They all argue for doing less
I took a quick peek at the past year of activity here—not to overanalyze it, just to see what people actually spent time with. What shook out was a short list of posts that consistently rose to the top. I thought I’d share those most-viewed pieces, along with a few observations about why these resonated and what they might say about where learning design is headed right now.
The posts that people read, saved, and shared the most all made the same quiet argument:
Stop adding. Start subtracting.
Less content.
Less clutter.
Fewer distractions.
More respect for how people actually think, notice, and learn.
That’s not the advice most of us expect—or want—to hear. But judging by what people actually engaged with, it’s the advice they’ve been looking for.
Here are my five most popular posts of the year—and what I think they reveal.
1. Stop Overloading Your Learners’ Brains
A practical guide to minimizing extraneous cognitive load
This one struck a nerve because it names something many learning experiences quietly suffer from: helpfulness overload.
Too many explanations.
Too many callouts.
Too many “just in case” details added to protect ourselves from questions later.
Most learning doesn’t fail because it’s too hard. It fails because it’s cluttered.
What surprised me wasn’t agreement. It was how often people said, “I know this… but I needed permission to act on it.”
Bottom line: If it doesn’t help the learner understand the point right now, it’s not support. It’s noise.
2. Why Harder Is Better
The surprising science of desirable difficulties
This post pushes back on a deeply ingrained instinct: that good learning should feel smooth, easy, and immediately satisfying.
The research says otherwise.
The right kind of struggle—designed on purpose—helps learning stick. Discomfort isn’t a design flaw. It’s often a signal that something durable is happening.
For L&D teams under pressure to make everything fast and frictionless, this idea is both freeing and uncomfortable.
Bottom line: If learning feels too easy, it may be disappearing in real time.
3. The Six Things Our Primal Brains Pay Attention To
A guide for L&D pros
This is the oldest post on the list—and still one of the most read.
Why? Because it says the quiet part out loud.
Learners don’t show up as calm, rational brains ready for instruction. They arrive as humans with attention systems tuned for survival, novelty, and social cues—not slide decks.
When learning designers start with attention instead of content, everything changes. Structure improves. Examples land better. Pacing tightens. Tone shifts.
Bottom line: Design for the animal, not the org chart.
4. The L&D Detective
Solving performance mysteries with Mager’s Flowchart
This one is a sleeper hit.
No trends. No hype. Just a reminder that before we design training, we should confirm there’s actually a learning problem to solve.
Sometimes the issue isn’t knowledge. It’s unclear expectations. Missing tools. Broken processes. Or a system that makes good performance impossible.
In a moment when AI can generate training at the push of a button, this post quietly argues for slowing down and asking better questions.
Bottom line: Training isn’t the default solution. Diagnosis is.
5. The Dangerous Allure of Distraction
Why seductive details are killing your learning content
If there’s a villain across these posts, it’s this: content that feels engaging but actively undermines learning.
Stories that steal attention from the point.
Visuals that entertain but don’t instruct.
Extras that feel “nice” but dilute meaning.
This resonated because many of us feel this tension and struggle to push back on it. Naming seductive details gives designers language to defend clarity over cleverness.
Bottom line: If it entertains but doesn’t instruct, it’s sabotage.
The pattern hiding in plain sight
Taken together, these posts don’t point toward more content, more tools, or more complexity.
They point toward restraint.
Fewer words.
Sharper intent.
Better questions.
A deeper respect for how people actually learn.
That’s not flashy. But it’s effective.
And honestly, it’s where a lot of L&D work needs to go next.
If you missed these, start here
Each of these posts stands on its own. Together, they sketch a clear direction.
- Want more engagement? Start with attention.
- Want cleaner design? Start with cognitive load.
- Want learning that sticks? Start with desirable difficulties.
- Want to stop building the wrong thing? Start with diagnosis.
If this way of thinking resonates, you’ll find more of it here on the site—and in the newsletter—where I share ideas I’m actively wrestling with before they harden into frameworks or talks.
Start anywhere.
Just don’t start by adding more than you need.
Mike Taylor 