Learning Experience Design: The Last Days of Instructional Design

Learning Experience Design (LXD) is a new field of practice which is slowly replacing Instructional Design (ID) in corporate learning. LXD proponents often describe it as everything ID is missing or generally criticized for lacking learner-centered qualities. Many claim LXD is learner-centered and therefore portray it as superior to ID. Let’s admit it, LXD does sound “cooler” than ID and the Learning and Development (L&D) industry is no stranger to the “next best thing” syndrome year after year. This post takes a look at LXD, what it has to offer and why it will soon replace instructional design in corporate learning environments.

Origins of LXD

The origin of LXD is hard to track down as there are conflicting bits of information on the Interweb about it. Googling “learning experience design” will lead you to about a dozen blog articles and the learningexperiencedesign.com site created by Niels Floor. On the site, Niels defines LXD as “the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human centered and goal oriented way”. Niels has a strong academic background in Interaction Design and he also claims to have coined the term “LXD” in May of 2007. A couple of other articles give Connie Malamed credit for the term, but they were written much later than 2007. On a short LinkedIn message chat, I asked Niels what motivated him to coin LXD and he answered: “To me it's always been about human interaction through any interface, digital or not. As I entered the domain of education by becoming a part time teacher I noticed I had quite different views on how we can educate students. This view was also influenced by doing educational projects for clients as a designer and entrepreneur. The thought process of ‘how would a designer shape the way we learn’ and ‘what kind of methods or tools would such a designer use’ led me to the concept of learning experience design.” Given Niels explanation, much of the documentation on his site and the existence of the annual LXD Conference or LXCON, it seems at this point the concept of LXD was created by him. However, Niels’ blog article Learning Experience Design is NOT instructional design and many others praising LXD have a limited view of ID and this can explain why there’s such a strong bias to disassociate from it while promoting the “new way”: LXD.

Learning Experience Design is the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human centered and goal oriented way

Niels Floor

Why LXD?

For the most part, ID critics seem to use the worst possible example of instructional design i.e. not learner-centered, not systemic, only formal, to create something new out of nothing. Based on its origins, LXD is at best 11 years old and there’s very little substantial research to go by. The most interesting part of LXD is that it seems to be founded on User Experience Design (UXD) principles, but with a learning twist. The article Learning Experience Design: What you need to know by Sundeep Singh Pardal seems to reiterate such notion. UXD focuses on the usability or ease of use of products and services in a human-centered approach. The UX component is very applicable of digital learning solutions as it affects usability and performance. LXD is about the design of the activities learners experience and claims to be learner-centered. It combines elements of neuroscience, design thinking, game design, experiential learning and graphic design principles. According to Niels, LXD is not about instruction, courses or training materials. Therefore, if it’s not about these things; then, LXD is just about the learner and the experience? What about the business or organizational entity goals? What are the LX designers doing to evaluate the outcomes of their design on business outcomes? These are questions the LXD framework doesn’t seem to answer yet.

Goodbye Instructional Designer

Although ID has many strengths for the creation of learning and performance solutions with measurable outcomes; it has many inherent weaknesses. ID was created for the US military, by educational psychologists and other highly educated professionals. In corporate learning, many IDs are not formally trained in any learning discipline and are selected for the role simply because their job responsibilities shifted. Some of these folks have developed into great IDs, but many never had a real opportunity to truly practice the science of instructional design as it was meant to be. This has led what I call a dilution of the ID practice where it became synonymous with content development. Content developers are only concerned with the creation of content, not what happens before, during or after content is delivered. Because of this dilution, ID has become an easy target for other practices to single out its weaknesses and make the best case for abandoning a field with over 40 years of scientific research which addresses the learner, its environment and the systemic impact of learning events. Is LXD the natural evolution of ID given these circumstances or is it an escape from poor instructional design practice? It won’t be long before the instructional designer of today will have to re-brand itself as an LX designer to remain relevant and competitive in the job market. Mark my words ; )

Within two or three years from now, instructional designers will be a rare find. Here’s why:

• Employers are changing their ID job posts to LX Designer today, although job descriptions seem to remain intact.
• LXD is now a buzzword and many L&D influencers/vendors will continue to promote it.
• Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) will gain more traction as alternatives to the LMS and LX designers will be associated with the support of LXP design.

Wrap Up

In summary, LXD emphasizes the creation of experiences for learning using design thinking and UX principles. LXD is the brainchild of Niels Floor, an Interaction Designer with an academic background. Although it lacks substantial academic research to support it, LXD is gaining significant traction among L&D practitioners. Finally, as employers replace the instructional designer label with LX Designer, the IDs of today will inevitably become LX Designers in a few years.

What do you think? If you call yourself an instructional designer today, are there any industry changes that will make you switch to the LXD label?