My last post about learning styles focused on appealing to the visual style in documentation. This time, I’m looking at accommodating auditory learners.

This one is a little more challenging than it seems on the surface. If someone is an auditory learner, then you just provide some voiceover in your demonstrations or record some podcasts, right? But I don’t think it’s quite that simple.

One factor to take into consideration when deciding whether to use voiceover is whether your content is going to be localized for use in other countries. When you have visual text in diagrams or demos, you can send that off to the translators and then import the translations back in. But when you have voiceover, you’ve added an extra level of complexity and expense. You may have saved your company some money by providing voiceover yourself, but you may not be fluent or even comfortable in the languages into which your voiceover is translated. That means paying for voice talent.

The same consideration applies to podcasts. If you want them available to as many users as possible, at the least you’d have to find an interpreter who could listen to your podcast and simultaneously record his interpretation. But if all of your documentation is delivered in your language, voiceovers and podcasts can be effective for auditory learners.

Auditory learners gain understanding by having something explained vocally, but they also learn by hearing themselves talk about a subject. Is there some way we can help auditory learners take documentation content and explain it to themselves? It sounds silly—I can imagine something like this:

Step 4. In the Comments box, explain the changes you have made.

Step 5. Click the Save button.

Now, out loud, talk about a scenario in which you would use this procedure. Then repeat each step to yourself and explain how each helps you accomplish your task.

It sounds a bit like I’m talking down to the user, doesn’t it?

Giving live training or providing a forum where users can talk to each other about the product falls more into the realm of training. Providing a recording of a live training would help auditory learners, but again, there’s the concern of language.

Perhaps including narrative with dialogue would help. Auditory learners relate to speech, and reading dialogue may for them be more effective than explanatory text.

I’m mostly throwing out ideas here. Is it up to auditory learners to study documentation in the way that benefits them best? If any readers have ideas on effective ways to accommodate auditory learners in documentation, I’m all ears. (No pun intended….)

Related entries (auto-generated):

The Tactile Learning Style in Tech Writing

The Visual Learning Style in Tech Writing

Visualization Can Improve Writing

A Possible New Step in the Writing Process

Taking a More User-Led Approach to Learning