an instructional designer’s...

An Instructional Designer’s Guide:

Five Writing Tips to Grab Your Learners’ Attention and Keep it!

By Hannah Hunter, Instructional Writer

Copyright © 2016 Allen Interactions Inc. All rights reserved. | 2

Eye-tracking studies by the Nielsen Norman Group have

demonstrated that Web users, on average, read only about 28% of

the words onscreen at any given time. And, might I add, that’s how

little people pay attention to articles they’ve personally selected

because they are, presumably, interested in them. Try not to think

about how that number applies to last year’s mandatory compliance

training.

So, what can we as writers and designers do to make those 28 out

of 100 words count? Or, better yet, entice our learners to read even

more?

Onscreen text can be a powerful tool to motivate, inspire, entertain,

and educate. Instructional designers can use many tools to help make

onscreen text Meaningful, Memorable, and Motivational. So, the focus

of this e-book is to provide you with five writing tips to grab your

learners’ attention and keep it!

Intro

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-little-do-users-read/


Your learners will skim through text that does not have a direct and

immediate relevance to them. You probably do, too. Years of boring

page turners have taught many corporate learners that they do

not have to pay attention to course content to pass the course or

succeed on the job. So why waste time reading?

Counter that mentality by ensuring that each sentence in your

e-learning course has a benefit to learners that outweighs the time

it would take to read through it. A great way to do this is use the

buckets of the CCAF Design Model to organize your textual content:

Context, Challenge, Activity, and Feedback. Ideally, the bulk of the

learning in your course will be imparted as part of an interactive,

performance-based challenge .

The rest of your content should be used to support your

interactions by developing the context, instructing learners

on how to complete the activity, setting up the challenge, or

imparting feedback based on the decisions that the learner

makes. Feedback is an excellent place to present important pieces

of text, as the value to learners is obvious to them and they want to

know how they did and why! Structuring text this way creates a natural

scaffolding of concepts that fosters understanding and retention. It

also helps identify content that is not performance-based and may

not be appropriate for your course.

1. CCAF your onscreen text

CONTEXT CHALLEN

GE

FE

ED

B A C K A C T I VI T

Y

A meaningful

framework and

conditions

A stimulus or urgency to act

A physical response or gesture

in response to the challengeThe reflection back to learners about the effectiveness of their actions

http://www.alleninteractions.com/elearning-instructional-design-ccaf


Access to supplemental information is helpful, but walls of text are

not. The more text that a page contains, the more likely learners are to

skip over it or have difficulty comprehending it. The beauty (and curse)

of the digital medium is that there is always room for extra content

somewhere.

However, you can limit the amount of content onscreen while still

giving learners access to bonus information should they desire it. After

organizing your content with CCAF, take a look at the extra content

that is left and think strategically about how you can present that

content anywhere except through onscreen text. Some content is

simply more useful as a job aid resource or FAQ that learners can

access when they need the information. Provide links to websites or

applicable video clips.

Rather than using valuable screen real estate defining terms,

add a glossary or provide definitions that appear when the

learners roll over the terms with their mouse cursors.

Create a discussion group on social media or your company’s intranet

to discuss course concepts or recommend a book that learners can

read if they’d like to learn more.

A self-directed, blended approach engages learners by allowing them

to access the content they need when they need it. Plus, using multiple

modalities keeps each learning experience feeling fresh and new.

Instructional designers and writers often receive pressure to add

more and more content to their courses, often to the detriment of

the learning experience. When this happens to you, take a deep

breath and think strategically. Put on your consultant hat and work

with your clients and Subject Matter Experts to brainstorm the most

instructionally sound way to present the required content.

2. Limit onscreen text by presenting content creatively


Curiosity is a kind of deprivation that humans are psychologically

programmed to resolve. One study, published in the October 2014

issue of Neuron and accessibly titled, States of Curiosity Modulate

Hippocampus-Dependent Learning via the Dopaminergic Circuit,

found that people are able to learn and retain more information

when they are in a curious state because curiosity alters the

chemistry in parts of the brain related to memory (the midbrain and

hippocampus, if anyone’s curious). Resolving curiosity by finding the

answer to a question we’ve been pondering lights up the reward and

motivation center of our brain. Our brain then releases dopamine,

the same chemical we experience when doing other pleasurable

things.

You may be wondering, “What if my content is so dry that no one

could possibly be curious about it?” or thinking, “I’m not sure I

want to meet a person who has a deep, natural curiosity about

workplace harassment.”

The good news is, you can create curiosity simply by

marketing your content with intriguing headlines.

“Clickbait” is the Internet term for luring readers with titles that provide

just enough information to make us curious, but not enough to satisfy

our curiosity without reading the associated content. Clickbait titles

entice us with the promise of unknown skills or knowledge by using

language that creates a question in the reader’s mind. Instructional

designers can use headings or course titles to tap into curiosity, too.

Which would you rather read?

3. Create curiosity with your headings

Before After

Closing the Sale Five Secrets to Landing Big Accounts

Illegal Interview Questions Six Questions That Will Get You Fired

Employee Dress Code Casual Dress Isn’t What It Used to Be: Nine Misconceptions

3. Create curiosity with your headings

http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(14)00804-6

http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(14)00804-6


S

NumbersLists are fun to read and digest.

“Secrets” “Exclusive” information is always enticing.

“How to” “Why”Be specific about why the information is useful.

“Facts” “Science” “Studies” Use these words to add credibility and interest.

“Misconceptions” “Lies” No one wants to be wrong. Implying that the reader might believe something untrue creates intrigue.

“Easy” “Quick” “In just five minutes...” If you could improve your job performance with minimal effort in five easy minutes, wouldn’t you?

“New” “Latest” New things are fresh and interesting.

“Now” Drive home the immediate relevance of your content.

“Amazing” “Extraordinary”Don’t be afraid to be enthusiastic!

“Shocking” “Scandalous”Present the consequences of bad actions with the gravity they deserve.

Thinking up a catchy title can sometimes feel more challenging than writing the content itself. Here are some words, phrases, and tips

you can use to add interest to your titles and headings:

3. Create curiosity with your headings (cont.)


4. Highlight the important stuff with visual cues

Our eyes are trained to search for the novel items on a page

that stand out from the rest. Eye-tracking studies by the Nielsen

Norman Group have found that we take in visual information in

a pretty uniform order: pictures capture our attention first, then

headings, subheadings, bullets, and lastly, paragraph text. Readers

tend to scan the whole page for areas in which they are interested

before actually reading anything, and people tend to spend the most

time looking at items on the top left-hand side of the page. You can use

these and other visual cues as you design:

Readers love color: People read more words on a colorful page than a black-and-white-one.

Images attract more attention than text: If it works, consider moving some of your textual content to an infographic.

Create a visual hierarchy of information: Headings should be big and bold, subheadings slightly less so, etc.





Break up your text: Bullets, short sentences, bolding, and other visual cues draw the eye and enhance memory.

White space is your friend: A healthy amount of white space improves reader focus on the important stuff.

Use moderation: The goal of these visual cues is to attract the learners’ attention to the one or two most important points on the page. Going overboard with bolding, highlighting, italicizing, and underlining will overwhelm the learners and make for a messy and visually unappealing course.

Use moderation: If you have media artists or graphic designers available to you, lean on them. They can give you advice on how to make your text visually appealing. If you don’t have a media team, take a look at websites, magazines, and marketing media to get a taste of what impactful visual design looks like.

4. Highlight the important stuff with visual cues (cont.)


5. Add a human touch

Consider these two course introductions. Which course do you think

would be more memorable for learners?

Option A:“Welcome to The Customer Service Basics e-learning course.

This course is designed to teach new Customer Care Associates

the fundamental principles of customer service in a call center

environment. Upon completion, participants will:

• Be familiar with the ABC company sales cycle

• Be able to respond to customer requests

• Be able to communicate the best practices of call resolution”

Option B:“Welcome to your new job! Are you ready to take the Customer

Service Challenge? In this course, you’ll discover how ABC’s

sales cycle works and where you fit in. You’ll hone your phone

skills in simulated call scenarios. You may be new here, but

with a little practice, in no time you’ll be able to handle

even the most challenging calls like a Customer Service

Champion. Let’s get started!”

Humans are social animals. We remember facts best when they are

presented to us in a conversational style using words and phrases

that we’d hear on a regular basis. Even learners who are highly

educated and used to reading and comprehending complex material

will retain information better when it is presented in a more personal,

conversational way. When you write, talk to your learners like you would

talk to friends. It can help to read what you have written out loud to see

if it sounds natural. You can use techniques like:

• Use the word “you” – it’s personable and builds rapport.

• Write in short sentences and use conjunctions – that’s how

people talk.

• Tell stories.

• Add humor.

• Use relatable analogies to explain complex topics.

• Avoid jargon.

• Ask questions.

• Invite the learners to take an active role in your story with

phrases like “Imagine,” “Consider this,” “Think of a time

when…”, or “Can you believe?”


The next time you sit down to write an e-learning course, write one

that you would want to take. Be strategic and consider the ways

you can add fun, novelty, and interest to your writing. Onscreen text

sometimes gets a bad rap because it is often overused or presented

in a visually unappealing way. However, as bloggers, graphic

designers, and Internet marketers know, there are plenty of tools we

can use to create intrigue and motivate our learners to want to read.

It’s all in the way you spin it.

Here’s a recap of the five writing tips to grab your learners’ attention

and keep it!

1. CCAF your onscreen text

2. Limit onscreen text by presenting content creatively

3. Create curiousity with your headings


5. Add a human touch

Conclusion

Copyright © 2016 Allen Interactions Inc. All rights reserved. | 11Copyright © 2016 Allen Interactions Inc. All rights reserved. | 11

Hannah Hunter is an Instructional Writer at Allen Interactions with three years of experience in the

e-learning industry and five years of experience writing professionally. Hannah has a passion for

transforming content into engaging learning experiences that pique learner curiosity and foster real

behavior change. She believes that every course holds an interesting story; she excels at crafting

narratives that capture learner attention and reinforce learning and business goals. She is known for

her attention to detail and skill at reflecting her clients’ voice and personality in her written work. In

addition to project work, Hannah is also a contributor to Allen Interactions’ e-Learning Leadership Blog.

Hannah graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire with a Bachelor’s degree in

Communications. When she’s not sharing her passion for life-long learning, Hannah enjoys painting,

experimenting with new recipes, and volunteering as a creative writing tutor for middle and high school

students. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her husband, James, and their cats, Flapjack and Ripley.

Hannah Hunter Instructional Writer

About the Author

http://info.alleninteractions.com


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