Kitchen Sink Syndrome is what happens when a simple brief — “help new starters find the bathroom and log into their computer” — turns into a 47-module epic with drag-and-drops, branching scenarios, and a Vyond animation no one asked for .

It’s the purest symptom of Enough Bucket Dysmorphia: you care about the learner, you know how to build every feature, so you do them all at once. The result? Flip cards, accordions, variables, JavaScript — a course so bloated it needs a sitemap and a mascot .

Steve shares the signs, the symptoms, and even his own epic fail — proving that just because you can build it doesn’t mean anyone wants to learn it.

Join the conversation after the show on LinkedIn using #EBD.

The Pathway Paradox is what happens when our obsession with personalisation and “choose-your-own-adventure” learning runs wild. We spend months building multiple pathways, alternate routes, and branching logic — only to discover that most learners click whatever’s fastest to get to the end.

This chapter digs into the irony of over-designing choice: when our good intentions to empower learners actually create confusion, fatigue, and decision paralysis. Steve breaks down how Enough Bucket Dysmorphia fuels the need to build for every learner, every style, every situation — and why that ends up helping no one.

Expect humour, honesty, and a few gut-punch reminders about when more choice becomes less learning.

Join the conversation after the show on LinkedIn using #EBD — and share how you’ve battled the Pathway Paradox in your own designs.

In this episode we read along with Chapter 9 and unpack how “tracking everything” + “forcing everything” turns a course into a digital prison. Timers. Locked slides. Pop-ups that scream “NO SKIPPING.” It’s the perfect storm of EBD.

Steve also shares his own epic failure where he built a course so controlled it basically needed a parole board.

If your progress bar is running the show, this one will hurt… and fix you.

One Big Thing: If your course feels like surveillance, no one’s learning.

Two Small Things: Stop forcing, start trusting. And remove one barrier today.

The Stakeholder Super-Spreader is the villain who can turn your neat, focused learning design into a bloated monster. One stakeholder wants their pet policy added, another wants a 20-minute video, and before you know it the whole thing is infected with extras no learner ever asked for.

This chapter calls out the signs, the symptoms, and the chaos caused when every voice gets a slice of the pie. You’ll recognise the meetings, the feature creep, and the quiet despair that follows.

Join the conversation after the show on LinkedIn using #EBD — and share your own Stakeholder Super-Spreader stories.

The Clutter of Care is what happens when good intentions go rogue. It’s when you care so much about your learners that you give them everything — every detail, every link, every download, every “just in case” explanation — until the message drowns in noise.

This chapter unpacks how compassion can quietly turn into chaos, why overhelping hurts more than it helps, and how to spot when your empathy has become excess. It’s not about caring less — it’s about clearing space so your care actually lands.

Join the conversation after the show on LinkedIn using #EBD — and share how you’ve fought the Clutter of Care in your own work.

Meet Justin Case — the overly cautious learning designer who can’t stop adding just in case content. He’s the voice in your head saying, “We should probably include that… just in case someone needs it.” And before you know it, your neat five-minute module has turned into a 45-minute labyrinth of definitions, disclaimers, and double-ups.

This chapter dives into how Justin Case thinking infects good design. It’s driven by care and fear — fear of missing something, fear of being wrong, fear of leaving a learner unprepared. But instead of clarity, it creates confusion. The learner doesn’t walk away confident — they walk away buried under everything you might have needed to say.

Steve unpacks the psychology behind over-preparation, the subtle ego that hides under “just being thorough,” and why designing for the exception is the fastest way to lose the majority. You’ll hear real-world examples of how to stop feeding your inner Justin and start designing for what’s actually needed — not what might be needed someday.

Because great design isn’t about preparing for every possible scenario — it’s about creating enough space for people to think, act, and learn.

Join the conversation after the show on LinkedIn using #EBD — and share your own encounters with Justin Case.

In this episode, we crack open Chapter 10: The Curse of Conditional Learning — the moment your “quick refresher” turns into a full-blown academic saga with prerequisites that have prerequisites.

This is the symptom where we, as learning designers, panic that learners “won’t understand Topic A without Topics B–Z”…

and suddenly Jimmy can’t submit a risk assessment without completing a 45-minute history lesson on papyrus.

We talk about:

• How a simple update for Jimmy became a branching “lore expansion pack” worthy of Marvel

• The internal spiral of “But what if they don’t know this? Or this? OR THIS?”

• My own disaster: an eight-module prerequisite chain… for expenses

• Why your LMS course structure sometimes looks like a family tree with trust issues

• How front-loading context kills motivation (and the will to live)

This chapter exposes the habit of assuming learners know nothing and must earn the right to see the real content — turning your course into an educational obstacle course.

Perfectionism in Disguise is the sneaky form of Enough Bucket Dysmorphia that pretends to be “quality control.” You tell yourself you’re polishing, refining, making it better — but really, you’re just stuck in endless tweaks and “just one more” revisions. The module doesn’t get sharper, it just gets slower, heavier, and further away from the learner’s needs.

This chapter exposes the signs and symptoms of hidden perfectionism, why it feels productive when it’s not, and how good intentions can end up sinking a project.

Join the conversation after the show on LinkedIn using #EBD — and share how perfectionism has shown up in your own learning design.

Ever built something simple… then sabotaged it because it looked too easy?

Welcome to The Anti-Simplicity Bias — the sneaky EBD strain that convinces learning designers that “simple” means “lazy.”

In this episode, Steve Corney cracks open Chapter 8 of The Enough Bucket and confesses how he’s turned clean, functional courses into corporate drag shows of logic layers, jargon soup, and fake sophistication.

We talk about:

• Why “too basic” is a compliment, not an insult.

• How our fear of being seen as lazy fuels over-complexity.

• The difference between smart simple and simple-minded.

• How to earn simplicity instead of apologising for it.

Because learners don’t need your seven-step framework. They need clarity.

And simplicity isn’t a shortcut — it’s a skill.

🎧 Listen, laugh, and spot your own Anti-Simplicity moments.

Then join the post-episode chat on LinkedIn using #EBD and tell us your favourite “I made it more complicated than it needed to be” story.

Interactivity Fever is that contagious condition where learning designers can’t resist adding more buttons, sliders, click-and-reveals, and drag-and-drops — not because the learner needs them, but because the designer can. It’s the moment where creative ambition quietly replaces purpose, and suddenly your simple learning experience starts looking like a Vegas slot machine.

This chapter calls out how EBD feeds the obsession with interactivity for interactivity’s sake. Steve explores why we confuse movement with engagement, why our love for features outweighs our love for focus, and how to cure the fever before your module turns into an arcade.

If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “But it needs to be interactive,” this one’s for you.

Join the conversation after the show on LinkedIn using #EBD — and confess your own symptoms of Interactivity Fever.

In this episode, Steve Corney kicks things off with the Prologue, unpacking what EBD is, why every learning designer suffers from it, and why it all comes from good intentions. Being a learning designer makes you weird, and this show celebrates that. Join the conversation on LinkedIn using #EBD.