I was recently thinking about courses I’ve taken as an adult that made my brain hurt from the amount of content I was expected to recall. Often, the information itself didn’t stick long term. But the memory of how overwhelming it felt did. Those experiences area reminder of something important:
How content is presented can make or break learning.
The Reality of Cognitive Load
When learners encounter new information, their brains are working hard to:
- Process unfamiliar concepts
- Connect ideas to prior knowledge
- Organize information meaningfully
- Determine what is important
We have just so much capacity to handle information at a time. How, then, can we make learning not overwhelming, and yet effective?
A Design Question I Always Ask
Before finalizing content, I come back to two core questions:
- What is the goal we’re trying to reach?
- Is this content directly supporting that goal?
If the answer isn’t clear, the content likely needs refinement. Not everything that is interesting or helpful belongs in the learning experience.
Keeping It Simple (On Purpose)
Good instructional design often involves restraint.
It means:
- Focusing on what truly matters
- Removing “nice-to-know” details that distract from performance
- Breaking complex ideas into digestible segments
- Structuring content progressively instead of all at once
Designing for Retention, Not Exhaustion
When learners leave a course mentally drained, it’s worth asking whether the challenge came from the content itself — or from how it was delivered.
My goal is always to design experiences where effort is spent on understanding and applying concepts, not on surviving the volume of information. Because when we reduce overload retention improves and application becomes more likely. And yes — learners feel the difference.
