As people learn in a variety of ways and have a wide range of comprehension levels, to help write for a diverse audience I’ve combined what I know about adult learning preferences and engagement with learning, to produce what I call ‘Bite, snack, meal learner profiles'.
The profiles help you remember who you’re writing for and deliver content that’s right for them by considering the following;
level of reading ease and understanding
content appetite – bite, snack, meal
attention span
familiarity with the topic / level of existing knowledge
The theory
To understand how these were developed, here’s more about the research.
Learning preferences
In short, there is no magic formula for learning. Different people learn in different ways; some preferring experience-based learning and others the classroom, some visual methods others academic. However, regardless of preference, educational research has shown that the more senses used in the learning process the more the learner retains. Three days after a learning experience people can recall:
10% of what they have been told, compared to;
65% if they had a blend of telling and showing
Barriers to learning
Barriers to learning can include any number of social, cultural, practical, personal, emotional and situational limitations. In general though, adults are more receptive to learning if;
They are clear about the associated benefits
The subject has an immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life
The learning is aimed at solving a problem
Capability
You may find some of these facts astonishing, but:
The age of smartphones has left adults with an average attention span of around 8 seconds
The average reading age of the UK population is 9 years
The average reading age of the UK working population is 11 years or younger
The practice
Working for a pension administrator I'm fully aware that pensions is a difficult topic for most people to understand; complicated technical terms, rules, regulations and calculations. When communicating pensions to scheme members, especially hard to understand topics like tax or investment risk, a mixed approach works well.
Variety – providing the same content in a variety of formats, for example, articles, help files, infographics and videos.
Chunking – splitting content into small pieces to make reading and understanding faster and easier.
Bite, snack, meal content writing and editing strategy - which suggests people have different appetites for content, so clearly dividing articles based on; some people will only read the headline, some may nibble at the first couple of paragraphs, while others will consume the lot and be hungry for more.
Storytelling – using analogies and common comparisons to make it relatable and relevant to the audience.
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