It was a Flash animation, an expensive one. The narrator’s voice was professional and smooth. The images slid by with liquid grace. The snippets of text faded in and out like cryptic messages from a dream. Beneath it all burbled a tranquil stream of melody-free music.
Within five seconds I was slack-jawed and stupefied. That probably wasn’t what the developers hoped to achieve with their animation about the new vendor vetting procedures.
High-end productions are supposed to be impressive and therefore compelling. Then why did I bomb the vendor vetting quiz?
Ask the badgers
If somehow you’ve missed it, turn on your speakers now and go experience Badger Badger Badger. It’s one of the most popular animations on the web.
What do the badgers have that Vendor Vetting didn’t?
The music is upbeat, but that’s not the only difference, or even the biggest one.
We pay attention to change
A much-blogged study showed that our brains react most when music stops playing. We’re most alert when something changes.
The music never stops in Badger Badger, but there are some big changes.
The variety in Vendor Vetting looks more like this:
While relentless predictability is part of Badger Badger’s charm, without the mushroom and snake we’d have only a field of badgers.
What’s our mushroom?
The next time you brainstorm an animation or course, you might ask, “What’s our mushroom? Do we have a snake?”
We’ve all seen materials that try to add variety with unnecessary animations, like text that pops into view. But the best mushroom or snake is a substantial surprise, a clear change of direction.
In a short animation, your mushroom could be an abrupt decrease in the level of stimulation or an unexpected question. In longer materials, the mushroom could be something like:
- A challenging interaction when none was expected
- An outlandish claim
- An unexpected complication in the story line
- A hands-on activity or other big change in delivery mode
- Any other form of substantial surprise
What are some mushrooms and snakes you’ve seen or included in your materials?
Hi Cathy
I have been reading your blog for sometime now and have really enjoyed reading your articles.
I totally agree with you that the element of surprise will certainly engage learners and facilitate better learning.
It will be nice if you could provide some illustrations for this.
Thanks
Rupa,
Here are a few examples.
1. Deep into a simulation of a business-to-business sale, learners discover that one of their most helpful contacts at the prospect organization is actually working for the competition.
2. Go to Ask Learning’s portfolio:
http://www.asklearning.com/web/template.cfm?code=el_overview# (click “E-learning portfolio”). Then click on the Superman-like image.
3. An artistic example of going beyond the expected (not elearning): http://www.bcactionpoet.org/the%20country.html
I hope these are helpful.
It might not be everyone’s cup of tea (the violence wears me down), but the show 24 (on Fox) uses surprises all the time. They get you comfortable with thinking things are a certain way and then turn the tables to shock you by taking someone you trusted and wiping away the trust all at once. Your example of the business simulation where the helpful contact turns out to really be working for the competition is what reminded me of this.
Related to this, I think, is not telling the learner everything. I don’t mean hiding key information necessary to perform; more like not explaining every implication till he falls asleep.
Sales reps were learning to add and edit contract information to an account. The exercise called for them to add Contract JB-20. The account already had Contract ZX-33. In the real world, you can’t have both.
The course had explained that the system wouldn’t let you have incompatible contracts, and the error messages would guide them, pointing out the incompatibility.
So they could learn the specifics — take out the old one, then add the new one — from the exercise itself.
Another idea we could borrow from 24 is a strong sense of urgency–time is slipping by and we have a huge problem to solve. For example, the learners could be presented with a problem to solve or prevent before the fictional day ends. In a branching scenario, each choice could use up a different amount of the fictional time in addition to moving the learner closer to or farther from the resolution.
Re surprise content: I agree that we often bore learners by telling them everything they could possibly need to know and not letting them actually think. This seems to happen when we believe our job is to present information, not design an experience. While PowerPoint-to-elearning tools can work great when approached carefully, I’m concerned that they can also perpetuate the belief that elearning is information delivery.
Thanks for the examples Cathy
amen.