CASE STUDY
Compelling elearning that makes every interaction count
Cowry Consulting helps its corporate clients apply behavioural science to create brilliant customer experiences. To get the greatest impact, they and their clients need a shared language to discuss recommendations and interventions. We designed compelling elearning for them that covers the basic of using behavioural science in business transactions. Now Cowry’s experts can focus their time on meeting clients’ specific needs, delivering even better returns.
The brief
Cowry Consulting wanted an online course to cover the tuition in behavioural science that they had been delivering face-to-face.
They wanted a course that would keep learners taking action, making choices and engaging with the content – in line with the principles that the work is built on.
Key points
Bespoke elearning
Custom illustration and animation
Adapt plugin development
Elearning management
Our approach
Cowry’s existing three hour face-to-face programme is highly successful at motivating people to understand how the human brain works, and to apply this to business challenges.
“Having seen the Adapt-based elearning that Can Studios has produced for other clients, we knew they could deliver the type of course we needed.”
Ziba Goddard
Cowry’s Head of Core Consulting
As specialists in how our brains work and driving behaviour change, Cowry had clear ideas about how the course needed to look and work for learners.
But they had no experience with developing self-paced, online learning. So our instructional designers worked closely with their experts to combine the best of both.
In classroom training, the Cowry team use exercises that create specific experiences for the learner (eg cognitive overload, framing) to demonstrate how powerful these can be.
To recreate these in the elearning, we used techniques including:
free text answers – avoiding the risk of planting responses
trickle/content locking – requiring learners to complete practical activities before seeing the explanation, and build their understanding in clear stages
exercises completed against the clock – encouraging learners to act on instinct.
Timed exercises aren’t something the Adapt authoring tool provides as standard. But the great thing about working in Adapt (and another reason we chose it for this project) is that it’s possible to create custom functions with code plugins. And with experienced Adapt developers in-house, we were able to do this quickly and cost-effectively.
A resources tab gives learners reading lists, summary documents, links to further videos and content if they want to explore the subject in more detail. Making these available in a single location – rather than embedding them throughout the course, makes it easy for:
learners to find what they need and explore all that’s available
Cowry to customise the content for specific sectors or clients should they wish to.
“We really appreciated Can Studios’ collaborative way of working. It allowed us to have a lot of creative control while benefiting from their expertise in using different types of media to the best effect and creating an engaging online learner experience.”
Pippa Pennycook
Senior Behavioural Designer
In the course we have combined media including custom animation/audio, interactive images, video and text explanations that break concepts down into simple chunks. Custom graphics, character animations and a design theme, created by our designers ensure the course is perfectly in line with Cowry’s visual identity and brand guidelines.
Cowry chose our Training Post LMS to host their course and manage learners, loving how simple it was for them and for their learners. The ability to customise the login screen and certificates to match their brand was also an important feature for them.
Results
To achieve the greatest impact from the consultancy process, Cowry and their clients need a shared language to discuss recommendations, implement interventions and evaluate results.
Now they have elearning built to their precise requirements, Cowry’s experts no longer need to explain the same theory and concepts again for every client.
Instead, they can focus more time on meeting that client’s specific challenges.
“It’s essential that we practice what we preach with our elearning: to break things down into simple, compelling steps and remove friction from the process. Can Studios has delivered elearning that does just that.”
Ziba Goddard
Cowry’s Head of Core Consulting
Because the initial elearning can be completed in around one hour online, instead of half a day of face-to-face training, Cowry’s clients also benefit from improved:
flexibility – individual learning can be fit in around other tasks
productivity – staff need less time away from their duties
buy-in – speed and ease of training mean more staff can be trained, improving implementation.
Cowry Consultancy are so confident of the effectiveness of the elearning that they also plan to offer it beyond their consultancy clients, either as:
stand alone learning to introduce more professionals to the power of behavioural science in business
a precursor to their more detailed 6-week training programme.