Hence the importance of immediate availability of the needed information. Any delay increases the mental effort in keeping the interest alive. If the required effort is great, only topics of very high interest will be pursued. On the other hand, if the required effort is minimal, then many topics become of interest. As web technology reduces the effort to access information, the potential for interest in many diverse topics grows for individuals.
Natural curiosity has at last a chance to blossom.
The central idea developed here is that information is becoming readily accessible in a variety of compelling forms, and that this information-rich context can dramatically affect how students and people in general go about learning. From that notion follow implications for how we design instruction, that is for how we develop learning environments. The design model presented here is framed by the need to interest the user on a continual basis. This can be thought of in terms of provoking learning , that is enabling it to spontaneously happen in the context of the user's interaction with web resources as this interaction takes place in a somewhat un-planned and perhaps even haphazard way. The design model is couched within a standard software development life-cycle process based on a general systems approach.