Sublime Media - Case studies - Digging up our funny bone for Legal 101
What’s the first word that comes to mind when you hear “mandatory compliance training”? We’re willing to bet it isn’t “funny.” So, it’s no surprise that the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Legal team looked to Sublime Media to add a smile to their training.
In the workplace, the right kind of humor in the right context can significantly impact learners. Harvard Business Review points out that “[humor] influences critical behaviors and attitudes that matter to leadership effectiveness, including employee job performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, citizenship behaviors, creativity, psychological safety in groups, and desire to interact again in the future.”
We delivered an amusing and endearing series of e-learning modules that leverage the light- hearted humor of a comic strip to introduce common legal situations learners may encounter and review the appropriate actions to take in those situations.
Tackling tough topics with the right tone
Finding the right voices and characters to crack jokes about serious legal topics was no easy task.
We examined personas and mediums known for using humor to make serious topics stick (think webcomics and The New Yorker’s “Daily Cartoon”). We knew the jokes needed to lean to the lighter side and stay on topic to be helpful learning tools. We also needed friendly characters that could make us laugh without pulling focus from the content. Enter Cloudy the Cat and Packet the Dog, the loveable AWS Legal office pets just doing their best, and a guide who keeps them on the right path. With a friendly tone, we learn from Cloudy and Packet’s mistakes.
Packet needs a little help with his understanding of
confidentiality.
Strategizing smiles for a corporate audience
When designing our characters, we wanted Cloudy and Packet to be relatable, but have a level of whimsy that distinguished them from real people. While they walk and talk like humans, they still act very much like cats and dogs, which removes the possibility of unfair parallels with office dynamics.
Cloudy has to learn to review contracts properly. We combined our whimsical character design with a comic style akin to webcomics. This allowed us to mix in light-hearted humor with important legal content to create an enjoyable experience closer to reading a magazine than studying a textbook.
Say goodbye to “blah”
With an average rating of 4.6 out of 5, the AWS Legal 101 course was a hit with its audience. Cloudy and Packet are now the faces of several AWS Legal courses, and while they still have a lot to learn, they’re having a blast while doing it!
Humor is more than an accent to learning; it can make your content stick, too! Amanda Dixon, Legal Assistant with AWS, comments that “everybody learns differently, and these trainings use engaging animation and humor to create an inclusive experience.”
Say goodbye to boring courses and hello to humor-driven learning that really works. But don’t just take it from us—take it from AWS.
“Fun and informative”
“Good use of character. Enjoyed the puns and relevance of the illustration…”
“Training was thorough, and it was hard to miss any points, really 101.”