What exactly is a “learning curve”? I realize “has a steep learning curve” means “takes a long time to learn,” but do people actuall use such a graph? What exactly does it plot - knowledge vs. amount of time spent learning?
In my job, one a tad out of the norm, the learning curve is exponential.
Learning curves, with the X axis representing time and Y axis representing percent of knowledge need to be learned, are varied. Steep learning curves tend to present all information to be learned fairly quickly.
An example:
In training my sailors, I need to first familiarize them with certain words, before I can actually begin to train them for the job they must do. I can’t tell them what the helm and lee helm do, until they know about port, starboard, closest points of approach, speed, chain of command on the bridge and the like.
The actual information dump on how to do the job may take only two days. And other day for them to demonstrate what they’ve learned.
But it can take up to two weeks for them to gain the basic knowledge needed to unterstand the instructions on how to do the actual task.
This would be graphed as a very gradual slope with a sharp rise at the two week mark.
Per your OP, “has a steep learning curve” means “needing to learn all the information very quickly”. This is the connotation most people most people have for this analogy.
It’s not a hard rule but time is usually the X-axis of a chart, that would make a steep curve one where you are forced to learn quickly.
This is the logical interpretation, but I’ve heard the phrase used many times, not a single one of them when this was what the speaker meant.
When I’ve heard this phrase, it’s always meant that there is much to be learned, ergo it will take a long time. Makes no sense when you look at the curve itself, but invariably that’s the way it’s used.
So what type of things can you apply a learning curve to? Many people talk about various products (especially computer software) having steeper learning curves than others. Is this incorrect usage? Or is it valid in the sense that a shallow learning curve means it takes longer to learn to use all the features in the product?