Beyond Readability: Measuring Customer Understanding
Overview
This interactive Evolve module explores the relationship between readability, customer understanding, and behavior.
Designed as a short-form learning experience for content creators, customer service teams, and digital communicators, the module challenges the common assumption that content that is easy to read is automatically easy to understand.
Through practical examples, interactive activities, reflection, and scenario-based decision making, learners discover how language, structure, context, and design influence comprehension. The module also introduces the concept of behavioural evidence, demonstrating how customer actions such as abandonment, hesitation, and support requests can reveal hidden communication barriers.
Many organisations rely on readability scores to evaluate customer communications. While readability tools can estimate how easy content is to read, they cannot confirm whether customers truly understand the information or know what action to take. This project explored how instructional design principles could be used to introduce the emerging concept of cognitive accessibility in a concise, engaging, and practical format.
The challenge was to transform a complex topic into a short learning experience that remained visually engaging while encouraging critical thinking and real-world application.
By the end of this module, learners will be able to:
- Identify the factors that influence customer understanding.
- Distinguish between readability and understanding.
- Recognise behavioural signals that may indicate communication barriers.
- Apply the concept of behavioural evidence to their own workplace communications.
The module was designed using a learner-centered, scenario-based approach that encourages exploration and reflection.
Key strategies included:
• Interactive flip cards to demonstrate how small changes in wording can influence customer behavior.
• A visual brain model to explore the factors that contribute to understanding.
• A process-based infographic illustrating the shift from readability metrics to behavioral evidence.
• Scenario-based knowledge checks that require learners to identify communication barriers.
• Guided reflection activities that encourage workplace application and transfer of learning.
The design follows adult learning principles by connecting concepts directly to workplace situations and encouraging learners to apply new insights to their own communications.
The final solution is a highly interactive single-page Evolve module that demonstrates how instructional design, user experience principles, and behavioral insight can be combined to create meaningful learning experiences.
The project successfully balances visual engagement with instructional integrity, providing learners with practical strategies they can immediately apply when creating customer-facing communications.
In addition to demonstrating learning design capabilities, the module showcases advanced Evolve development skills including custom graphics, interactive hotspots, knowledge checks, completion tracking, reflection capture, PDF generation, and gamification elements.
Interactive Demo
View a screen recording of the course below or click on this link to experience the Evolve module in real-time.
- Interactive flip cards
- Click-and-reveal hotspots
- Process infographic design
- Knowledge checks with feedback
- Open text reflection activities
- Conditional completion states
- Hide and reveal logic
• Learning Experience Design (LXD)
• Instructional Design
• Microlearning Design
• Scenario-Based Learning
• User Experience (UX) Principles
• Information Design
• Visual Design
• Content Strategy
• Behavioral Learning Design
- Evolve Authoring Tool
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- ChatGPT/Claude (content ideation and review)
- Microsoft Word