from that, though, this letter stood out to me because of a particular piece of advice shared in it, which I think all e-learning designers (indeed, all writers!) should be mindful of:

In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible”, describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

How often do we make the mistake of telling our learners that something is ‘very important’ – especially in compliance courses? Are we guilty of laziness when we do this? Is it easier to just tell our learners that doing (or not doing) something is important and expect them to believe us, rather than illustrate consequences and impacts in such a way that they can infer the importance themselves?

Incidentally, the other four pieces of writing advice included in C.S. Lewis’ letter are equally valuable and worth bearing in mind – go and take a look.

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Let’s get back to basics: why we should write more like we speak

It’s been a while since I wrote about language and tone of voice. But anyone who knows me well knows that this is a pet subject of mine.

I love words, and I love writing.

Talking, less so – but I do believe in taking inspiration from talking when writing.

Academia instills a different mindset, certainly in my experience, and so my undergraduate essays were formal in register and complex in sentence structure: that’s what was (rightly or wrongly) expected. But since entering the world of business communications, I’ve been converted. I now think that most situations call for a back to basics approach to writing.

I think it’s absolutely right that school teachers encourage pupils to find more interesting and descriptive replacements for ‘nice’ and ‘said’ and ‘get’. It builds vocabulary and encourages an appreciation for (if not necessarily a love of) creative writing. But while I’m all for e-learning scripting to be approached more like a creative writing exercise (within reason), I tend to think that in many – if not most – cases, those plain and simple words we were trained out of as children are just right for the job.

That’s why I was really interested by the results of a study by language consultancy The Writer. My impression is that this wasn’t a particularly extensive study (you can read more about how and where they gathered these results in their original blog post) but it’s interesting nonetheless. Essentially, the study supports The Writer’s belief that there are some words we use in written communication that just don’t crop up in speech. They compiled a short list of words that are found many more times in the written word than in the spoken word, and their counterparts that are much more commonly used in spoken English. Words like ‘purchase’, ‘obtain’ and ‘receive’ are replaced by ‘buy’ or ‘get’ in speech, for example.

What’s particularly interesting is that, as far as I can tell from The Writer’s summary of the study, this research is not based on any particular type of writing or speaking: it reflects global usage (global in the sense of genre, rather than geography). There’s no second list of the words most commonly used in spoken business situations, for example. This means that ‘get’ is used by speakers in situations ranging from playground chit-chat to board room presentations, and from dinner party conversations to politicans’ speeches. And if it’s good enough for world leaders, it’s good enough for learners.

So let’s get back to basics when writing for e-learning and close that vast, unnecessary divide between the way we talk and the way we write.

Image: sheelamohan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Five days to better e-learning: a quick recap

If you were following last week’s series of blog posts about refreshing and improving an old e-learning course in five days, there was a lot to take in. If you were putting it into practice as you went, it will have been even more intense! So here is a quick recap of the key things we focused on.

We looked at everything from the big picture (learning outcomes, high level structure and flow, and overall character) to the detail (all components of interactions and specific wording choices). But each day we were working on things that one person with limited resources could do even with very little time.

We focused on one area each day for a week, making small changes that add up to a big overall improvement. I don’t know about you, but I’d be pretty proud if I achieved all that in a week!

Now you’ve had some time to digest, and perhaps even implement, my suggestions from last week, I’d love to know what you think. Does this framework work for you? Is it achievable with your resources? Is there anything you think I’ve missed?

If you missed any posts last week, here’s where you need to go:

• Day 1: Learning outcomes and structure
• Day 2: The right interactions at the right time
• Day 3: The Goldilocks rule and good feedback
• Day 4: Tone of voice, style and character
• Day 5: Sanity check!

Finally, I initially designed this content for a webinar for the IITT and a recording is available for members. I’ll try to pop the slides up on Slideshare sometime soon for everyone else.

Better e-learning – Day 4: Tone of voice, style and character

After two long – but well spent – days focusing exclusively on improving your e-learning interactions, it’s time for something a little different.

Today we’re going to look at how we can bring your e-learning course to life and inject some personality into it. (For me, this is the really fun bit!)

As always, rather than simply tell you what I think, first of all I’m going to share what my webinar participants said when I asked them: what small changes can you make to your existing e-learning course to bring it to life?

Avatars are a great idea but within the constraints of our contrived scenario we probably can’t realistically incorporate these. They are a great aspiration though and something that’s definitely feasible in a more realistic situation – and don’t let the word ‘avatar’ put you off. It doesn’t have to mean virtual world style characters; many of the same benefits can be achieved simply through adding photographs of narrators or characters, for example.

Just as we found yesterday, there are more changes we could make to inject some life into your e-learning than we can possibly hope to achieve in a day. I’ve highlighted four that I think are quick, easy and high impact but ultimately it’s up to you to select the things that are most important to and will make the most difference in your organisation.

• Apply some imagination to your titles

It’s Thursday morning and I know your creative brain might need a little time to warm up, so we’re not going to get stuck into the detail of the text in your course just yet. Instead, let’s spend some time seeing what we can do with the titles.

I think this is a great place to start, because the course title has a big impact on first impressions. I suspect many e-learning courses are effectively nameless until they’re completed, when a descriptive but not particularly engaging label is attached. This makes me sad for two reasons. Firstly, the course title is your chance to set the tone for the learning experience and to make sure your learners come to that experience in a positive frame of mind. Secondly, coming up with creative course titles can be really enjoyable.

I’d recommend thinking about it throughout the project lifecycle, jotting down ideas as and when they come to you, rather than setting aside a particular slot in your schedule to come up with the name. Having said that, I am putting you on the spot now with a challenge to review and improve your course title. To give you some inspiration, here’s what we came up with when I gave my wonderful webinar participants the same challenge.

Everyone came up with very different ideas, and in this there is no right and wrong. Clearly you need to consider the culture and constraints of your workplace, but a brainstorming session like this might well throw up some ideas for pushing the bounds of what you can do within those constraints. It’s a great exercise for challenging yourself to be a little more imaginative.

So once you’ve come up with a refreshed and revamped title for your course, see if you can take this further. Review the module or unit titles, and even the individual screen headings, to see where you might be able to inject a little burst of creativity. Remember, this is a quick and easy way to change the atmosphere of the course and influence learners’ first impressions.

• Add contractions and shorten sentences

A friendly, conversational tone of voice is something that was suggested by a few webinar participants and this is definitely one of my top tips for improving an e-learning course. It almost goes without saying that an e-learning course which adopts a less formal and more natural ‘voice’ is more enjoyable and user-friendly than a very stuffy, formal course.

So how do you make your course’s voice more conversational? One of the easiest ways is to add in contractions: replace most instances of is not with isn’t, and so on. This reflects the way we speak in everyday conversation and is instantly easier and more pleasant to read. You don’t necessarily need to add a contraction in every single case; I’d suggest reading the text aloud to yourself, as this is the best way to discover where it sounds forced or unnatural. Those are the places where contractions will make the most difference.

Reading aloud will also help you identify any sentences that are too long and convoluted. If you’re struggling to get to the end of the sentence without taking a breath, perhaps you can rephrase it. These are quick and easy changes that really do have a big impact on the overall feel of your course.

• Switch from third-person to first- and second-person

How many courses have you seen which talk about ‘the business’ or ‘the organisation’ and the things ‘it’ requires from ‘its employees’? Regardless of the content, for me this instantly creates a ‘them and us’ impression and the feel of top-down instruction.

I’d much rather my e-learning courses were inclusive and personal, and I’m sure you would too. Your learners all work for the same organisation, after all, don’t they? Luckily, this is not difficult to fix. It’s just a case of reworking the text from third-person (‘the business’, ‘employees’) to first-person (‘we’, ‘us’) and second-person (‘you’). Yes, this will probably take a bit of time – and it’s important to be consistent so you’ll probably need to check it through a second time in case you missed anything – but it’ll be worth it.

• Add real-life examples or employee quotes

I’m probably being a little cheeky including this one as you couldn’t really do this on Thursday afternoon without having done some prior preparation. Nonetheless, you may well have some case studies, quotes and war or success stories from people in the business that are perfect for illustrating your key messages. Now is the time to dig them out and see where they might fit in. Just one or two will do, so don’t panic if you don’t have reams of examples to hand.

Obviously there are lots of different ways you could integrate this kind of material using animations, video, photos and audio. But even without much time or money, the benefit of this material can still be delivered simply by adding it in text format. It might just be a sentence or two here and there to illustrate a key point – perhaps highlighted using italics or bold formatting if you really want it to stand out. Even this low-tech approach will help add character.

So despite having no graphic design resource, we’ve made some significant changes today to the overall feel of your e-learning course, simply through making some subtle changes to the way things are written. You’ve now got a friendly, lively course that will make a positive first impression on your learners and maintain that impression throughout.

Three steps (and nine tips) to compliance greatness

My recent survey of the e-learning and compliance communities highlighted three characteristics of the compliance e-learning we’d all like to see more of. 

It needs to be engaging, relevant and effective.

In user-focused terms, it needs to make them care, show them it matters and help them live it.

Here are my tips for achieving those three things.

Making them care

Why is it so important to make learners care about what they’re doing? If learners don’t care, they won’t take notice of what they’re experiencing. If they’re not taking notice, they’re not really learning. If they’re not learning, they won’t action it back in the workplace.

This matters from a business perspective too. If people don’t take the learning on board and apply it, they’ll continue to make the same mistakes or miss the same opportunities. So the business ends up paying for the training and the mistake or missed opportunity, making the training a wasted investment. So it really is in everyone’s interest to put the effort in to making users care about what they’re learning.

Here are my three tips for making them care:

1. Create a fresh, surprising, eye-catching design or concept to make users sit up and take notice; use the visual design to help overcome any compliance preconceptions they might have.
2. Banish the business speak (it’s not a legal document, textbook or academic paper, after all), keep it conversational, and have fun with the tone of voice and language you use.
3. Add some variety in the approaches, interactions and media you use, and give the learner a bit of control over the experience (the use of audio, or the path through the learning, for instance).

Showing them it matters

Put yourself in the learners’ shoes. If the e-learning screams ‘compliance’, they’re more likely to view it as something that the organisation is doing to cover its own back – not the best way to get them on board. (For instance, how many learners do you think will really care about the potential reputational damage or a fine that’s unlikely to directly impact them?)

Instead, you’ve got to design something that’s relevant to their life and work and shows them how the compliance issues impact them as individuals. If you want them to see it as more than a tick-box exercise, you’ve got to show them it’s more than a tick-box exercise.

Here are my three tips for showing them it matters:

1. Put the learning in context by designing scenarios in which the user has to make decisions or recommendations, drawing on high-profile cases or building in real-life anecdotes and stories.
2. Take a tip from the adverts, and put the really useful, surprising, interesting and practical stuff centre-stage; the theoretical explanations need to be there, but keep them in the background.
3. Group job roles into risk categories or use a pre-test to identify gaps in knowledge, then point each user to what they specifically need to know (information overload = disengaged learners).

Helping them live it

Finally, if an e-learning course is going to translate into changed behaviour and improved performance, it’s got to be effective. You’ve got to give the learners the skills and tools they need to implement the learning back in the workplace.

Again, this benefits both the learners and the business. The user will see the value of what they’re learning, and the business gets evidence not just of compliance but also of competence.

Here are my three tips for helping them live it:

1. Actions speak louder than words, so focus on behaviour and competence rather than knowledge and simple compliance – what do people need to do, stop doing, or do differently?
2. Ask first, check later: use questions to drive the learning and remember the Goldilocks rule (questions and interactions should be not too hard, not too easy, but just right!).
3. Design an ongoing experience, including links to other reference points or learning resources and providing a well-designed crib sheet with key ‘dos and don’ts’ and contact points.

These are just some starting-point suggestions, but if you keep in mind the three user-focused steps (make them care, show them it matters, help them live it) you’ll be well on your way to compliance greatness!

(You can see the slides from my session on user-focused design for gold-standard compliance training in my last blog post or on SlideShare.)

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net