Is it Really Interactive?

Training should be interactive.

That’s one of those statements that’s pretty much accepted at face value, and I certainly agree with it. But I would like to take a look at what interactivity really is, or should be, because I think that somewhere along the line we’ve taken an easy path where any mouse click is countered as interactive and if we put enough tabs, or rollovers, or instructions to click on this to see that, we can check the box and say that we’ve developed interactive training.

You’ve seen what I’m talking about: bulleted lists were you roll your mouse over an item to see related text, tab templates, graphics with associated pop-up text. Sometimes when an instructional designer to write an “interactive” course, you get a lot of that. In the worst case the online page becomes a sort of treasure hunt, where you’re clicking this and rolling over that to find all the information.  

But I don’t think that content’s really interactive, because you’re not engaging learners in a meaningful way. Further, the content actually becomes harder to understand.

·         If important information is hidden, content becomes difficult to skim, and we all know that online readers skim.

·         It becomes difficult to compare information contained in different pop-ups. I recently saw a table that showed only column headings; you would roll your mouse over a heading to see the entire column, and only one column showed at a time. That defeats one of the main reasons to put information in a table – tables allow you to compare information.

·         You run the risk of annoying learners by forcing them to click and hunt for information.

This may be a simplification, but I like to think of interactivity as being synonymous with engagement, and try to do things that I think will engage the learner. Things like narrated animations, role plays, and quizzes where learners really have to apply knowledge and solve problems are great techniques for engagement. Audio can also be good (so long as it doesn’t simply read the text!). If you have the money and the bandwidth, video can be great. Content should also be engaging. Emphasize what’s in it for the learner, why they should care. Remind them of the consequences of not knowing the information. Tell a story. Respect their time and keep the training concise.

Then I try to think of the all the rollovers, etc., as techniques for layering information, and apply those techniques  to secondary information, stuff that’s nice to know but not essential, detailed technical information, definitions, things like that. Rollovers and tabs are also useful when you need to include a lot of information on the page and want to avoid scrolling. (But when you think about, indiscriminately hiding information isn’t very different from scrolling, because in both cases you’re forcing people to click to see information they need to see. They’re just clicking on some kind of pop-up rather than a scroll bar.)

So think about what types of interactivity will really be useful, and realize that mouse clicks don’t necessarily equate to interactions.