You’ll be shocked by this awful UX pattern

We’ve all seen this annoying trend in editorial content and marketing - the sensationalistic, overblown, and self-serving titles and images that are used to entice us to engage with content in order to show us more ads and sell products to us. It’s clear that no one likes clickbait titles on articles. We like it even less when the title, description, or featured image leads us to believe an article is one thing, only to find out we’ve been tricked into clicking on something entirely different.

With the advent of the Learning Experience Platform and the move to create UI and UX in these systems that mimic major content providers on the web, it could be tempting to slide into that same sort of pattern with your learners in order to increase engagement and usage of these new systems. After all, a platform that promotes user engagement as a major selling point may make you inclined to emulate common trends you see in content strategy.

Don’t fall into that trap. Create easily understandable, relevant, and useful content for your audience. Choose related and conceptually strong images that reinforce the messages you are providing in your learning content. Show users that their intelligence is respected and their time is appreciated by being transparent and honest with them when offering authored content. They will reward these efforts with more usage and greater engagement.

As learning teams move to systems powered by adaptive algorithms, recommendation engines, and new user interfaces it’s clear that trust is crucial. Embrace that and create a relationship that rewards your audience with great content.