The purpose of the motivator is to facilitate the user’s development of a task decision. The cognitive affordances of the motivator are particularly important to the motivator’s effectiveness. The purpose of the motivator is to give the user a reason to interact with the narrative. This can be done by drawing the user’s attention to an area of interest and rewards, which in turn are intended to satisfy the user’s task decision goals.

The features of a transmedia narrative can facilitate or inhibit user’s motivation to engage with the narrative. The amount of time and effort required, psychological fatigue, selective focus, enjoyment, relevance, clarity, attractiveness, and potential value to the user all affect motivation (Screven, 2000, p. 189). The user of a transmedia narrative is likely to be in a large information field. An information field is all of the information within the user’s immediate environment. This includes not just the information the transmedia narrative itself presents, but also news websites that may be open on the desktop, e-mail alerts that pop open on the screen, the smartphone that vibrates for an incoming text, people in the physical space around the user, and so on. Effective control of the information field means eliminating as many forms of noise (i.e. auditory, visual, etc.) as possible. However, removing all of the noise and controlling all of the information in the information field is impossible, so transmedia narrative designers need to make the most effective use of the information over which they do have control. This means controlling the messages put into the information field.

During the design process, transmedia narrative designers need to explicitly identify the intended message(s) for each segment of the narrative while identifying and eliminating as many sources of unintended messages as possible. Designers should also have an understanding of media, cultural, and other factors that could affect how the audience processes and interprets the information presented.

Meaning can emerge from the gaps between pieces of the narrative just as negative space in visual art can be used to depict a subject by showing everything around that subject but not the subject itself. The transmedia narrative designer needs to be conscious of the messages that narrative gaps and transitions between different media and platform create. Unintended messages should be eliminated and intended messages brought to the forefront.

Some of the physical characteristics that reduce the efficiency of a call-to-action’s motivator include long, poorly spaced text; information overload; labels and graphics that are disconnected from the motivator’s content; and too much unneeded information in proportion to needed information (Screven, 2000, p. 147). To maximize the effectiveness of the motivator the designer should:

  • Remove distracting visuals (Screven, 2000, p. 148)
  • Improve thematic orientation at entrances (Screven, 2000, p. 148)
  • Create leading questions that focus attention on relevant message elements (Screven, 2000, pp. 174 – 175)
  • Remove or relocate secondary and nonessential information, topics, media, and other potential distractions (Screven, 2000, p. 148)
  • Use animated and simulated processes that help users visualize complex processes (Screven, 2000, pp. 174 – 175)
  • Use directive text and graphics that provide clues by pointing our key information (Screven, 2000, pp. 174 – 175)
  • Use matching and sorting tasks that help users connect new concepts with existing knowledge (Screven, 2000, pp. 174 – 175)
  • Create information maps that help users visualize information and interrelationships (Screven, 2000, pp. 174 – 175)

The amount of time a user will spend with a motivator will often increase when the user is “aware that objects, data, relationships, ideas, or other information has some application to their social, emotional, or utilitarian lives” (Screven, 2000, p. 149).

  • When designing cognitive affordances in a transmedia narrative, the designer should determine what level of performance is required of the user. The cognitive domain of Bloom’s revised taxonomy provides a useful hierarchy of cognitive skills that can provide transmedia narrative designers with framework for doing this. The skills, from lowest to highest order, are remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating (Clark, 2010). See Appendix B for a detailed listing of the levels in the cognitive domain and related digital activities. See Appendix E for a list of the components of cognitive affordance quality.

Extraneous processing of information detracts from the user’s construction of knowledge and should be minimized through:

  • Temporal Contiguity: Related information (i.e. a picture and the narrative that describes it) should be presented simultaneous.
  • Spatial Contiguity: Related information (i.e. a picture and the text that describes it) should be places near each other on the page or screen.
  • Signaling: Essential information should be highlighted.
  • Coherence: Extraneous words, sounds, pictures, and other information should be eliminated.
  • Eliminating Redundancy: Redundant information (i.e. on-screen text that appears as the same information is presented by voice narration) should be eliminated.

The user’s ability to receive the basic information presented by the motivator is determined by essential processing. The design of the motivator should ensure essential processing is managed to ensure maximum efficiency using:

  • Segmentation: Information should be broken into “bite-size” pieces that are easy for the user to process.
  • Pretraining: Information explaining the purpose and operation of each element of the motivator should be provided to the user.
  • Modality: Spoken words should be used rather than printed text whenever possible.

The user’s ability to make sense of the basic information received is determined by generative processing. The design of user interactions should foster generative processing through:

  • Personalization: Information should be presented in a conversational rather than formal style.
  • Voice: Narration should be presented using a human voice with standard characteristics (i.e. accent, pitch, etc.).