Personality is what separates boring eLearning from engaging and interesting eLearning. What would you rather listen to: someone droning on in a monotone voice with no emotion or a story with humor and silliness to bring content alive?
Trying to build eLearning that’s “professional” in the name of fitting into the corporate brand is no excuse to not bring a little humanity in learning. That’s a good way to ensure people tune out and learn nothing. It doesn’t matter if you’re building eLearning to fit into corporate standards, there’s always room for personality and maybe a joke or two.
There’s always a place for personality because the goal of eLearning is to help employees learn how to do something or improve their performance. Without helping employees connect with what they’re learning then there’s a great chance they won’t learn anything.
They’ll just tune out.
There’s no excuse for eLearning to be a dry, monotone, droning-on of reading that isn’t interesting and has no story. Unfortunately, there seems to be a massive movement towards AI-created eLearning that’s fast and easy to create but lacks conciseness, personality, and the ability to move the needle when it comes to employee training.
If training is boring, then people will simply tune out.
A big part of eLearning with personality is having good narration that’s lively and interesting to listen to. No narration that’s dry, “professional,” and especially synthesized voice that “sounds real.” It doesn’t; people just try to talk themselves into thinking it does because it’s easy.
eLearning isn’t about transferring knowledge; it’s about improving performance or changing how people work. You can’t help people if they’re tuned out and bored to death with boring synthesized voices or reading endless text.
Performance won’t be improved without engaging content; it’ll just be skipped. Personality is essential, meaning putting some emotion, entertainment, humor, and more into every course.
The Power of Personality in eLearning
Great, helpful, performance-focused content is nice, but it needs to draw people in. That means personality is essential every step of the way. Without it, people will quickly tune out and lose interest, even if it will benefit them.
Eating vegetables is beneficial, but for most, that’s not enough; they need to taste good, too.
It’s unnecessary for eLearning to be a Hollywood blockbuster, but it can’t be completely personalityless. A course can draw people in if you practice and work on your skills as an instructional designer to help focus their attention. Yes, it takes time and work, which is why there’s such a difference in cost/time to create a good eLearning course vs. a bad one.
Personality has the power to engage and connect with people in a way that can’t be replicated with a content dump or even performance-focused content no matter how useful it is.
Showing your personality in eLearning isn’t a weakness; it’s a must.
Few people like vegetables as is, which is why it’s important to fancy them up with flavor as much as possible. The same concept applies to eLearning where we need to fancy up the content in a way that’s meaningful rather than just making it pretty.
Stories are the perfect flavoring for eLearning as long as the story is relevant and employees can connect with it. With humor or even liveliness in narration, a story can come alive and bring true change to employees at work.
When people feel emotionally connected to the material, they are more likely to remember and apply it in real-world situations.
Inject Enthusiasm and Authenticity into Your Content
Quality writing takes time, practice, and expertise. Being able to write eLearning that’s effective AND engaging is a difficult balance to achieve. That’s why it often takes us the most time in the planning and designing stage of the ADDIE process.
If the content is written boringly, then it will be boring. That means a narrator who drones on, sounding “professional,” then an eLearning course will probably come across as boring. Instead of presenting information in a dry, matter-of-fact manner, aim for a conversational tone that speaks to the audience as an actual person who wants to feel like they’re being talked to.
Enthusiasm can be woven into content by simply speaking to your audience as they want to be spoken to, and with relevant content. Nobody wants to hear the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in an eLearning course.
While it’s funny in a movie, too many eLearning courses use it as the framework for any voiceover and/or the way the text is written. Content must be written in a way that helps the audience connect with it.
By showing that you, as the instructional designer, care about the content, enthusiasm will start to show up in the content. Show employees how they can benefit from what they’re learning and how it can positively impact their lives or careers.
Authenticity is equally important when creating eLearning content with personality. People want to feel like they are interacting with real people, not just a computer program or AI-written content. That’s especially true for technical training, where it’s often presented with no personality and straightforward “click here, now here” instructions that are extremely dull.
Talk to employees directly, use terms like “you” as if you’re talking directly to them, and sitting next to them. Information that’s useful with stories relevant to their work should be presented. This helps build trust and establishes a connection to the content.
Creating Engaging Narratives for Learner Connection
Talking to employees instead of at them is nice, but it’ll only get you so far. Engaging employees with an engaging narrative takes things a step further. Of course, you also need a good story; I’ll cover that in the next section.
Stories have a unique ability to help people connect training content with their actual work. Providing endless tutorials about how to do this or that with software isn’t helpful. Connecting the work to the training is infinitely more valuable.
Consider incorporating narratives illustrating key concepts or real-life examples when designing eLearning content. To take it a step further, have them do real things they’ll do in their job with a well-thought-out simulation where they’re driving. That helps them learn in the context of their work.
Engaging narratives help make content more actionaable.
Start by identifying the learning/performance objective you want to convey. Then, think about how you can frame it within a narrative structure. This could involve telling a story from someone’s experience, setting up the scenario, and asking them to choose the best solution, or even incorporating case studies or testimonials from real people, preferably colleagues in similar roles.
Remember to keep the narrative concise and focused on the objectives of the course. Avoid going off on tangents or including unnecessary details that may distract them from the main point. The goal is to create a narrative that enhances understanding and engagement, not overwhelms or confuses.
The Art of Transforming Facts into Stories
Transforming facts into stories is an art form that requires creativity and careful planning. It also requires working closely with your subject matter expert (SME) to gather realistic stories that resonate with employees.
You’ll need to take the often dry, factual information that a SME gives you and present it in a way that engages employees’ emotions and sparks their curiosity.
One approach is to use storytelling techniques such as character development, conflict resolution, and plot twists to make the content more engaging. For example, instead of simply listing statistics about computer security, you could tell the story of a fictional character who experiences the repercussions of not using proper online safety.
Another strategy is to use metaphors or analogies to explain complex concepts in simpler terms. This helps people grasp abstract ideas by relating them to something familiar. For instance, you could compare the workings of a computer network to a busy city with traffic flowing through different routes.
By transforming facts into stories, you make the content more interesting and facilitate deeper understanding and retention. Employees are more likely to remember information presented in a narrative format compared to dry, factual statements.
Incorporate Interactive Elements for Immersive Experiences
While content that inspires and engages hinges on relevance, other elements are also important. Listening to or reading a whole course isn’t very interesting or engaging. Maybe if the story is as well put together as a movie, it’ll work, but that’s not always doable.
Helping people engage with content beyond a simple click or watching a video is important. That means it’s up to the instructional designer to incorporate interactive elements. Employees can not passively consume training, which is important because then they can’t just fall asleep and wait until it’s time to click next or the video is finished.
We work with a lot of technical content, and most of the time it’s possible to engage through simulation. Showing where to click and the process for using software is often dull. We’ve taken our fair share of training where it tells us to click here, now here, select from this drop-down, etc.
Interactive elements is part of immersing employees in training.
Software simulations work wonders in technical training if they’re together well. There are other ways to engage with interaction for other types of training, though. You can use scenarios that branch into other scenarios, therefore putting employees into the experience rather than being passive observers. Gamification is also popular, but it is only as good as it is useful and well put together.
The most important factor for interactions is ensuring they align with course performance objectives and are meaningful rather than a leaderboard tacked on to a jeopardy-style quiz. That’s pretty boring, and employees will likely see right through it and disengage quickly. It may even be worse than boring content because it quickly becomes tedious.
Providing opportunities for active problem-solving and critical thinking makes for more meaningful eLearning. If done well, it leads to deeper engagement and skill development.
Design Visuals that Complement Your Content
What would you rather look at, a wall of text or a well-designed visual that helps you see the concept being explained by a narrator?
I know what I’d rather look at and am more likely to learn from. Many instructional designers have a very bad habit of creating a script for eLearning and then putting the same text being spoken on screen. What else is supposed to fill the visual channel, right?
So wrong. First, the text on screen competes with the text being narrated. Second, it does not add any additional value. An eLearning course should be full of meaningful visuals to help clarify information.
Visuals play a crucial role in engaging employees and aiding their comprehension. Well-designed visuals can help convey complex information more effectively than text alone.
Visuals help clarify content, and you can work personality into them, too.
When designing visuals for eLearning content, consider how they can complement and reinforce the message. Use images, diagrams, charts, or infographics that visually represent key concepts or data. This makes the content more visually appealing and aids in information retention.
Keep in mind that visuals should be clear, relevant, and easy to understand. Avoid cluttering the screen with too much information or using complex graphics that may confuse people. Too much information should never be displayed on screen at any given time.
The goal is to present information in a visually appealing and digestible format that supports the learning process rather than hindering it.
Humor and Emotion to Enhance Learning
Humor is a powerful emotion and helps connect people with content. Not all humor is the same for everyone, so this is also one that has to be approached carefully. We like to be silly a lot, but always with harmless humor that is always lighthearted and can be appreciated by nearly all, if not in a funny way, then in a way that makes people pause for a second to process what they just heard.
When used appropriately, humor and emotion captures attention, creates a positive learning environment, and facilitate information retention. Ever heard of the saying “you won’t remember what they did, but you will remember how they made you feel”?
That applies 100% to training content, too.
Humor can lighten the mood, relieve tension, and make the content more enjoyable. Incorporate relevant jokes, funny anecdotes, or amusing visuals related to the topic.
Emotionally engaging learners can also enhance their learning experience. Tap into their emotions by sharing inspiring stories, personal testimonials, or thought-provoking scenarios. This helps create a connection to content on a deeper level.
It’s crucial to approach emotional topics with sensitivity and respect. Be mindful of cultural differences and potential triggers that may affect people’s emotional well-being. The goal is to create a safe and inclusive learning environment where emotions improve learning outcomes, not harm them.
Wrap Up
Creating eLearning with personality is essential for helping employees learn. Without it, eLearning content will likely be a boring snooze-fest. It also helps make content more memorable and helps people connect with it.
By injecting enthusiasm and authenticity into your content, creating engaging narratives, transforming facts into stories, incorporating interactive elements, designing visuals that complement your message, and utilizing humor and emotion, you can craft compelling eLearning experiences that impact how employees perform their jobs. Isn’t that the entire goal of eLearning in the first place?
Remember that personality is not just about being entertaining or charismatic; it’s about creating a connection with people and creating an environment where they connect with the content and understand how to apply it to their work.
Embrace your unique voice as an instructional designer, infuse your content with a little bit of you mixed with your subject matter expert. Passion and humanity go a long way in helping people connect with what they’re learning in order to improve their job performance.
We like to inject a little and sometimes a lot of personality into every eLearning course we build. That’s part of the job of a good instructional designer. Even technical content that can sometimes be boring always has a place for humor and personality.
We’d love to work with you and add a bit of our collective personality to your technical training. Schedule a free consultation, and we’d be happy to discuss how we can help make your next IT initiative a success and help employees do their work better with company technology.