Voice Lessons for the Instructional Designer

Learners prefer facilitated training eventhough they learn equally well through self-directed eLearning. Whether it isthe ability to ask a question or an embrace of the long-held association thatlearning involves direct human communication, learners prefer the personaltouch. The challenge for instructional designers, therefore, is makingself-directed eLearning more personable.

Pick a persona

Your writing voice—how you address the learner—isa useful tool to employ. The voice an instructional designer assumes whenwriting content creates a relationship with the learner. Two-thirds ofcommunication happens through tone of voice. I find it very helpful, whilecreating content, to assume a persona and adjust my writing voiceappropriately. Two of the personas I adopt are the colleague and theguide.

The colleague shares information and assumes ahigh level of knowledge.

The guide instructs learners and explains whichknowledge and skills are important to know.

Assuming a persona addresses twochallenges instructional designers face—mirroring the audience and chunkinginformation.

Creating and using your persona

For each persona, I suggest writing content asif you are having a conversation. Visualize the learner. Use stem sentences andsegues to structure the conversation while adjusting reading level, wordchoice, tone, and context to your audience.  

Assuming a persona also helps craft content. Tocreate meaningful and concise content, let your persona guide the editing. Forinstance, if your intended audience members are managers or supervisors ofpeople, as you review the content, focus exclusively on information needed tomanage employees. Thresh out extraneous information. Your writing voiceneeds to be consistent with your audience and content requirements—need-to-knowversus good-to-know information.

Consider how you can use the colleague and theguide personas in these environments.

The colleague

Courses for public health professionals may employthe colleague. This voice is formal and communicates at a higher readinglevel consistent with the educational attainment of the audience. This personaunderstands the differences between basic and complex knowledge. Based on theaudience’s experience, the colleague knows that case studies are a preferredlearning style and shapes content accordingly. The colleague’s voice may soundlike:

“When conducting a patient-fall risk assessment in a clinicalsetting, you may have your staff conduct tests to determine gait, strength, andbalance factors in addition to checking for postural hypotension. Medicationdosages, particularly psychoactive drugs or those with anticholinergic sideeffects may need to be reduced or eliminated.”

Word choice and terms need to be technically accurate but possiblyadjusted for a wider audience. If the course audience includes patients orparents, in addition to clinicians, you need to explain medical terms likesyncope (fainting); the reading level and word choice need to change as well.Subject matter experts (SME) are invaluable resources to assure technicalaccuracy for the colleague.

The guide

Alternatively, an Internet-based company’s training may feature amore conversational voice with technical terms and references skewed to ayounger audience, referring to cloud versus mainframe computing, for example.The guide persona conveys information in a collegial manner anduses pop-culture references. You can assume the audience is computer-literate,and content will reflect that familiarity.

Certain training environments, such as Quick Serve, requirebehavior changes. In this regard, the guide’s voice needs to accommodate adifferent reading level using simpler word choice. Context must mirror the workenvironment by presenting realistic scenarios. The guide needs to soundsupportive as role-playing and practice is part of the training.

As a final example, for human resources training, the guide mayneed to help employees navigate through required legal wording. Simple andconcise explanations of legal terms should follow specific scenarios placed inappropriate company and industry context. For example, the guide’s voice maysound like:

“There are two types of harassment—quid pro quo and hostile workenvironment. Quid pro quo is a Latin term that means ‘something for something.’It involves a demand for sexual favors to gain a benefit or avoid a bad action.Examples are performing a sexual act to receive a good job review or avoid abad review. A hostile work environment …”

Use a persona to speak to learners in appropriate ways

To summarize, use your writing voice and assumea persona to speak to learners in ways that match their personal level, topresent only relevant information, and to do so in a compelling andentertaining manner. This requires you thoroughly understand your audience,e.g., educationally and socially, to the extent possible. The reward isbetter training.