I've been known to get on a soapbox about making learning "fun,” specifically using humor. Earlier this summer, LTEN made a slightly dangerous decision to hand me a microphone to lead a Learning Lab at the LTEN Annual Conference in Orlando, tucked into the open-air exhibit hall. By the time we got started, the lab area was packed: people were curious!
Whether they thought a show was about to break out or they genuinely wanted to know what laughter had to do with learning, I'm still not entirely sure. (All too often, people find out I performed off-Broadway improv for over a decade and immediately ask me to be funny - I expect the stereotype still, even deep into my learning experience design career shift!)
But as we got into it, I started seeing people light up.
There were nods. Smiles. You know those little aha moments when something suddenly connects to an experience you've already had? Those are my favorite moments to watch, and those moments happened through the entire Learning Lab—not because they were entertained, but because most of us can think of learning that made us laugh—and somehow, years later even, we can still remember it.
After the session, people started sharing those examples with me. A one-liner "don't be a creep" from an HR video. A high-school sitcom parody that brought a training concept to life. Playful explainer videos with wild characters that made complicated biostatistics information easier to understand. The examples were all different, but the realization was the same: they didn't just remember that the training was funny. They remembered the learning connected to it.
And this is where the conversation really starts.
In life sciences especially, the subject matter is serious, but seriousness of purpose doesn't require emotionally flat learning experiences. We tend to assume that "serious" training should feel serious. Humor can be a specific design choice—used not to make light of the topic, but to make the learning more engaging, human, and memorable. But what is it about humor that can make learning more memorable?
Before diving into humor and recall, a quick note. While humor supports learning, it doesn't replace practice. Studies have shown that content taught with humor actually sticks, especially on the comprehension and the knowledge level, but nothing replaces practice (sorry if you hate roleplay, it's here to stay).
The objective is recall: humor gives learning something to stick to.
When a training moment makes us feel something, it gives the information attached to it a stronger marker. Laughter can turn an otherwise ordinary moment into an experience that is easier to retrieve later. Humor also taps into the brain's reward pathways, which helps make the experience feel more salient and memorable.
Who doesn't like getting a cookie for a job well done? Better yet, who doesn't want a little of that cookie feeling every time they remember what they learned? Emotion gives information something to adhere to. Humor just happens to make that adhesive a lot more fun.
You've probably heard the phrase "stronger together." Turns out, that can apply to laughter too.
Humor can create a memorable moment for one person, but when a room or group experiences it together, it becomes something bigger. Everyone laughs at the same unexpected line in a training video, recognizes the same ridiculous but familiar scenario, or gets the same pop-culture reference, and suddenly you have a shared point of recall.
That moment creates connection. It gives people something they can come back to, repeat to each other, and use as shorthand long after the training is over. Which, you guessed it, makes the learning stickier.
By now, you may be thinking about all the places you could add humor to your training. This is also where things can go sideways.
Humor doesn't work just because you added a joke. In fact, the fastest way to make it fall flat is to force it into a moment where it doesn't belong.
The funny still has to serve the learning. Your participants have Netflix, HBO, TikTok, and an endless supply of actual entertainment. They do not need you to compete with that. They do need you to design an experience that keeps them engaged and helps them remember the important stuff.
A simple gut check before you run with humor: Does the humor support recall, sharpen the point, or build connection? If the answer is no, leave it out. If the answer is yes, tie your shoes and let's run.
The key is to make humor part of the design from the beginning, not something to sprinkle on at the end and hope makes the training more interesting.
The thread through all of this is intentionality. Use humor deliberately.
We've seen a parody-based training series help move closing performance from –10% to +8%. But success does not always show up immediately in a performance metric. Sometimes it looks like people quoting a line from the training weeks later, talking about an episode with their peers, or referencing a metaphor from a video that helped them understand a concept—and they want to use that metaphor too. That kind of engagement matters: it tells you the learning got their attention and gave them something worth coming back to.
And there is no single formula for what that looks like. Every project, audience, and learning challenge is different, which means the creative options are pretty much limitless. A parody video might be perfect for a market access program. A selling skill tutorial might need a recurring character, and an MOA explainer might need a playful setting, unexpected scenario, or one perfectly-timed line.
The question is never, "How can I make this funny?" It is always, "What do I want people to remember, and could humor help me get them there?" If the answer to that second part is yes, maybe it's time to come stand with me on the soapbox.
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