by Ethan Edwards, chief instructional strategist

I want to start out by saying that I think instructional design is a profession and instruction is a craft that rests on a considerable volume of scientific research about learning and also on a rich tradition of creativity and inspiration in the art of teaching.  I am supported in this belief by the universities that grant advanced degrees in instructional design, the body of literature that documents research in training effectiveness, and the work of professional organizations that strive to advance the field through networking and education activities.

I also know that many of us who find ourselves involved in e-learning have come to this field from a variety of paths.  To get our jobs done we seek pointers from all quarters, even as we are sometimes equipped with inadequate tools, resources, or time.  But, as we struggle to put together e-learning lessons while we simultaneously try to grow our professional skills, it’s important to remember that the training isn’t justified by what we create, but rather by the extent that the e-learning modules we create are effective tools to improve readiness and ability to perform, either for individuals or for an overall organization.  In other words, the primary requirement of training is that it must have an effect on the learner.

It’s in that context that I hear the instructional design advice given to aspiring e-learning designers from various reputable sources.  And frankly it almost makes me despair.  Recent topics I have encountered from many directions have ranged from: 

• “Fun fonts to liven your e-learning”
• “New PowerPoint templates for e-learning”
• “Layout patterns to use for comics.” 

These may all be, at some point, matters of consideration in the development of an online piece, but they have little to do with the core focus of instructional design, and are really unhelpful in moving those for whom the advice is intended toward becoming skilled designers of e-learning.  We know that learning succeeds based on the active engagement and thinking carried out by the learner. And the role of the instructional designer in e-learning is to craft environments to facilitate such engagement. Yet these “design” ideas too often merely serve to decorate a static presentation of information to which little thought has been given.  It’s almost as if designing instruction is equivalent to designing greeting cards or scrapbooking.  If that were true, to improve e-learning, our authoring tools need to start offering the digital equivalent of pinking sheers and glitter pens.  (People laugh at my comparison of e-learning to scrapbooking as if is a joke.  It is intended to prompt a smile, but it is far from a joke.  In thinking about this blog, I visited several online scrapbooking sites.  On three of them I found tools that presented templates for comic book style layouts that were nearly indistinguishable from those I have seen presented by vendors at e-learning tradeshows and in other online e-learning resources.)

I know the defense of such advice is that “At least it is a start.”  In a world that is constantly pushing for rapid e-learning, these tools and techniques allow e-learning designers to do something.  But what is that really worth? 

Allow me to transfer this thinking to another field to see how this logic holds.  Imagine, for a moment, that the field of dentistry experienced some pressures that arbitrarily set an expectation that dentistry needed to be provided by nearly anyone, that dental instruments were out of the range of allowable budgets, and that the whole enterprise had to be quicker.  One way to respond to this would be to cut preparation time and tool knowledge by retaining all the outward signs of dentistry and then simply decline to actually examine anyone’s teeth.  We could still have waiting rooms stocked with out-of-date Good Housekeeping and Junior Highlights magazines, and receptionists to offer icy stares.  Patients could be invited in to sit in the dentist chair; the chair could be raised and lowered; patients could even be invited to spit into the sink before being sent on their way.  The dentist could report impressive numbers of how cheaply and pleasantly so many patients can be served.  But we know that in this scenario, in contradiction to all outward appearances, the core requirement of providing dentistry would be absent.  There would be no positive effect on dental health.

This analogy may seem far-fetched, but isn’t that really what we are doing when we abandon the core function of instructional design and instead focus exclusively on secondary aspects of design?  We have switched the focus to something that helps us feel good about ourselves, forgetting that we don’t really matter all that much—it’s what new skills the learner walks away with that matter.  And we can really only get at that by starting with the interactivity, and then adding additional elements as resources allow. 

The core of interactivity is not about what something looks like.  It is about what challenge the learner is asked to solve and what ways are provided to respond to that challenge.  Surrounding that is contextual framing that provides meaning to the enterprise and feedback (perhaps both formal and intrinsic) to shape the learner’s performance moving forward.  To be sure, the visual elements and even the style of illustration can have a huge impact in the success of an interaction, particularly in how the visual environment can set context and provide impactful feedback (although these are by no means limited to visual elements--storytelling and other simple text elements can sometimes serve just as well).  But the point is that the visuals (the speech bubbles, the fun fonts, the quirky cartoon panels) are not the starting point and are certainly not sufficient to accomplish much of anything on their own.

To be clear, I think the design ideas I may appear to be criticizing can be really important when they are used for some specific instructional purpose.  I’ve been using the “comic book panel” advice in this article as an example of unhelpful advice.  I actually think that is a great technique if it can serve a functional purpose, rather than just as a desperate attempt to try to break up the monotony of yet another page of text.  We actually incorporated this layout idea into work we did for sales training for Journeys shoe stores.  We had a young, alternative learner population that experience showed were comfortable with the format of graphic novels.  And instructionally, we wanted them to begin to envision sales interactions independently and make choices likely to end in success.  We also knew that text-driven scenarios of sufficient details would be too long and frankly too boring for this audience.  Cost, timing, and maintenance issues precluded using any sort of video staging.  But using the traditional layouts of graphic novels, we were able to first address the instructional demands of the situation but also work within our project limits and simultaneously create a really engaging visual context.  Instead of trivializing important content, this treatment elevated the interactivity to greater significance than it could have had if it had remained text-bound.  But the point is, we didn’t start out with a layout looking for a place to apply it; rather we identified the requirements of a particular interaction and then applied this visual approach because it satisfied those demands better than the alternatives. 

So what is my advice instead?  I don’t have a quick fix, but I think I do have advice for a path that leads to success: 

• First, find a tool that will support interactivity.  Most tools are sold and evaluated on how they present information.  That’s not a particularly useful deciding factor, because ALL tools can present information in a relatively straightforward manner.  The differences from one to another will provide you little advantage in the long run.  Instead, concentrate on the options the tool provides for interactivity, balance that with the perceived usability and your own development resources, and select the one that seems to fit you best.  Tools that don’t support variables in some way and tools that restrict the graphical elements and placement of responses in the interactions are unlikely to be successful tools in the long run.

• Then, when you start designing, don’t start by laying out a content presentation.  Start by picking an activity that reflects one of the terminal objectives, and, not caring in any way what it looks like, figure out how you can use the interactive functionality to create an environment where the learner might perform an approximation of that behavior.  You may have to make several attempts.  But you know that if a learner satisfies this challenge, your training will have had a concrete effect.

• Finally, after you have an idea of the interaction, start to think how you might use the media elements at your command to bring this interaction to life.  Perhaps what you can do will be limited, but wherever you take the interaction , you will know that you have at least addressed the problem that is facing the learner.

The good news is, this is doable, but like most things that are worthwhile, the tempting easy path usually takes us astray.