Click, Pause, Breath: Designing for Sustainable Attention in Digital Learning
By Sundus Baig, BPP University
A Preview of my ALTC25 Session
In the rush to digitalize learning, we’ve inadvertently created environments that can exhaust rather than energize our students. As educators and designers, we face a critical question: How do we create digital learning experiences that enhance rather than deplete human cognitive and attentional capacities?
The Digital Learning Paradox
The promise of digital learning was compelling: flexibility, accessibility, and innovation at scale. Yet, conversations with students and colleagues reveal a troubling reality. Despite unprecedented access to resources and connectivity, many learners report feeling overwhelmed, fragmented, and exhausted. The “always-on” culture of digital education has eroded natural boundaries, leaving students struggling to engage deeply while managing information overload and attention fatigue.
This isn’t a failure of technology; it’s a design challenge. And it’s one we can address.
Introducing the Click, Pause, Breath Framework
In my ALTC25 session, I’ll present a practical framework that integrates three essential dimensions of sustainable digital learning:
CLICK represents deliberate engagement: designing learning experiences that respect the limits of working memory and manage cognitive load effectively. Drawing on Cognitive Load Theory, I’ll explore how to chunk content, simplify interfaces, and create clear pathways through complex material.
PAUSE focuses on attention restoration: building strategic recovery points into the learning journey. Informed by Attention Restoration Theory, we’ll demonstrate how structured breaks, offline reflection, and clear transitions can sustain student attention and deepen learning over time.
BREATH embodies empathetic design: creating supportive learning ecosystems through human-centred approaches. This dimension emphasizes iterative feedback, peer support, community building, and co-design with students to ensure learning environments are not just cognitively sound but humanely constructed.
Why This Matters Now
The stakes are high. Student mental health concerns are rising, retention rates remain challenging, and many educators feel the strain of designing and delivering increasingly complex digital experiences. Yet, I believe we have an opportunity to fundamentally reimagine digital learning not as a poor substitute for face-to-face teaching, but as a thoughtfully designed experience that can actually support wellbeing while advancing learning.
This framework isn’t about doing less or lowering standards. It’s about doing better, designing with intention, informed by cognitive science and attention research, and grounded in genuine empathy for the human beings engaging with our courses.
Building on Rich Foundations
This work draws on decades of research in cognitive psychology, attention science, and human-centred design. We stand on the shoulders of giants from Sweller’s groundbreaking work on cognitive load, to the Kaplans’ research on attention restoration, to the human-centred design tradition exemplified by IDEO and others. Our contribution is integrating these perspectives into a coherent, practical framework specifically designed for contemporary digital learning challenges.
An Invitation to Dialogue
More than anything, I hope our session sparks conversation. I want to hear about your experiences what’s working, what’s not, and what questions you’re wrestling with in your own contexts. The Click, Pause, Breath framework is offered not as a prescription, but as a lens for thinking differently about digital learning design.
Together, we can create learning environments that don’t just deliver content, but genuinely support students in becoming the thoughtful, capable, resilient people we hope they’ll be.
Join Us at ALTC25
I’m looking forward to exploring these ideas with you, sharing practical strategies, and learning from your experiences. Let’s work together to design digital learning that sustains rather than exhausts, that deepens rather than fragments, and that honours the full humanity of everyone involved.
See you at ALTC25—ready to Click, Pause, and Breath together.
What challenges are you facing in designing sustainable digital learning experiences? What strategies have you found effective? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or connect at the conference.
ALT’s Annual Conference is one of the UK’s largest conferences for learning technology and digital education professionals. The conference provides a valuable and practical forum for practitioners, researchers, managers and policy-makers from education and industry to solve problems, explore, reflect, influence and learn.
ALTC25 will take place in Glasgow on 23 and 24 October 2025.