Design for adults, or they will resist

What this lesson covers

1. 01

   Ten years on the floor, and slide one says "Welcome"

   An agent with ten years of calls opens a module that starts with the company's history and a definition of empathy. Within a minute she decides the course is not for people like her, and she starts clicking. Nothing in the design was wrong by a checklist. It was wrong for an adult with a job identity, prior success and very little time.

2. 02

   Four adult design moves

   Need | What you do in the design

   Why this, why now | Open with the business number and the job moment, not the company history.

   Prior experience | Ask what they already do, then target only the gap. Do not re-teach the obvious.

   Ownership | Give them decisions they will own on the floor, not slides about them.

   Resistance to bolt-ons | If content is not on the action map, cut it. Adults spot decoration fast.

3. 03

   Same topic, two openings

   Bolted-on course: Welcome to Customer Empathy 101. · Twenty slides of definitions before any decision. · Experts treated as beginners.

   Adult-ready design: Repeat contacts rose 18%. Here is the call close you will practise. · A decision first; the minimum information after the attempt. · A short pre-check lets experienced staff skip what they can already do.

4. 04

   Andragogy is a design stance, and expertise reversal is the evidence

   Knowles's assumptions about adult learners are useful as design prompts, but they were never tested as a theory the way cognitive load research was. If someone challenges you, use the stronger evidence: the expertise reversal effect (Kalyuga and colleagues, 2003). Guidance that helps novices, such as worked steps and heavy explanation, can lower performance for people who already know the task. That is the experimental reason to let experienced staff test out, start from harder cases, or skip the explanation.

5. 05

   Write the first screen

   For the request in your performance brief, write the first screen a learner will see. It must contain a number the learner's manager cares about and a job moment the learner recognises. No welcome, no objectives list. Add it to your brief.