What new designers really need to know

In my post last week, I identified four elements that I felt needed to be in place if an organisation was to make a success of in-house e-learning development: tools, talent, training and, above all, time - the four Ts. I made the point that, more often than not, new designers are provided with plenty of instructional design theory, but nowhere near enough time to practise and get feedback. In fact this is the problem with nearly all corporate training - lots of abstract theory and insufficient opportunity to develop confidence and, ultimately, competence. If we teach our designers this way, it’s not surprising that they then go on to develop self-study content for their audiences which is equally unbalanced.

In my view, the best way to learn how to make stuff is to make stuff yourself and test it out on people. To accelerate the learning and minimise the damage to real learners it probably helps if this process is somewhat directed and supported. So, before getting started, it is worth making sure the new designer understands some basics:

• What e-learning content is and why anyone would want it.
• What simply produced but effective e-learning content looks like.
• How this content can be put together using the chosen authoring tool - basics only.

Then the practice can begin, starting with really short and simple assignments, i.e. work that completed in less than an hour using material that is readily available online. I usually get people to work on these assignments in pairs, to reduce the pressure and get them used to the idea that design is, more often than not, collaborative.

As the assignments get more sophisticated and closer to the sort of work they will be doing for real, more information can be provided, either as feedback or  more formally:

• Why, before you undertake any real-world assignment you need answers to some pretty important questions, in particular related to the performance goal, the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are needed if this goal is to be achieved, the characteristics of the audience and the practical constraints - learning, learners and logistics.
• When self-study digital learning content is useful and when it is not. How it can fit into a blend.
• Why many people find it useful to write specific learning objectives. I wouldn’t overdo this - see my love-hate relationship with learning objectives.
• When to simply present information, when to use an instructional approach, when guided discovery works better, when to create a resource.
• Why it important to engage your learner right up-front and how to achieve this.
• Some of the basics of what we now know about how the brain processes sensory stimuli, the important role played by working memory (and how easily this is overloaded) and the way in which longer-term memories are formed and retrieved.
• What helps to make material memorable.
• About the various media elements - text, speech, still images, animation and video - and how they work together.
• Elementary graphic design and usability principles - not theory but practical tips.
• How to write for the screen and for voiceover.
• How to write valid / reliable assessments.
• About working with stakeholders, particularly subject experts and learners.

Each of these topics has immediate practical application for every designer, which is why I would avoid most of the heavy traditional instructional design theory. Some designers will be interested in this stuff and can follow it up. Others will do brilliant work without it. In this respect, I see e-learning design being more like a craft skill than an intellectual pursuit. More Beatles than Beethoven.