Instructional Design to Learning Experience Design: A New Attitude

The role of the Instructional Designer (ID) is undergoing a rapid evolution. eLearning development and delivery tools are becoming more powerful. Technologies, like xAPI, have made it possible to track virtually any kind of interaction across learning and talent management platforms. In fact, learning industry thought leaders like Josh Bersin point to the rapid rise of the Learning Experience Platform (LXP) disrupting the $4 Billion+ LMS market.

Consciously or otherwise, employers are requiring a new skill set that crosses into the new role of Learning Experience Designer (LXD).

What does all this mean for the ID? The career path of the website developer offers hints. It doesn’t seem that long ago when anyone who could develop an HTML web page was in high demand. As the tools got smarter, creating a web page got easier, and web developers had to learn skills beyond pushing content online.

Today, new tools and technologies enable visitors to access rich content and to interact with it. Users have grown to expect a tailored online experience. They want—no, need—to find exactly what they’re looking for, no more, no less, delivered in a visually explosive way that excites and delights them. All while delivered seamlessly across their desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

The role of the website developer has had to evolve to meet these growing demands of end users. Today’s successful web developers are well versed in User Experience (UX) design—the practice of creating and enhancing the usability, accessibility, and pleasure users experience when engaging with online content.

The career path for the ID is following a parallel track. I see it in our customers, who increasingly ask their internal Instructional Designers to adopt a UX focus. Some call it out specifically, or tack a few lines onto the ID job description. Others don’t even yet recognize what they are asking for, but know their current learning isn’t living up to expectations. Consciously or otherwise, employers are requiring a new skill set that crosses into the new role of Learning Experience Designer (LXD).

This is no small ask, given how many hats most IDs already wear. The ID has always been responsible for uncovering and summarizing organizational needs in actionable learning objectives, developing and delivering the right instruction to meet those objectives, and evaluating learning outcomes. To accomplish all of this requires a strong degree of business savvy and big picture thinking about organizational and talent development goals.

The move from ID to LXD requires yet another expansion in thinking. The LXD amps up the focus on meeting learner motivations and needs using a wider range of emerging technologies. To successfully transition from ID to LXD will require expanded thinking about how learners receive and process learning through a much wider range of media and delivery options. 

The evolving Learning Experience Platform offers new delivery and tracking considerations outside of the structure of an LMS, including options for delivering micro-learning modules on the job. New options for learning media like Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) are opening up new ways to engage learners. Gamification built into mobile apps is shining new light on ways to make learning sticky and change behavior.

The LXD will need to guide their organization in collecting and making sense of data that goes far beyond tracking course completions. With so many possibilities, organizations will look to your guidance less for what they can do and more for what they should do in order to change behavior and improve performance, safety, and engagement.

Where should you start your ID to LXD transformation? One tool that can help you skill-up is the Learning Experience Canvas. I’ll talk more about the LX Canvas in my next article.

Many thanks to Chris Willis for her thoughts on this topic!

How is your ID role changing?