Section 01

The rules behind the choices

Every screen of a digital course is the result of a hundred small decisions. Without principles, you make them by guesswork and they fight each other. With principles, the small decisions add up.

By the end of this unit
  • Apply the cognitive-load lens to a block of content.
  • Hold a tone that is warm and authoritative without being either chatty or stiff.
  • Build accessibility into the storyboard, not retrofit it after the build.

Four principles that hold the rest together

Reduce load

The learner has a finite working memory. Strip out everything that does not pay for its place.

Address the learner

Speak to one person, directly, using "you". Plural audiences are still made of individuals.

Show, then ask

Worked examples before practice. Practice before assessment. Never the other way round.

Design for everyone

Accessibility is not an audit you run at the end. It is the shape of the storyboard from the start.

Section 02

Cognitive load

Working memory holds a handful of items at a time. If your screen demands more, the learner drops something. Usually the thing they drop is the part you most wanted them to keep.

Three kinds of load

Intrinsic load — the inherent difficulty of the material
You cannot reduce this directly, but you can break a hard idea into smaller pieces and sequence them so each piece is small.
Extraneous load — the cost imposed by the design
Decoration, redundant text, two things competing for attention, a video and a wall of caption at the same time. All avoidable.
Germane load — the effort that builds the schema
Worked examples, comparisons, retrieval practice. This is the load you want — protect it by reducing the other two.

What this looks like in practice

A 600-word screen with three concepts, a stock image, two bullet lists, and a quote in the margin. Learner finishes the screen unsure which idea mattered most.

Three short screens. One concept each. One worked example. One question. Same word count, different shape. The learner finishes the third screen with three things they can name.

Teaching tip

If a screen contains three new ideas and one image, split it. If it contains one idea and three images, cut two images.

Section 03

Tone and trainer talk

"Trainer talk" is the voice of the course addressing the learner. It is the equivalent of how a good trainer manages a room: introducing, signposting, asking, summarising.

What it sounds like

EP training materials should aim to have a mix of authority and warmth, to be a helpful and joyful experience for the participant.
British Council production style guide

Rules of trainer talk

Use "you" — never "we"
Address one person. "You can try this." "You will see more examples in Unit 3." It is the simplest way to make a screen feel personal.
Contractions for be, have and negatives
"You'll see" not "you will see". "It's natural" not "it is natural". The exception is when you want extra emphasis.
Active voice
"Choose the next option" beats "the next option should be chosen". Active voice is shorter and removes ambiguity about who acts.
Short sentences for instructions
If you need to add information, put a short sentence before the instruction. Never bury the instruction inside the explanation.
Device-neutral verbs
Use "select", "open", "choose". Never "click on" — half your learners are on a phone.

Text assets get a different voice

The trainer voice does not have to apply to every text on the screen. An article inside the course can be more formal. A lesson plan can be in note form. A teacher journal extract can be casual. The trainer voice frames these texts; the texts themselves do not have to imitate it.

Reflect

Find a paragraph you wrote recently for work. Rewrite it as if speaking to one person. What changed?

Section 04

Accessibility by default

Accessibility is not a separate workstream. It is a shape you give the storyboard from the start. If you build first and audit later, you build twice.

The non-negotiables

Asset titles that label position

"Teacher 1 audio", "Teacher 2 audio", "Teacher 3 audio". The learner using a screen reader needs to know where they are in a sequence.

Matching transcript titles

"Teacher 1 audio transcript" sits next to "Teacher 1 audio". If the names diverge, the learner gets lost.

Descriptive transcripts

Transcripts are not just words on the screen. They describe sound — laughter, music, a pause, a door. Closed captions on video work the same way.

Image descriptions, not ALT text alone

If an image carries meaning, the description carries that meaning in words. If it is decorative, mark it so screen readers skip it.

Heading structure that makes sense as a list

If a screen reader read just your headings aloud, they should form an outline of the screen.

Test

Open the screen. Close your eyes. Have someone read it aloud, including asset titles. Does the structure still make sense? If not, the screen is not yet accessible.

Knowledge check

Which asset title is best?

End of Unit 2

You should now be able to:

  • Spot the three kinds of cognitive load and shrink the extraneous one.
  • Hold a tone that is warm, direct, and uses "you".
  • Storyboard with accessibility baked in.
Section 05

Unit review

Choose the best option in each question.

Question 1 of 4

You want to reduce extraneous load on a screen. Which change helps most?

Question 2 of 4

Which is closest to good trainer talk?

Question 3 of 4

An audio block in a sequence of three teacher voices should be titled:

Question 4 of 4

Why is accessibility a storyboard decision, not a build decision?

End of module

Next: Multimedia for eLearning — how to pick, brief and use audio, video and image so they earn their place on the screen.

Craig Stanley Studio · Instructional Design Foundations · Course 02 of 04