A nudge is a single timely message with no response required, delivered to learners in the same tools their courses arrive in. It is the fastest content type in Arist to build and the lightest to receive, which makes it the right choice whenever one message will do the job. This guide covers when to reach for a nudge and how to build one, and it's for anyone who builds courses in Arist.

A course teaches over days and a survey asks questions. A nudge tells. Learners read it and move on, with nothing to answer and nothing to complete. That makes a nudge the right tool for three jobs:

Reinforcement is where nudges earn a permanent place in your campaigns. Learners forget most of what a course taught unless something repeats it, so plan a nudge or two into the weeks after a course closes, each one restating the key behavior in a sentence and pointing back to where learners can act on it. Because a nudge asks nothing of the learner, you can send one without spending their patience.

If the message needs an answer, build a survey instead, and if the change takes practice over time, build a course; see Building Surveys and Best Practices for Creating Content.

Nudges start where every piece of content starts, on the Content page.

The About nudge form asks for two things, and Arist requires both.

Saving opens the nudge editor.

The outline holds a single item, Nudge content, which is where you write the message. About nudge under Details keeps the same two fields you just filled in, so you can rename the nudge at any point, and Settings covers how the nudge identifies itself when it sends. The primary button at the top right reads Save until the nudge has a message and Schedule once it does, so it tells you whether the nudge is ready to go out.

Select Nudge content in the outline.

The whole nudge is one screen with two fields, Media and Nudge message. The nudge message is the message itself, and it is the only required piece, so the outline keeps a warning marker on Nudge content and the field reads "Message is required" until you write it.

The message can run up to 1200 characters, the same limit as a lesson body. This field is the same one you write lessons in, with the same emoji picker and the same Formatting options link showing which markdown each delivery method supports, so nothing here works differently from the main editor, and Using the Content Editor covers it in full. Stay well under the limit.

The Media field above the message is optional, and it is the same media block a lesson uses, so anything you already do there works the same way here. It offers two paths:

With AI enabled for your organization, a Generate image button on the Media field creates an image to match your message, and it reads Regenerate image once one exists. See Using the Content Editor for the whole media block, including what each delivery method does with a video.

Select Settings under Details to fill in how the nudge identifies itself when it goes out.

Four fields cover it, and the screen marks the two Arist requires with a red asterisk.

The Content type field arrives already filled in from your organization's Default content type, which an Org Admin sets once under Settings > Organization, and changing it on one nudge leaves that default alone.

The list is searchable, and its values describe kinds of messaging rather than kinds of learning, so it runs from Career Training to Workshop Alerts, Healthcare Alerts, and Mixed. Pick the closest match to what this nudge is announcing.

Below the fields, Dedicated SMS number names the number this nudge's SMS messages send from, and Request dedicated toll free number starts the request when your organization wants one of its own. The same block reads Preferred SMS number instead once your organization has a number set, and Configuring Delivery Methods in Settings covers what Arist does with it.

Check a finished nudge from the Actions menu at the top right.

Use Actions to Preview, Translate, Version, Generate images, Download, or Shorten link the nudge. Preview stays greyed out until the nudge message is written, so finish the message first. It then delivers the nudge to you on the delivery method you pick, so you see exactly what learners will get, and Translate adds more language versions of the nudge. For the full preview walkthrough, see Previewing and Testing Content.

Once the nudge has a message, the primary button at the top right reads Schedule. Select it, and the nudge goes into schedules exactly like a course, reaching the learners, cohorts, and delivery methods you choose, and Scheduling and Delivering Courses walks through every option. Scheduling takes delivery access, so Org Admins, Managers, and Distributors get that button while a Writer sees Save instead and hands the finished nudge to someone who delivers. Two things work differently for nudges: