Relevant Content Doesn’t Float, it Sinks: Scoping E-Learning Experiences

The actual challenges of e-learning

We’ve reached a curious point in the evolution of e-learning. Technology is everywhere, content is abundant, and digital platforms multiply like rabbits. And yet, many organisations still struggle to answer a basic question: is all this actually working?

Here’s the hard truth: most e-learning initiatives don’t fail because of poor technology or lack of engagement. They fail because of scoping and pseudo-didactics. In other words, the e-learning project wasn’t set up with the right boundaries, the right objectives, or the right measures of success from the start, and wasn’t executed prioritising sound learning science over buzz-words and catchy claims about interactivity and engagement. Here, let’s focus on scoping.

Think of content and relevant content as liquids of different densities. The relevant, usable content is denser. If you overload a course with material, the valuable content doesn’t float; it sinks to the bottom. Learners are left wading through a sea of superficial or redundant information, struggling to find what actually matters. In other words, the more you pile on, the harder it becomes to see and make sense of the content that truly drives learning outcomes. It also becomes more difficult to find applications and to practice the behaviours and skills that really matter.

Scoping is the foundation where cost-effectiveness, pedagogical rigour, and organisational alignment either come together beautifully or fall apart completely. Getting it right means designing e-learning with an eye not just for what looks good on paper, but for what will actually make a difference when the learner engages with the material. And to do that, we need to think on three levels at once: the scientific, the managerial, and the technical.

1. The science of learning: presence and networks

Presence isn’t binary

When we talk about e-learning, one word keeps coming back: presence. That sense of “being there” in a digital space. For years, I’ve researched what I call presence effects. These are the measurable ways that different forms of presence shape engagement and learning. Neuroscience backs this up: presence isn’t an on-off switch, but a spectrum with different intensities and flavours that deeply influence outcomes.

So if you’re scoping a learning experience, you can’t treat presence as a happy accident. It’s something you should plan for.

Rethinking the Zone of Proximal Development

Let’s revisit an old friend: Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD). Traditionally, it’s pictured as a neat ring around what learners can already do. But in reality? Learning is “messy”. Skills, behaviours, and knowledge don’t constitute an expanding sphere, because they branch, overlap, and connect like a multidimensional web that can be denser in certain areas and not in other ones.

That’s why I propose thinking of the ZPD as a multidimensional rhizome rather than an expanding sphere that in turn has a proximal area for potential learning. Scoping e-learning means recognising these nonlinear growth patterns and designing experiences that respect multiple possible learner journeys.

2. The Manager’s View: Scoping with Metrics and Product Thinking

It’s all about the numbers that get you “there”

After more than a decade managing training and development projects, I’ve learned that e-learning design works best when treated like product design. The burning question is not “What content will we include?”, but “What metrics will prove success?”

And no, “completion rate” or “learner satisfaction” don’t cut it on their own. These are important engagement metrics, so they can show us, for example, if people like the learning experience. But that’s not the end-game. We want people to enjoy it as a means to keep learning. So, real success shows up in behavioural change, new skills applied on the job, efficiency gains, or alignment with strategic goals. Capturing impact requires measuring both leading indicators, which are early signals that change is taking root, and lagging indicators, which constitute the hard evidence that outcomes endure. For example, behavioural change shows up first in observations, peer feedback, or quick surveys on new practices, and later in performance reviews, reduced incidents and KPIs in general, which can be either leading or lagging indicators, depending on whether they are predictive or outcome-based.

A two-way avenue to scope

There are two reliable ways to start:

Top-Down Scoping: Begin with the big picture, breathing in sponsor goals, organisational strategies, broad KPIs, processing and exhaling measurable learning outcomes.

Bottom-Up Scoping: Start with the ground reality, like a behaviour, a skill, or a task that needs improvement. Build upward from there.

Think of it like Google Maps: top-down is zooming out for the bird’s-eye view, while bottom-up is street view. Both matter if you want to reach your destination without getting lost.

3. The technical craft: from blueprint to build

Why curriculum still matters

In a world obsessed with platforms and AI, good old-fashioned curriculum design is still king. Mapping learning objectives, modularising content, and sequencing activities in the right order is what turns abstract goals into actual progress.

The power of wireframing

Before jumping into design and after finishing the design document, I always recommend wireframing the learning experience. Think of it as the bridge between ideation and design: mapping the flow of content, the interaction patterns, and the assessment checkpoints. Wireframes make invisible ideas visible, highlight bottlenecks early, and keep stakeholders aligned before any code is written, while saving ourselves the effort of creating visual storyboards.

Dodging common pitfalls

Technical know-how also helps avoid three major project killers:

• Scope creep (the dreaded “could you just add one more thing?”).
• Misaligned expectations (when what stakeholders think they’ll get isn’t what’s being built).
• Overbuilding (investing heavily in fancy assets that add no real learning value).

Scoping with a technical mindset ensures resources are spent on what actually drives learning impact.

4. Pulling it all together

If there’s one lesson here, it’s this: successful e-learning isn’t about dazzling technology or endless content libraries. It’s about precision. Science reminds us that presence and learning networks matter. Management disciplines us to tie learning goals to measurable outcomes. Technical expertise turns vision into executable design, while avoiding the usual traps. So, scoping isn’t just one big step. It’s also like a mindset underlying every other step of the way.

Scope smarter and be agile

E-learning is mature now. The bottleneck is not content and resources to develop courses, but whether we build the right ones the right way. Advanced scoping techniques, grounded in science, management, and technical craft, allow us to design learning that is cost-effective, impactful, and aligned with strategy.

In the end, scoping is not just about drawing boundaries and it’s also about sharpening focus. When done well, it transforms e-learning from a dumping ground of “nice-to-have” content into a deliberate engine for growth, behaviour change, and strategic value. The message is simple: relevance doesn’t happen by accident, but it’s engineered through clear objectives, disciplined design choices, and rigorous measurement. If content sinks when overloaded, then scope is the ballast that keeps the whole learning experience balanced, purposeful, and moving forward.

Written for OEB 2025 by Jaime Cará Junior.



Join Jaime for his Pre-Conference Workshop “Advanced techniques to scope and design e-learning experiences” at OEB25.