Summary:
- Online learning products and experiences follow a structure with three components: methods, value promises, and surfaces.
- Methods describe how we teach.
- Value promises are what the user gets from the product.
- Surfaces are the pieces of the product or experience the user interacts with.
- By mixing and matching methods, value promises, and surfaces, you can strategically build a “sticky” online learning experience
You wake up on a water bed, inside a cave. You don’t remember how you got there. You emerge from the cave, bear-like, straight out of a Mary Oliver poem.[efn_note]”When death comes, like the hungry bear in autumn… I want to step through the door full of curiosity wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?”[/efn_note]
You stumble through a forest and meet a man. He’s baking apples. You take one.
You fight a Bokoblin. It hits you with its club. You remember the baked apple. You eat it and it restores your health.
Over the next 5 hours, you somehow end up where you’re supposed to go. No tooltips or toasts in this business, just intuitive game mechanics.
You are Link. You’ve been dead for 100 years and now it’s time to fight Gannon once again. The Hero’s journey begins.[efn_note]If you’re a Zelda fan you have to watch Movies by Mikey’s homage to the game.[/efn_note]
This is how the first 5 hours of Zelda: Breath of the Wild goes for the average player. Zelda: BotW is an action-adventure game, and an unlikely example that captures many of the ideal experiences in online learning. Yet here we are.
Let’s put a pin in Zelda: BotW and talk more about online learning products.
The Structure of Online Learning
An online learning product or experience follows a clear structure. This is true whether you’re logging into your Teachable-hosted course, watching free Minecraft YouTube tutorials, or you attend your Intro to Astronomy1 400-student video lecture via Blackboard.
There are three components to this structure:
- Online learning methods
- Online learning value promises
- Online learning surfaces
Online Learning Methods
We’ll start with the methods. The method is how something gets taught, and we can breakdown the how into 3 attributes:
- Product-to-student
- Student-to-student
- Instructor-to-Student
Product-to-student learning is when the product guides the learning experience. Justin Reich calls it algorithm-guided learning in his book Failure to Disrupt: “when the next action in a sequence is determined by students’ previous action.”
Take Khan Academy, the free education platform: get a problem right, you’re rewarded with a visual orgy of fireworks, the digital equivalent of a gold star… and more difficult problems. Get it wrong, you get hints, tooltips, and an easier next question.
This takes us back to Zelda: BoTW. Like I said, the game captures the idealized version of what a product-to-student online experience can be: you navigate an entire universe of progressively more difficult challenges as your previous actions deem you ready for that challenge.
Student-to-student learning happens when a product or platform brings people together and they learn through interacting with one another.
One example is the Minecraft YouTube community.
None of these vloggers have “Minecraft instructor” listed on the website where people voluntarily post their resumes. They’re just players and fans, sharing tips and tricks from 100+ hours immersed in the Minecraft universe.
Instructor-to-student learning is what we think of as classic teacher instruction: one person leads the teaching of one or more people directly.
Instructor-to-student learning enabled by technology has a large variance in scale. For example, MooCs promised the “ability to expand global access to higher ed”3 (with varying degrees of success, per Reich).
Meanwhile, products like iTalki innovated in the opposite direction. With iTalki, you learn a new language via live online tutoring. Here, the innovation is not scaling, but enabling a global marketplace of learners and teachers.
Methods are the first component of online learning structure. Next, we have to look at value promises.
Online Learning Value Promise
A value promise is what the user, or the learner, gets from the online learning product.
With an online learning product, you’d think the answer is obvious: information.
As the young and promising law student Mike McDermott put it, “Knowledge is my reward, sir.” Sorry Mike, this isn’t a smash and grab job.[efn_note]I strung together two Matt Damon quotes. My job here is done.[/efn_note]
Source: https://www.myfilmviews.com/2012/02/17/the-many-faces-of-matt-damon/
Reality isn’t as straightforward. Information is only one value promise. In the Reforge Advanced Growth Strategy program, we explore three categories of value promises:
- Personal. The promise of personal gain.
- Social. The promise of social gain.
- Financial. The promise of monetary gain.
For online learning products, we’ll focus on the personal and social value promises. These categories break into subtypes, and it’s here we can start to divine the value promises of different products.
Most products have multiple value promises but there’s typically a primary one. Let’s look at the sub-types and some examples.
In the personal value promise category, there are five subtypes: entertainment, communication, information, flexibility, and time.
Feeding Littles by Judy Delaware and Megan McNamee offer an information value promise. You get information on good eating habits for infants and toddlers.
MasterClass is an information and entertainment value promise hybrid (unironically dubbed “infotainment”. Yes, you might learn a few cooking tips from Gordon Ramsey. But mostly, it’s #inspoporn. MasterClass is amazing at brand, storytelling, and entertainment.
In the social value promise, there are four subtypes: recognition, connection, competitiveness, and confidence.
The Y Combinator program (aka YC for the uninitiated) offers a connection value promise. The value of YC lies in the connections to the mentor and alumni network.
Coursera programs offer a recognition value promise. After completing a course, you can purchase a certificate that signals to others you’ve developed a level of proficiency in a skill.
A learning product must deliver on its value promise. Product growth only happens when the promise is fulfilled:
- Retention (I come back and check out the newest lesson)
- Engagement (I spend 5 hours per week watching lecture material)
- Acquisition (I tell others about my class)
- Monetization (I spend more money on a new program)
If a product consistently breaks its promise (we didn’t learn anything new, we weren’t entertained, we didn’t build connections) people will stop using the product and it’ll cease to exist.[efn_note]If an app is available in the app store but no one buys it does Apple still price gouge you?[/efn_note]
So far, we’ve covered online learning methods and value promises. The last piece we have to cover is online surfaces.
Online Learning Surfaces
A surface is the piece of the product or experience you’re interacting with: the endless feed on your favorite photo-sharing app, the push notifications from the slot machine democratizing finance, another baby shower via the eng-deep video conferencing service.
Surfaces fall into four categories:
- Product. Space where the user directly engages with the software.
- Notifications. In-app, push, or email messages.
- Events. Synchronous gathering of 2 or more people.
- Community. Space to synchronously or asynchronously share ideas and build relationships.
Earlier, I said that:
- All online learning has a method and
- All products have a volume promise
When we zoom in on a product surface, we see the surface itself has both a method and a value promise. Let’s look at some examples:
Surface: The Product
GoPractice is an online learning simulator. On their content viewer, you run through various growth-related scenarios and respond to questions. Answer correctly and move on; answer incorrectly and get tooltip guidance. Its methodology is product-to-student, and the value promise is information; you’re learning growth in a hands-on, product-driven way.
Lambda School is an online coding school with an income service agreement (ISA) monetization model. This incentivizes them to help you land a lucrative developer role, so in addition to the coding school product, they have a career product. In the career product, applying to jobs, networking outreach, and coding practice questions are productized and gamified. Its methodology is product-to-student, and the value promise is competitiveness via gamification; you compete (with yourself).
Surface: Notifications
Zero To Launch (now called Earnable) was a product I worked on during my time at I Will Teach. It was an online course that taught you how to build an information product business. For eight weeks during the self-paced program, you received emails from the company’s CEO, encouraging, cajoling, and reassuring you. The methodology was instructor-to-student, and the value promise was confidence; you had a cheerleader rooting for you in your inbox each week.
Kopywriting Kourse (now called… Copywriting Course) was an, um, copywriting course. It was a digital correspondence program; you received emails with assignments and completed them asynchronously. The methodology was instructor-to-student, and the value promise was information; you learned more about copywriting via your email assignments.
Surface: Events
nXu is a non-profit organization that helps high school students and professionals pursue their purpose. Their flagship experience is a Purpose Bootcamp, a 5-day event that convenes 2.5 hours a day. Each event uses instructor- (facilitator-led exercises) and student-to-student methods (small breakout groups). The value promise is connection.
At Reforge, one event type we hold is a Workshop. Participants submit work they’ve completed and our Executive in Residence (EIR) leads a guided discussion around it. The method is also a hybrid instructor- and student-to-student (both the EIR and event attendees offer feedback). Where this differs from nXu is that the value promise is information – participants learn how to think about applying Reforge frameworks back at their companies (community is a secondary value promise).
Using Methods, Promises and Surfaces In Your Online Learning Strategy
The first time you encounter the centaur monsters called Lynels in Zelda: BotW, your odds of survival are bleaker than an Edith Wharton novella. They’re too strong, too fast.
50-odd hours later into the game, after learning to string together a series of advanced gameplay mechanics (e.g. slow-motion arrow shooting, precision parrying, shield surfing, etc.) you have the arsenal to take down your maned foe.
Similarly, once you understand how learning methods, value promises and surfaces string together, it opens the door to using them strategically.
Let’s explore five strategies and examples of each:
1. The Surface is the surface
An online learning surface is only the beginning of the rabbit hole. Every surface has multiple variations.
Take GoPractice, Reforge, and Lambda School. All are online learning products that serve similar (albeit not the same) audiences. Yet they have wildly different product surfaces — for a reason. Different surfaces solve different problems and produce different outcomes.
The same can be said for notifications, events, and communities. This is why you can’t just blindly copy another surface: the surface has to be designed with the user and their outcomes in mind.
2. Mo’ surfaces do not equal mo’ value
It’s better to have one surface that consistently over-delivers on the value promise than 6 surfaces that all underdeliver. It’s better for the customer (creates a clear, easily understandable value prop) and better for the business (easier to manage product).
At I Will Teach, we had a product called Ramit’s Brain Trust (you can read about why we sunsetted it here). Over time, the value promise of the product shifted from information (delivered via monthly interviews) to connection (delivered via a Facebook community). We never cracked how to lean into this new value promise, and instead wasted resources and cycles ping-ponging from one to the other.
3. Every surface must earn its place in the product
Value promises have a half-life. Over time, the decay becomes a net negative on the experience. Consider removing the surface completely before that happens.
Today in the online courses business, it’s SOP to include an element of community. That community can live on Facebook, Slack, Circle, etc.
During periods of high engagement, these communities are useful for answering questions, clarifying the content, and making connections. But once past the high water mark, the value promise erodes quickly.[efn_note]Take this as personal observation and not a hard rule.[/efn_note]
People stop posting and when they do, they don’t get timely responses. The community becomes a ghost town.
It’s better to sunset a surface or experience than allow the decay to fester.
4. Every surface has a depth vector
The deeper a user engages with a surface, the more value they’ll extract. As mentioned above, growth (retention, engagement, acquisition, monetization) follows value.
Look for ways to help your users extract more value from the surface. Iterate on new techniques and strategies. If your product is your content, this might mean adding active learning elements (for example, Kajabi) or weaving storytelling into your material (like Harrison Metal). If you’re working on events, it’s iterating on your programming to deliver different value promises and seeing what resonates (like The Information’s events).
Every surface has different techniques, and every problem has its own unique context. That means while there are best practices, there are no right answers. You have to understand the value promise made to your users and deliver more, more often.
5. Every product has a breadth vector
Depth means engaging more with a single surface, while breadth is moving the user from one surface to another.
If the user has completed all the lecture material in your product, move them to your forum so they can share their learnings with others. After they’ve shared their learnings, invite them to an event where an expert will discuss the topic.
One example of tapping into breadth is Doing Content Right by Steph Smith. The product was an ebook. In an email (notification) she reiterated a few key points from the material and invited users to participate in a Telegram (community)where they could ask more questions or connect with one another. She also held two Zoom meetings each week (events) to review the material and do a live Q&A. She moved her users across a variety of surfaces to help them extract the value promise from her book.
Now Do This
Whether you’re working at an online education company or you’re a solo entrepreneur building your first course, you can apply these lessons to your product:
- List the surfaces of your product
- Describe the method of each surface
- Identify each surface’s primary value promise
- Identify secondary (and tertiary) value promises
- Describe the impact of each surface
- Quantify the impact of each surface
- Incorporate one strategy to optimize your product and help your users benefit more from your product
Questions? Feedback? I’d love to hear it, let me know in the comments or find me on Twitter.
Footnotes:
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