How Not to Use Articulate
This CPR course won the Gold Medal in the Articulate Guru Awards. I’m not sure why. It goes against everything Ruth Clark (and others) teaches about cognitive load. Either they didn’t get very many entries, or the judges only cared about how many Articulate features the course used.
Check out this slide:
In addition, there are four – I repeat, FOUR – different kinds of audio going on at the same time. WTF!
- Background music
- Background audio from emergency calls (looped)
- Video audio (sirens)
- Narration
All that content is competing for attention from your brain, which means very little of it is going to stick.
I understand if the judges gave the award only for “effective use of product features.” However, the rules page has the second bullet as “Effectiveness of course content to transfer knowledge,” which this course clearly lacks.
Anyhow, this is just a reminder to make sure your content, and how you present that content, whether in a course, or in a website, or in classroom training, is useful, concise and is not there just so you can say you used every tool in your toolbox.
