eLearning Experts / Materials

Interaction that changes something

Click to reveal is a page turn with extra steps.

The interactions built most often are the cheapest to produce: click each item to see the text, drag labels onto a diagram, order the steps correctly. They generate activity data and they mostly convey information that a paragraph would have conveyed faster.

The distinguishing question is whether the learner's input affects what happens next. A branching scenario where a decision leads somewhere different is genuine interaction. A task attempt that receives feedback about that specific attempt is genuine. Revealing pre-written text in a different order is not.

This matters because the interactive budget is finite. Effort spent decorating content is effort not spent on the two or three moments where a learner could actually practise the thing being taught, and those moments are what the course is for.

A useful design constraint is to allow one substantial interaction per module and require it to be about the core task. That produces better courses than a uniform sprinkling of small ones, and it costs less.

The other reason to concentrate the interaction budget is maintenance. Complex interactive components are the elements most likely to break with a browser change, most expensive to update when the content changes, and least likely to work on an unusual device. A course with two of them is maintainable; one with forty is a liability.