As an experienced instructional designer with almost two decades in the field, I’ve had the privilege of working with organizations of all sizes, from small companies to large corporations. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, it’s crucial to utilize the best practices in our field to achieve success. In this article, we will explore the top five dos and don’ts for instructional designers, allowing you to enhance your craft and create impactful learning materials.
Instructional Design Do’s
1. Understand Your Audience
The most important element of any instructional design project is the learner. Having a thorough understanding of the learner requires analyzing their background and knowledge of the topic and skill level. Consider any learning preferences or needs to fully engage with the content. Additionally, it’s vital to ensure that your content is inclusive and representative of diverse factors. This helps learners connect to the material and can reinforce a sense of belonging inside the organization.
2. Set Clear Learning Objectives
Once you have a clear understanding of your learners, you should define clear and measurable learning objectives that align with the overall course goals. These should support meeting your learners where they currently are and provide targets for where you’d like them to be at the end of the course. Communicate these objectives up front and provide a roadmap for achieving them. The assessments and activities within the course should align to these objectives and reinforce the desired learning outcomes.
3. Engage Learners with Interactive Content
Interactivity in courses is important to engaging learners and creating interest. But it isn’t all about bells and whistles. When you consider incorporating various interactive elements, such as quizzes, simulations, and discussions, consider how they will not only engage the learners and their various senses but also support the learning goals and objectives. Interactivity can include creating a community for learning through discussions and peer learning. These activities foster a dynamic learning environment and can be low-tech options. No matter what interactive elements you choose, add them strategically and purposefully inside your courses.
4. Iterate and Improve
As with any design project, it’s important to embrace an iterative design process, seeking feedback from learners and stakeholders. The first draft of any design project is simply a draft. Drafts leave space to improve, adapt, and evolve. Whether you’re leveraging data-driven, formalized review processes aligned to key performance indicators or asking for informal reviews from colleagues, reviews and feedback from diverse perspectives can only help improve the overall learner experience.
5. Advocate for Accessibility
No matter the delivery mode, content should be accessible by diverse learners with varied abilities. Create content with accessibility in mind by providing alternative formats for content, such as transcripts for videos and text descriptions for images. There are certain industry standards and federal guidelines to create an inclusive learning experience. There are also universal design practices that ensure content is accessible for all learners, regardless of abilities. Become familiar with these to ensure that you’re designing accessible content.
Be sure to review this Quick Reference Guide On Accessibility Standards from eLearning Industry.
Instructional Design Don’ts
1. Avoid Information Overload
Don’t overwhelm learners with excessive information. It can be easy for courses to become bloated, full of extra information, too many resources, or irrelevant materials. This can create courses that are too long and too cumbersome for learners to fully engage in and be successful. Prioritize relevant and essential content and avoid content that is too dense or technical. Opt for clarity and conciseness when working with subject matter experts or content writers.
2. Don’t Neglect Technology Considerations
Always consider the purpose behind any technology or tool in your courses. Remember when we said interactivity isn’t just about bells and whistles? Here’s why. Technology overuse can create excess work, cause confusion for learners with access issues or diverse capabilities or limitations, and generally detract from learning. Instead, leverage interactions, media, and tools when it enhances rather than distracts from the learner experience.
3. Don’t Ignore Learner Feedback
Don’t dismiss learner feedback. While it can sometimes be difficult to distance ourselves from our designs, feedback is a valuable resource for continuous improvement. Negative comments can feel personal, but they are important to finding where we may have made assumptions as designers or missed knowledge gaps. Diversity of perspective and interpretation is valuable and useful in creating a product that meets learners where they are.
4. Don’t Rush the Design Process
Don’t rush through the design process, take time to plan and iterate for optimal results. Rare is the experience that time is unlimited and deadlines don’t loom. But it’s important to take the time to plan and iterate for optimal results. Don’t compromise quality for speed. But also, don’t allow yourself to get bogged down in minutiae. With some prior planning and a well-thought-out design, you will find a balance between speed and quality.
5. Don’t Disregard Trends in Learning and Development
Stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends. I mentioned earlier that our field is at a very exciting moment of innovation. Dozens of tools have emerged within the last decade, and the list of AI content tools being developed continues to grow. Don’t be afraid to test these technologies and innovative approaches that can enhance the learning experience. As advances in AI keep evolving, embrace them and have fun while experimenting.
The joys of being an instructional designer are engaging in constant learning, watching your design come to life, seeing others learn and grow. Every project has its own unique needs and outcomes, and the path to finishing may be different every time. But following these best practices can help ensure you create engaging, effective, and inclusive learning experiences no matter the situation.
Bonus Tip: Keep Your Instructional Design Tools Sharp
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