This is a sample of the Active/Passive voice training I created for the Training team at the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Why

As I was reviewing the modules and instructor-led training materials the instructional designers were creating, I noticed there was a tendency to use passive instead of active voice in their content. I learned from 508 compliance training at another company that passive voice in content more words than necessary, causing ambiguity and sometimes confusion in meaning. This goes against 508 compliance rules that apply to government documents and trainings. It also makes content difficult to fit into small spaces, such as modules created in PowerPoint and Captivate.

Research

To determine whether this was an issue, I interviewed people from a few other departments and gathered their feedback for analysis. My findings showed that people found our training materials to be confusing and hard to understand.

Design

In order to address this issue, I created the Organizational Development Active vs. Passive Voice PowerPoint presentation showing the difference between active and passive voice. The presentation included:

• Definitions of active and passive voice

• Comparison between the two styles

• Exercises for converting sentences written in passive voice to active

Result

I presented the training during an OD team meeting. The team appreciated the training and implemented it into their content writing, improving the training module evaluation scores by over 10%.