The five interactions every interactive course should earn the right to use

Branching scenarios. Drag-and-drops. Click-to-reveals. Knowledge checks. Simulations. They're not features — they're commitments. Here's how we decide when a moment in a course deserves one, and what to use instead when it doesn't.

1. Branching scenarios — for judgement

Use when there's a real "it depends." Not when there's one right answer dressed up as three wrong ones. The mark of a good branching scenario: senior practitioners in the room disagree about the best response.

2. Drag-and-drop — for taxonomies

Use when the learner must internalise how things group, rank, or order. The approval matrix. The phases of a sales cycle. Don't use it for facts they can read in a sentence.

3. Click-to-reveal — for compare-and-contrast

Use when the learner needs to see two things side-by-side and notice the difference. Never use it as a substitute for scrolling.

4. Knowledge checks — for confidence calibration

Use to surface where the learner thinks they understand but doesn't. Three questions, instant feedback, branch to remediation. Never use to gate completion without remediation behind it.

5. Simulations — for procedural fluency

Use when the cost of getting it wrong in real life is high and the procedure is sequential. Software walkthroughs, safety procedures, customer-service phone scripts.

What we use instead

Plain text. A short video. A diagram. If the content doesn't earn one of the five above, don't fake it. Interactivity for the sake of interactivity is what gave eLearning its reputation in the first place.