This Is Funny Because E-Learning’s Broken

When the comment section becomes a design brief

Leslie Robinson posted a short comedy video about mandatory training videos, and the comments exploded. People shared tips for opening the same course in multiple browser windows. Others described games they play to meet the minimum time requirement before clicking complete.

View the Instagram video here.

What the comments revealed

The thread wasn’t just venting. It was a list of patterns that anyone in e-learning will recognize. Locked navigation. Irrelevant content. Questions planted to catch people who skipped ahead rather than to check genuine understanding.

These aren’t edge cases. They’re common enough that a brief comedy video about them landed with thousands of people.

Four ways to build something better

The fix for each of these problems is a design decision you can make right now.

Start by having an honest conversation with your client. Show them the video. Ask whether that’s the experience they want their learners to have. It’s more effective than arguing about design principles in the abstract.

When the scope is locked and you can’t change it, adapt. Build the leanest and most effective version of what’s been approved. Don’t waste effort padding content that nobody needs.

Put the learner’s experience at the center of every decision. Ask what they’ll be able to do after the course that they couldn’t do before. Ask why they should care. Those questions will reshape how you structure everything.

Get rid of locked navigation wherever you can. If learners need a reason to stay engaged, the content itself should supply it. A timer is not a substitute for a course worth taking.

Key takeaways

Learners are paying attention, even when the course doesn’t ask them to. Every workaround they invent is a signal about what the course failed to deliver. The designers who take those signals seriously end up building things that people actually want to take.