When it comes to learning, less is more. Overloading learners with too much information interferes with the learning process.
Most Recent Articles

Using Scale in Your eLearning and Slide Layouts
Use the design principle of scale to provide a focal point in your layout. This shows what is most important in your message.

Designing Learning for Mental Models
By understanding a learner’s mental models, we can improve our user interfaces, instructional interventions and overall learning experiences.

ELC 076: How to Get Started with Data-Driven Learning Design
What about gathering audience data before you start to design? Lori Niles-Hofmann explains how.

Newsletters I Like Outside of Learning & Development
Newsletters are a form of content curation. They streamline your search for interesting tips, resources and ideas. These newsletters are outside of Learning and Development.

ELC 075 Finding a Career Path in Instructional Design
In this solo episode, I talk about the diversity of career paths in instructional design for people who are trying to break into the field.

Using the Think Aloud Protocol to Test Usability of Learning Designs
The think aloud protocol or method is an effective way to discover usability problems with digital learning products.

Design for Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing
People use both top-down processing and bottom-up processing as they are learning. Here’s how to design for both.

Six Ways to Use Examples And Nonexamples To Teach Concepts
The best way to help learners form accurate concepts is to provide examples and nonexamples. Here are 6 ways to do that.

Persuading Clients To Accept Your Course Design
Have you ever had difficulty persuading a client to accept your course design? Here are ten strategies that may help you be more convincing.
Podcasts

ELC 074: Creating Effective Surveys for Instructional Design
When you create surveys for instructional design do you use a process that will get the most accurate results? In this episode, I explore survey design with forms specialist, Caroline Jarrett.

ELC 073: Using The Jobs To Be Done Framework In Learning Design
Jobs To Be Done can help you address the functional, emotional and social aspects of learning.

ELC 072: The Wonderful World of No Code Tools
In this episode, we’re exploring the wonderful world of no code tools. These are powerful apps that you can use without programming.

ELC 071: Learning is the New Business Strategy
We’re living in a time of exploding change and disruption. I speak with Brandon Carson who shows how Learning and Development can lead the way through the digital age where learning is the new business strategy.

ELC 070: Conversation Design for the Voice User Interface
A future skill for instructional designers is designing for voice controls. I speak with Myra Roldan about conversation design for the voice user interface (VUI).

ELC 069: Set Yourself Up to Create Quality eLearning
The quality assurance practices in the elearning industry are subpar. Hadiya Nuriddin explains how to improve the quality of your eLearning.

ELC 068: Applying Social Learning Theory To Learning Design
I speak with Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner about the big ideas in their book, Learning to Make a Difference. They share ways that we can live and learn intentionally in a social learning context.

ELC 067: Educating the New Instructional Designer
How should instructors and professors educate instructional designers to meet the needs of the modern workplace? This episode focuses on the challenges and solutions facing instructional design educators.

ELC 066: Best Of | How to Write Compelling Stories
Story coach and author, Lisa Cron, reveals how to transform your learning scenarios and vignettes into must-read stories. If you use stories in your instructional design and learning design practice, you’ll want to listen.

ELC 065: Pro Tips For Working With Subject Matter Experts
Subject Matter Experts or SMEs are indispensable in learning design. Diane Elkins and Dawn Mahoney provide strategies for dealing with SMEs.