I am excited to be back after a long break due to the birth of my first son to talk about e-learning. In this post, I will discuss the BMAP mental model and how it can help in visualizing learner behaviours and improving engagement.
BMAP, short for Behavior Map, was created by Dr. BJ Fogg at Stanford University and is a well-known mental model used primarily by UX designers to understand what influences user behaviour.
According to the model, user behaviours are defined as B = M · A · P, where:
❤️ Motivation: the willpower to act, represented by the vertical axis.
🕹️ Ability: the capacity to perform the desired behaviour, represented by the horizontal axis.
💥 Prompt: the timely cue to act at the right moment, which can succeed if above the activation threshold line or fail if below the threshold line.
The Motivation and Ability Levers can be easily visualized on an X and Y graph.
In online education, it’s not uncommon to encounter situations where the learner’s behaviour deviates from our expectations. It’s likely because you are below the Activation Threshold (The dotted line in the graphic).
To understand why it happens, we need to ask ourselves three simple questions:
- ❤️ Motivation: Is our learner motivated enough at that moment?
- 🕹️ Ability: Does the user have the capability to perform the desired behaviour?
- 💥 Prompt: Do you offer the leaner clear instructions to act at the right moment?
The more Motivation and Ability you have, the more receptive you will be to a Prompt; on the other hand, the less motivated and able you are, the less likely to engage you will be.
Imagine the following scenario:
You just landed a new job and are super excited to start the online Onboarding program and learn about the company; when you try to access the LMS, you can’t find the training, the user experience, and the UI are confusing, and when you finally find it, it’s a boring, self-paced course.
You are highly motivated, but your ability due to the stress, mental effort and disappointment reduces your Ability to engage with the training.
The same situation applies in a scenario where you are required to complete mandatory training. The instructional design team has invested numerous hours in creating a well-designed and interactive course, it’s easily accessible via the learning management system (LMS), but you are expected to complete the training during your already busy and stressful working hours.
You will be high on Ability due to the effort and quality of the training and LMS, but your Motivation is so low due to the way the course is delivered.
Long story short, if your learner has enough Motivation and Ability, your Prompt will make them engage with your training. Still, if your leaner is under the Activation Threshold, they will never be engaged with your training as you planned.
But how do you make it above the Activation Threshold?
There are a few Behavior Levers that you can use to increase the Motivation and Ability and Prompt, therefore, increase the engagement of your learners:
In the ❤️ Motivation axis, they are:
- 🔮 Anticipation: Plan and Communicate your e-learning program to help your learners prepare mentally and schedule time to do it. A good strategy for compliance training (which normally has a lower level of motivation) is to schedule a compliance day in the company’s calendar weeks before it goes live and launch it in a sort of campaign like this, giving meaning to the course and preparing the learner by communicating well will play a key factor in their Motivation level.
- 💚 Sensation: E-learning courses have a bad stigma. Not every Instructional Design cares about visual design and user experience. I even met people during my career who find it irrelevant. An online course is nothing but a digital product, and like any digital product, it will be expected to have high standards of design, navigation, and audio quality. By putting in effort to improve these areas, the course will become more enjoyable for learners and will also increase their motivation level.
In the🕹️ Ability axis:
- ⏰ Time: Online courses should be designed with flexibility in mind, acknowledging that people nowadays have increasingly busy schedules and diverse commitments. Therefore, it is important to find a balance between delivering essential content and respecting learners’ time constraints. Offering bite-sized modules, on-demand access, and the ability to pace their own learning can be very helpful. This ensures that employees and customers can seamlessly integrate training into their busy routines.
- 🧠 Mental Capacity: Online courses are often created by companies without taking into account the capacity of employees or customers to absorb knowledge effectively. I am a big advocate of less content and more impact. Not everything needs to be delivered through an e-learning course; sometimes, learning can be achieved in much simpler ways. By creating e-learning courses just for the sake of creating them, you are wasting learners’ mental capacity that could be better utilised in situations where it is truly necessary.
And on 💥 Prompt:
- 💢 Explicit Prompt: The learner journey starts before starting the course. A good part of the success of the e-learning program largely depends on how the learner gets to your training and what triggers their curiosity to start it. The initial engagement level is crucial in determining the learner’s interest in a course. As they say, the first impression is everything. To make a good impression, some best practices include a well-written and designed email notification and a meaningful course description not only describing the course but also how much time they will have to invest in duration and what they will gain when they finish it.
In conclusion, understanding and applying the BMAP mental model can be an excellent tool to enhance engagement in e-learning. By analyzing motivation, ability, and prompt, we can identify areas where learners may fall short of the Activation Threshold and take action to boost their engagement levels. In the ever-evolving landscape of online education, it’s clear that BMAP provides a valuable roadmap for instructional designers to create more engaging and effective learning experiences for all.
I hope you find this information helpful. Thank you for taking the time to read it.
Best regards,
Leandro Sartori
