Conservation of Complexity: 1

Don't Make Me Think! is Steve Krugman's layperson's usability bible, which these days, like Hamlet, is full of clichés. Usability on the web means, among other things, accepting the fact visitors to your site won't read the lovingly-crafted text, except in passing as they scan for the next link.

Learning designers are less interested in the idea of usability than they are in the idea of efficiency. How can we transfer learning in the least wasteful and most effective way?

And a possible answer is:
Dual-code segmented learning materials to encourage long-term memory storage through the integration of  synchronised/aligned dual channels and ensuring distractions are weeded out even as context is signalled.¹

Or, in other words, multimedia eLearning. Less Don't Make Me Think! and more Don't Waste My Time! What could be wrong with that?

Everybody Tweeted a link to this:

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

"Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words."

"Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about.

From: Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text on The Onion / via Mark Changizi

And then I found myself having in this conversation on Twitter with Donald Clark (@iOPT) and Julie Dirksen (@usablelearning):

6:26 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	Screencasts in software training allow the learners to learn faster and more accurately in the short term; however …
6:26 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	learners using text based training were faster and more accurate in the long term.
6:27 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	Generally speaking, learning that requires more of a learner leads to poor immediate performance but good long term performance.
6:29 PM Mar 9th	usablelearning	RT @iOPT Generally speaking, learning that requires more of a learner leads to poor immediate performance but good long term performance.
8:22 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	@BFchirpy @usablelearning Tweets based on series of research - viewing seems to be more passive than when you have to read and process.
8:25 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	@BFchirpy @usablelearning Passive works best for short term performance - you mimic what you see, but doesn't stick in the long term
8:26 PM Mar 9th	BFchirpy	@iOPT Makes perfect sense to me. Been working on my theory of the half-baked for a while now... http://bit.ly/cuuS6H Reading = add an egg
8:27 PM Mar 9th	usablelearning	@iOPT @bfchirpy Very interesting (makes sense to me, provided that they actually do read). Worry about infantalising learners. Reference?
8:32 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	@usablelearning @bfchirpy "Lessons for a Rapidly Changing Workforce" by two psychologists - Quinones & Ehrenstein -highly recommended
8:36 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	@usablelearning @bfchirpy Will they read? Learners prefer the easy way. That's whats wrong w/ level 1 Evals - they pick the easy way out.
8:36 PM Mar 9th	BFchirpy	@iOPT Is it fair to summarise: increasing extraneous cognitive load to learning materials can increase long-term performance improvement?
8:40 PM Mar 9th	iOPT	@BFchirpy That sounds right to me!
8:40 PM Mar 9th	usablelearning	@BFchirpy hmm, is increased extraneous cog load the independent variable, or is it level of effort in acquiring more the point? /@iOPT
8:40 PM Mar 9th	BFchirpy	@iOPT @usablelearning Laser-like focus on Learning Objectives, minimal cognitive load = deferral of complexity?
8:42 PM Mar 9th	BFchirpy	@usablelearning Good call. Not sure how to separate extraneous from the metacognitive - though I've previously thought that obvious. Hmmm / @iOPT
8:43 PM Mar 9th	usablelearning	@iOPT @bfchirpy too often there isn't really a good reason to read it, so learners don't #notstupid
8:44 PM Mar 9th	BFchirpy	@usablelearning @iOPT Did you both read the piece on 'stability bias'? Learners overestimate memory-power and underestimate value of study.
8:47 PM Mar 9th	BFchirpy	Stability bias = people don't rate value of study/effort in learning http://bit.ly/bF0Cno [PDF] @usablelearning @iOPT @flowchainsensei
8:49 PM Mar 9th	usablelearning	@BFchirpy @iOPT yep -- I think that relates > more effort requiring more brain activity creating longer lasting effects
8:50 PM Mar 9th	BFchirpy	@usablelearning @iOPT We often forget that the primary function of the brain is to *prevent* thinking.*
		*Kathy Sierra put this much much better when she said, “Brains pay attention to what brains care about, not necessarily what the conscious mind cares about.”

Larry Tesler's another usability expert who:

". . .came up with the Law of Conservation of Complexity. I postulated that every application must have an inherent amount of irreducible complexity. The only question is who will have to deal with it.

Because computers back then were small, slow and expensive, programs were designed to be compact, not easy to use. The user had to deal with complexity because the programmer couldn't. But commercial software is written once and used millions of times. If a million users each waste a minute a day dealing with complexity that an engineer could have eliminated in a week by making the software a little more complex, you are penalizing the user to make the engineer's job easier."

I'm guessing that learning's the same. People who design learning-at-work programmes based on slavish Cognitive Load principles probably believe they're shouldering the responsibility for the 'irreducible complexity' of learning. I'm working hard on this design so you don't have to think! But by increasing the 'usability' of their learning materials, they could merely be postponing the hard work of learning.

You can't think for somebody else any more than you can eat or drink for them.

Back to books?
Reading 'frightening chunks of print' is only one way to 'require more of a learner'. Games, projects, social interactions - even actual work (heaven forbid!) - are all cognitively demanding environments suitable for improving long-term performance.


Next post: I'm going to suggest that Social Media apps are particularly apt for learning. And to try to make the case that Learning & Development people need to develop a better understanding of what 'usability' means.


¹Further reading:

• Nine Ways to Reduce Cogntive Load in Multimedia Learning [PDF]
• An Introduction to Efficiency in Learning (sample chapter) [PDF]
• I can't find any good links (ie not behind a paywall) to Quninones and Ehrenstein's Training for a Rapidly Changing Workplace