A Fresh Perspective of Learning Experience Design

It was my 5th grade history class with Ms. Fontaine and we were learning about the heroic travels of many pioneers venturing out west searching for a better life on the Oregon Trail. This topic was part of the Massachusetts state #curriculum and all students would be tested on their knowledge of it. 

Like other students throughout the state, we had a textbook that covered the basics of the pioneers' trek, just like other topics throughout our U.S. History textbook. Time and time again when we covered events in the book, students' eyes would glaze over waiting until the bell rang for recess. 

This topic, however, I remember so vividly because of how my teacher augmented our learning experience. Here’s what we did:

Over a two-hour class period, we were assigned wagon trains with four other classmates. To experience life on the trail, Ms. Fontaine gave us different challenges. For example, we had to cross a river with our wagon and oxen without dropping anything. We had to do this over a balance beam for a simulated experience. Another experience was to barter with other wagons to get the supplies we needed to set up our tents. This required us to negotiate and set a value for each item we had in our wagons. 

From these two hours, we experienced what it was like to be on the Oregon Trail through this addition to the curriculum. Instead of sticking to the monotony of what was covered in the books, Ms. Fontaine took it to the next level.

This was a masterclass in learning experience design. Ms. Fontaine not only took it the extra step, but she instilled this experience with her students 25 years later! 

What is Learning Experience Design?

Let me take a stab at a unique definition for this.

Learning experience design (LXD) is a human-centered approach to learning focused on augmenting employee/learner/user experiences in the moment using various modalities. Instructional design is a subset of LXD with a focus on developing trainings to achieve measurable learning outcomes. 

Instructional design is a subset of learning experience design.

Some parts of this definition I want to point out:

Human-centered approach (HCA)

Lauren Landry from #harvardbusinessschool defines HCA as “a problem-solving technique that puts real people at the center of the development process enabling you to create products and services that resonate and are tailored to your audience’s needs.” 

In the learning space, I see it as a method of analyzing the learners’ background knowledge and contrasting it with the skills needed to be acquired. From this, a designer develops a solution that reaches learners in the moment they need it, as close to the real-life application as possible.  

For example, imagine you are tasked with designing a learning experience for customer service representatives who handle food delivery issues on the phone. The learning journey you are developing is focused on onboarding new employees who all have at least 8 months of experience in a similar role. The goal for the learners is to be able to troubleshoot in the moment the top 10 issues that arise on these customer calls.

Probably the best learning solution for this would take place not in a training beforehand because the learners won’t retain all ten procedures to use during their calls. A more optimal solution would be to provide just-in-time learning through a one-sheeter or job aid that could be referenced when on the call. Additionally, as the learners already have experience in this type of role, we can assume they have the background knowledge around communicating effectively with customers. 

This solution not only provides just-in-time learning, but reinforces the learning content each time a similar issue arises. 

Augmenting employee/learner/user experience

This means adding features on top of something that makes it more learnable. For example, imagine you want to learners to deepen their decision-making skills when dealing with customers whose orders have been canceled. An augmented experience might include a just-in-time micro-learning module embedded directly in Salesforce (if that's the tool our team uses). Ideally, this would appear right after the employee deals with this type of event. Of course, while the content couldn't be delivered in the moment beforehand, directly after the interaction will help the employee reflect on what happened and how they could improve for the next call.

This is considered an augmented experience because it is happening through a typical environment employees participate in, and it is an enhancement to their current work process. This learning interaction is fast taking no more than a few minutes.

In the moment

We learn best when the learning intervention is presented at the exact time needed. Have you ever been on the job and needed to do something but had no idea how to move forward? 

Interestingly enough, to create the graphic below, I needed to use Illustrator to perform an advanced action that I have never done before. When I opened the application, a Learn tab appeared and one of the sections showed me how to intertwine objects. With this in-the-moment step-by-step guide, I was able to complete this action right when I needed it.

Various modalities

Only about 20% of learning happens in formal trainings interventions like ILTs and eLearnings (Improving Performance Through Learning, 2019). While important, we should devote more of our learning experiences on other areas of employee/learner/user experience to make sure we are approaching our interventions when most needed.

Only about 20% of learning happens in formal trainings interventions.

To do this, we should incorporate on-the-job learning and social learning which together account for the rest of the 100% of how learning takes place. Some of these interventions include:

• Job shadowing
• Employee coaching
• 360 performance feedback
• Job aids, instructional examples, checklists, etc.
• Conducting “teach backs”
• Observing excellent performance from skilled peers
• Reviewing others work and providing feedback

These are just a few of other ways to embed learning into the work environment, but really the sky is the limit with these interventions. 

How does learning experience design differ from instructional design?

I see instructional design as a subset of learning experience design. Without a doubt, formal learning interventions are included in LXD, but there’s much more to LXD than training. While some instructional design roles are more similar to LXD, I do think it’s important to differentiate because LXDs do need a broader skillset than traditional instructional designers without a doubt. 

LXDs need to look at the big picture of how learning can fit into the workplace more than just in a controlled training environment. Because of this, user experience design, copywriting and curriculum development are other areas LXDs need to be successful in this role.

How can you get started as an LXD?

Think of the bigger picture of learning from the beginning of the journey all the way to mastery. As we know, learning does not stop after training so plan out how other learning interventions can be embedded in the work experience before during and after the typical trainings take place. 

Next, look at what user experience designers do, not to emulate how they work, but to get a sense of how they think about design. Many UX designers believe that design should be 99% invisible. How true is that for learning experience design? While these are different fields, they are closely related in their views of how they see the role of learners/users.

In addition to UX designers, see the values copywriters and visual designers bring to the table. Words are powerful tools needed to evoke meaning within your learning experiences. How can you take lessons from copywriting and integrate them into your LXD work? The same thing for visual design. What elements of visual design help you tell the story you need to guide the learners throughout the experience?

Lastly, learning experiences usually are not solitary events, but rather involve multiple layers to drive home the adoption of the intended behavior into the workplace. Learn from curriculum developers how they scaffold the learning experience in various modalities to get the ideal results for the learners.

In conclusion, I hope that this article was a good introduction to what learning experiences are and how you can design for them. There's a lot more to be said here, and my goal from this is to whet your whistle on the subject. If you are interested in learning more, check out this episode on the Learning Experience Leader podcast by Greg Williams.