What is cognitive load?
Cognitive load relates to the amount of information that an individual can process in a short amount of time. Humans have a high capacity to fill long-term memory, but short-term memory is much more limited.
Designing your content with lower cognitive thresholds leads to better comprehension, retention, and is a central principle of universal design.
What are strategies I can use to lower cognitive load?
- Keep your language and sentence structure simple.
- When writing instructions, emails, and correspondence, avoid long paragraphs that can become walls of text.
- Know your audience: Use familiar language when discussing new concepts. When introducing new terminology, use familiar examples or concepts.
- Employ bulleted & numbered lists.
- Use headings and structure for visual appeal and to assist users with visual impairments.
- Embed links in the text.
- Create shorter videos through editing, or add chapters to longer videos.