Like all designers these days, learning experience designers are under pressure. We must find the most effective ways to meet the needs of a target audience, improve workplace performance and measure outcomes in terms of business metrics. That’s a tall order.
If you are seeking inspiration, you may find it in product design strategies. The field of product design is continuously searching for disruption and innovation. Here are some product design principles that I find valuable.
1. Look for unmet needs
Rather than looking at what everyone else is doing, the best product designers try to find a problem that desperately needs to be solved or a need that still needs to be fulfilled. We can do the same thing. First, find the underlying cause of a workplace performance problem using tools like a root cause analysis.
When you uncover the cause, start with fresh ideas for solving the problem. You can try Design Thinking or other creative approaches to improve your chances of generating an effective solution. Identifying unmet needs as they relate to workplace performance can solve problems in a unique way.
2. Push the prototype
There is nothing as helpful as a prototype to communicate your ideas. Time and again, when I show clients even a rudimentary prototype, their brains seem to light up with understanding. The concrete nature of the prototype brings more clarity than words alone. After all, how can another person with unique experiences (or lack of experience) mentally visualize the same as I do?
You can create low-fidelity prototypes with paper, pencil, and sticky notes. If you want to go digital, try PowerPoint mockups or visualize a story’s path with Twine. There are also wireframe prototyping tools like Balsamiq or your favorite authoring tool.
One key thing to avoid when prototyping is your perfectionist tendency to make things pixel-perfect. The deeper you invest yourself in a prototype, the more likely you are to resist necessary feedback and revisions.
3. Become a design ethnographer
Good product design teams take user research seriously. Some who do user research consider themselves design ethnographers, which is similar to an anthropologist for users. They observe people in their natural habitat or in the wild to gain deeper insights into challenges and potential solutions. In UX Design, this is considered field research. In UX Design, this is considered field research. See 5 User Experience Research Techniques to Borrow for Learning Experience Design.
Rather than only asking users what they want, an alternative method “is to examine what people do, rather than what they say they do.” The premise is based on the idea that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. What people do is a better indicator of the underlying user need (from User Focus, a currently inactive website).
4. Leverage cross-functional teams for creative ideas
Product design teams might include people in design, research, engineering, marketing, and manufacturing. The mix may sometimes be explosive, but where there are sparks, there can also be a creative fire. Although you might choose a different blend for learning design, working with people with diverse backgrounds, educations, and experiences can create a stimulating environment for innovation.
Cross-functional teams can provide fresh perspectives to their members. When organizations keep people with similar roles and interests in a silo, the organization fails to benefit from employees building meaningful relationships and sharing their expertise. Cross-functional teams can provide fresh perspectives to its members. When organizations keep people with similar roles and interests in a silo, the organization fails to benefit from employees building meaningful relationships and sharing their expertise.
5. Determine where to get feedback
It’s like walking a tightrope. On the one hand, Learning Design requires meaningful feedback from audience members. On the other hand, people from the target audience are probably not experts in learning. Therefore, plan ahead of time to balance the feedback you get from users with other learning professionals. Consider also getting feedback from peers, mentors, managers, or advisors. (Listen or download the transcript for How to Get Feedback from Learners to Improve Your Design.)
6. Release a Minimum Awesome Product
Entrepreneurs often talk of releasing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This is a reduced version of a product that gets the job done with the fewest features possible. It allows a company to launch a product and collect data for future iterations.
However, I think product designer and entrepreneur Steve Vassallo has a classier idea when he writes about how AirBnB created a Minimum Awesome Product (MAP). If you are designing a minimal learning product with the intention of iterating, go for awesome. This product will provide value and relevance as well as a delightful experience.
You can read Steve’s free book: The Way to Design.
7. Don’t separate the product from the experience
Although you may distinguish between a learning product and the experience of using it, the user does not—at least not according to Joshua Porter of the design blog Bokardo. To the person using your work, the product and the experience are one and the same.
If you think back to the first time you used your favorite digital device, you may remember how the product and the experience merged into one. Translating that to the world of instructional design means that every visual you create, sentence you write, and interaction you design creates an experience that is the product.
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