Are We Designing for Learning or Just Adding More Clicks? 🤔

Great question! My rule of thumb: an interaction earns its place only if it helps the learner think, not just click.

A book that shaped how I see this is Art, Perception, and Reality (Gombrich, Hochberg, Black). One of its core ideas is that perception is never passive: we don’t just absorb an image, we complete it with our expectations and prior knowledge. For e-learning, that means a well-designed visual can do a lot of the work on its own, without a click-to-reveal to “unlock” it.

I experienced this a few months ago while developing a course. I used custom blocks to add visuals instead of forcing learners to discover the content through interactions. It worked as a quick schema for reading the software’s functions, without adding “fatigue” along the way. Colored visuals help learners see and understand things at a glance, with no extra clicks.

So before adding an interaction, I ask: what is the learner actually practicing here? If I can’t answer, I simplify. And when I do want practice, I save it for scenarios and decisions, where the effort really pays off.

Curious to hear what others do! xx