There is an old saying that says "people learn the hard way." There is a lot of truth to that in eLearning design.

Learners tend to pay attention to extremes - the absurd, ridiculous, incredulous - some form of exaggeration. The entertainment certainly helps.

In many instances, trainers and elearning designers forget that people are reminded of the right way by seeing the wrong way.

A few months ago, there was a movie, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi". It is a story on how to keep our skills and craft. It is moving and motivational.

What would be your world if you have conversations with Carl Sagan (astrophysicist), Seymour Papert (cognitive scientist), Gordon Moore (founder of Intel) or Steve Jobs?

Do you know that with an iPhone app you can walk to the Apple store, scan the price in iPhone and pay with your iPhone without having to talk with a cashier?

Oftentimes, the stories of non-compliance are right in front of us. Although some may find it unsuitable to their company because of sensitivities and legal constraints, citing court rulings and administrative penalties and judgment demonstrate clearly why compliance elearning is a must for learners.

Small examples of stories in a lesson demonstrate to leaders, decision makers and bosses how stories impact learning.

Parody is a good method to use in content where it is both a reminder and refresher course.

Some scenarios are glorified memorization tests or branching multiple choice tests.

Learners struggle to keep focused on elearning lessons because of much competition for their time and attention.

Software training is a challenge because of the technical details that learners are expected to comprehend.

Many times, designers and developers have tremendous in-house learning resources through their internal recordings of sales calls, customer support and troubleshooting incidents or even text, email and chat support.

A great story is not only told and heard but should be felt by your learners - enough to elicit a response, a recall of a similar experience, a discovery or a solution to an unresolved event.

Eric Schmidt is Executive Chairman of Google. Along with Jared Cohen, they penned The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business.

William Isaacs wrote in his book Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together (Doubleday, 1999), that many of us fail to have satisfying conversations.

Ruth Clark in her book Building Expertise (1999) wrote about the failure of knowledge transfer from short term learning to on-the-job situations.

How do you seamlessly combine a story with technical and compliance content?

It is common for technical training coverage to include software, process, systems, methods and others that are long screen motion captures done in Camptasia, Captivate, Storyline and others.

Combining stories and real-life incidents with technical or factual content is an art form and a science. It is easier to present a lesson as a continuous linear and factual presentation and not bother with a story.

How does the traditional and lengthy PowerPoint slideshow lesson compare to the Story-Based eLearning Design shown here?

Get Learners to Create Your Content - Quickly, Reliably and Accurately Learners learn through packets of information. Keywords: Story-based Design Story Storytelling Microlearning Micro-learning Micro learning Small bites

Do we really need full competencies to commence work? What do learners need to immediately perform - today and now?

How do people learn online? What e-learning behaviors do they exhibit?