“People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going”. - Earl Nightingale This is true not just at work and in life, but also in instructional design. Okay, sugary quote aside, goals are really, really important in our work in L&D. Goals can be thought of as having two parts: The first part, at the macro level, should answer the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) for the business. We’ll call these business goals. The second, at the drilled down micro level, should define the specific action(s) learners need to take to reach the goal. These we’ll refer to as learning, or performance ..read more

Two of my previous articles covered the idea of engagement in some detail. The first one talked about the different types of learner engagement that there are, and what each one entails. The second one discussed ideas to bring about and enhance emotional engagement. In this third article in the series, I talk about… yes you guessed right. Cognitive engagement. There are many ways to engage learners cognitively at a deeper level. But the most important strategy you might employ would be the use of decision-making scenarios. So let’s talk about these first. A scenario, as you’re al ..read more

In a previous article, I talked about the different types of learner engagement that there are, and what each one entails. In this one, I discuss ideas to bring about and enhance emotional engagement. The first step in bringing about emotional engagement is to start with a strong WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). I previously wrote in detail about generating killer WIIFMs that will make learners want to take your course. A good WIIFM brings about confidence that the topic of the course is really important to them – the learner. Not to their manager, not to the organization, and certainly ..read more

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of learner engagement. And rightly so. If you do anything remotely connected with instructional design, you would be too. Because it’s engagement that opens up the gates to learner involvement in the course. It gets them committed to the outcomes, and then makes them work hard towards ‘getting there’. But unfortunately today, the term learner engagement gets bandied about meaninglessly. Or at least, I get the feeling that people (a.k.a., instructional designers) don’t really understand why engagement is important, or how to focus on the right kind of ..read more

There’s been a growing chorus that L&D should think more like marketing, and that we should borrow principles and approaches from there. This is not surprising. The similarities are all too obvious: L&D and marketing are both trying to change behavior. But beyond this basic realization, we’d do well to understand the fundamental parallels and differences between the two: Marketing is all about persuasion + education. What influences you to choose one particular product or service over another? What is it that convinces you to (finally) take your first step towards the gym? What makes ..read more

I recently came across this article* titled “Why I Don’t Believe in Empathic Design” by Don Norman. Now, in case you aren’t aware, Don Norman is the father of human-centered design, who literally coined the term ‘user experience’. And among his many, many accolades is his seminal book “The Design of Everyday Things”. I’ve followed Don’s work for several years, and hold him in very high regard. So when I came across the article, I was naturally curious. I wanted to know what Don Norman had to say, because it seemed to go against what he’s always argued for. In the article, Don focuses on a key ..read more

I was in a meeting with an upcoming instructional designer. She had reached out on LinkedIn, asking if I could offer some guidance on the areas for her to focus on. A teacher transitioning into instructional design, she excitedly talked about what she’d learnt so far. She had downloaded a trial version of Articulate 360, and was in the process of learning Storyline and Rise. She’d also dabbled with Adobe Photoshop a bit, and was keen to know what other tools she would have to learn to be considered an instructional designer. I said, “…how about actual instructional design skills?” She said ..read more

Many of us have grown up hearing about marketing campaigns, advertising campaigns and political campaigns, but learning campaigns are a relatively new kid on the block. The idea has picked up pace recently, so much so that almost everyone talks about it. Specifically, there’s a lot of talk about L&D having to ‘think like a marketer’ and using ‘marketing campaigns for learning’. But not many know the differences, why learning campaigns work, or how to do them well. So that’s my goal in this article. I will first address the difference between a learning campaign and a marketing-for-learnin ..read more

Not long ago, the touchpad on my laptop stopped working. Actually, it was technically working, but became a pain to use. I would slide left on the touchpad with my index, and the cursor on the screen would confidently move right. I’d try to scroll down using two fingers, and the screen would stubbornly stay in place. Editing and cropping images was out of the question. I had to review storyboards, put together proposals, work on presentations… you can imagine my helpless state. Many exasperating moments later, I had to teach myself to (read: force myself to) work with just the keyboard. (We w ..read more

I’ve written previously (quite a bit, in fact!) about learner personas, and how to make them work for you. You are already aware that we create personas so we can understand our audience better. With personas, we’re also able to empathize with their character, their ambitions and their struggles, so we can create targeted solutions to help address them. In this post, I want to focus on this empathy. While creating personas, the practice is to collect all the information needed, and then build out each persona in the form of a CV. There are even templates available that you can download and fi ..read more