Memory biases for unforgettable e-learning

I'm putting together a lot of documentation and training materials these days so I'm always on the lookout for helpful ideas. My style's always been more discursive than most instructional notes tend to be, not just because it's my natural style to waffle on a bit. I try to explain why something's happening and to give some type of contextual sense to the experience that I hope helps with both the navigation and the application of the training.

I enjoyed the infographic accompanying this article on the Pure learning site, it's a nice précis of some of the tools that make for effective learning activities:

• Bizarreness
• Humour
• Generation
• Picture superiority

As well as providing hooks for recall and review (and addressing at least four of Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction) it's interesting to see that they also address common barriers to learning:

• The need to be prodded into curiosity
• The need to be involved
• The need to find out for yourself
• The need for a quick reward