Learning Experience Design as a New Paradigm for Learning & Education

Over the past two decades, customer expectations have changed. Today, we often expect the company selling a product or service to also provide a positive experience as part of the deal. What does this mean for learning and development managers in an organization? This Post answers this question and presents a new model for Learning Experience Management and Design (LX / LXM/ LXD): the Double-Loop Learning Experience Flywheel.

The Experience Economy Is Here!

Here is a short personal story about it. I recently bought a new smartphone. What fascinated me most when switching from the old to the new product was not the beautiful design or the better camera – it was how easy the switch itself was to make. With a few clicks and swipes all my data, pictures, and apps were back on my phone – only this time with an even faster user interface. And unlocking it is also easier, thanks to facial ID. What a well-managed (user) experience!

So what is the experience economy? It’s an economy in which, as the Harvard Business Review so aptly put it, "A company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event."

Where a simple product used to be sufficient, companies now differentiate themselves from the competition or risk losing their customers. Increasingly, this is done through services: for example, by subscribing to a product that includes different support levels. However, additional services are often not enough. The experience of customers and employees has become a decisive competitive factor.

Pioneers in this area are companies from the B2C sector such as Apple, Nike, or The Walt Disney Company. The move toward experience is the reason for the customer experience management (CXM) mantra:

●       Turn customers into fans

●       Turn products into obsessions

●       Turn employees into ambassadors

●       Turn brands into movements

Joe Pine aptly described this mantra over 20 years ago in his seminal book, The Experience Economy. But the opposite is also true: a negative experience at a touchpoint (i.e. any interaction with customers) will push customers or users toward switching services or products. 

Products and services are always defined from the customer's perspective. In a digital world, another experience is increasingly important: the user experience (UX). Agile approaches like SCRUM, lean startup, or design thinking are leading the way. These user-centered approaches can be seen in most new, successful digital businesses.

It is important to note that this model offers another good reason for focusing on employees. Only those with a good employee experience can provide a good customer experience. 

Customer Experience as a Model for Learning and Development

Learning, education, and people development are all affected by the experience economy. Learning experience management focuses on the learner and his or her experience – whereby solutions are developed from the learner’s perspective. The goal is to have an exciting, flexible, and engaging way to grow the skills and knowledge. To achieve this, data on needs, problems, pain points, and experiences along all a learner’s touch points must be collected, analyzed, and optimized. This means that the learning experience is much more than "just" an educational product, like a course or a learning portal.

Another example of capturing the true learners experience is the working out loud (WOL) method. WOL is a peer-led method for learning collaboration and networking in small groups with a set of guidelines. One of the main reasons it is trending is the positive emotional experience an individual feels when learning in a network surrounded by other people.

Learning Experience Management (LXM) shows high promise. Learning should be:

• Engaging
• Easy to consume
• Timesaving
• Relevant
• Flexible

However Learning Experience Management is more than just a user experience or a simple new tool. Thats why we lay out a more holistic view including the values and mindset, possible methods and frameworks to design learning experiences as well as supporting technology.

In the following section, we will concentrate on showing the three different components of learning experience design and a process model. But first, let’s sharpen our understanding of LX.

Figure 1: The Three Elements of Learning Experience Design

Framework Conditions and Enablers

Recognize the (New) Mindset, Values, and Purpose

The goals of a good learning experience are not just passing an exam or earning a certificate. Learning experience happens inside the individual learner or in his / her interactions. It can include knowledge building, knowledge transfer, behavioral change, reflection of mental models & attitudes, inspiration, and knowledge retrieval.

In the industrial age, certain behavioral and cognitive approaches helped to scale and build efficiency. They also had static hierarchical values and have contributed to stereotypes of the industrial age man:

Management thinks and steers, further down the hierarchy it is executed.

Of course, in today's VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world, this is not enough to be successful. It also does not fit to contemporary values like health, belonging, security - which actually are constantly changing. More recent pedagogic approaches like constructivism or connectivism also position other values since years, which need to be more commonly used.

Some Keywords – without claiming completeness – are here:

• Relevance
• Customer & People Centricity
• Self-organization and self-control in an agile network
• Autonomy
• Empathy
• Social support, cooperation and networking
• Co-creation & decentralization
• Most importantly: Learner-centered

Of course, goals regarding output, revenue and margins, product-market fit, and innovation are still important. In organizational terms, job titles such as instructional designer, consultant, trainer, or learning consultant need to become “learning experience designer”.

A purpose or mission statement related to learning experience is also important. For example: "To build sustainable learning experiences that learners love – and that matter".

In addition, as mentioned above, it is important to check values and possibly define new ones. 

Understand and Use Existing Frameworks and Models

Like the mindset topic, learning experience also means a further development of methods, frameworks, and models. Psychologically and pedagogically this means: to enable learning experience cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally. In practice, this means developing a holistic approach in terms of head/mind and heart/feeling.

Figure 2: Experiential Learning According to Kolb

In Kolb’s model, a concrete experience, like driving a car, forms the basis for observation and self-reflection. The learner sees what works and what doesn't, and which options for improvement are possible (abstract conceptualization).

Each new action forms of an active experiment, and the concrete experience thus follows the cyclic pattern of previous experience, further attempts or experiments, and further reflection.

The model is supplemented, for example, by external feedback from coaches or with checklists or questions for reflection. It can thus be used in the form of a job aid, checklist, or as a design guideline for workshops, e-learning, or other learning opportunities.

Notice how the lean-startup model that cycles "build – measure – learn" resembles the model, even if it comes from a different context.

Kolb’s model, however, is focused on the individual. The following two models, which do not describe experience-based or experiential learning, deal with network learning.

Complementing models for learning in the network

In his paper "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age" G. Siemens (2005) goes beyond the limits of previous learning models. He emphasizes that the learning process takes place in networks, and tends to evolve towards more informal, technology-supported, continuous learning. Due to the ever-increasing amount of information that people contend with every day, trusting the source of information has become increasingly important. Connectivism emphasizes the need to network with one's environment, the available content, and people to make learning possible in today's super-complex world. This can be supported by technical tools and social media. For a successful learning process, Siemens requires self-organization.

A second model, Wenger and Lave's theory of situated learning, focuses on how learning is embedded in situational contexts. The negotiation of meaning in the social context enables individual learning. Experience is also important here – but more so in the community and in collaboration.

Learning experience designers should thus create opportunities for reflection with peers that allow to exchange experiences and gain perspectives from others. Also you can use the model of experiential learning which was adapted from Kolb as a checklist for designing learning.

Agile Approaches from SCRUM, Lean-Startup to Design Thinking

These approaches initially came from the software sector, since the complexity and dynamics of sequential approaches were no longer successful there. General characteristics are, for example:

• Iterative approach with the goal of quickly creating prototypes (minimum viable product), which are then re-examined, tested, and further improved.
• Success is evaluated holistically in terms of technical feasibility, desirability (human and market-demand), and viability (business potential).
• Time limiting (timeboxing) steps allows workers to concentrate on what is important.
• Visualization on whiteboards or brown paper – known are Kanban Boards for task management or canvas approaches like the business model canvas, which are filled out together.
• Working in cross-functional, interdisciplinary teams is faster than going through different hierarchies and silos sequentially. Roles are e.g. developers, design experts, customer representatives (product owners), moderators or agile coaches.
• Limited and focused work/ to do lists, often described in backlogs and processed in time intervals (sprints).
• Team self-management
• Target group representatives are involved in the form of user research, e.g. via interviews.

Figure 3: SAP's Design Thinking Approach 

SAP reorganized software development years ago. Lean and SCRUM were central in this process. Design thinking became well known, as it was actively promoted by Hasso Plattner, one of SAP’s founders. It was used far beyond the actual design phase of software and has since developed into a general model for problem solving in any area.

These methods form a kind of toolbox for the approach laid out below.

Select Technology and Platforms

When it comes to technology, learning experience platforms (LXP) are on the rise. They are usually positioned where current learning portals and learning management systems (LMS) have difficulties: in finding relevant content. This issue of “discovery” is becoming increasingly important in e-commerce as well, due to general information overload. Furthermore, LMSs were built primarily for training departments and their process administration rather than for the individual learners themselves.

LXPs offer a personalized learning experience with various features: manually or automatically selected, in-house learning content; external, free or paid content from the internet (manually or semi-automatically curated); and user-generated content. Typically, they include possibilities for collaboration and exchange as well as personalization, for example via playlists.

Data always form the basis for personalization. And the personalization can be rule-based, via skills and job roles, user data such as ratings, bookings, or interests.

The pattern recognition provided by machine learning will continue to improve and automate personalization in the future. One example is through adaptive learning, where learning content is offered depending on the skill or knowledge level, format preference, or even on a user’s emotional state based on facial expressions. Another possibility for personalization will be dialog-based systems, also known as conversational user interfaces. The chatbot Ed-the-Bot in SAP Learning Hub, the digital SAP learning offering, is a great example that represents the evolution of such tools. In that past, it “only” answered questions from users. Now, it provides recommendations based on learning activities.

Netflix is often used as a metaphor for LXPs, although it has another objective: maximizing the time users consume it, as opposed to relevant learning experiences, which should also be time effective.

LXPs are backed by technologies such as:

• Machine learning
• Collaboration tools, like forums, wikis, and enterprise social networks
• Mobile apps
• Any simple user-centric design

LMSs should be technically integrated – be it for tracking purposes or process efficiency, like the management of events or the automation of processes such as registration, billing, or reporting. Such platforms can stand side by side, or the LXP can be the new frontend.

Companies also tend to build their own LXPs out of existing tools using the metaphor of “learning ecosystems”. There enterprise social software solutions are increasingly used as frontends for providing learning experiences, where other solutions are embedded, like content catalogues or recommendations in groups, personalized feeds, or widgets. Another trend is the move to mobile apps entirely, as smartphones are more prominent than ever.

The current market shows that LMS providers are trying to develop further in the direction of LXPs, but completely new platforms are emerging in parallel.

A New Framework: The Double Loop Learning Experience Flywheel

The change from instructional design to learning experience design fundamentally transforms learning and development. The learner becomes the most important part of the new set-up, be it the decentralized creation of content by experts, self-directed collaboration, provision of self-services, and offers for self-directed learning – in terms of pull, not only push, of new learning options.

Looking at learning content, in addition to the change in content formats, there is also a change in content properties. For example, short, mobile-accessible videos are becoming increasingly popular. Motivation and engagement design, also known as gamification, offers more learner-centric characteristics with approaches such as elegant design, missions, badges, and storytelling – all of which are more relevant and motivating. Based on linear project methods, learning options have been developed step by step in the past. The process model known as ADDIE from instructional design can be used to demonstrate this.

The ADDIE Approach is a process model for designing instruction and training and follows the phases Analysis > Design > Develop > Implement > Evaluate

However, agile methods are closer to the customer and can also cope better with complexity and rapid changes in the environment.

Clearly, there is a rich toolkit of methods available that can be adapted to the area of learning and people development, and learning experiences can be designed from a learner’s perspective instead of a user story/use cases perspective.

The Double-Loop Learning Experience Flywheel

The Double-Loop Learning Experience Flywheel is a model combining design thinking, lean startup, and experiential learning. The external design loop concerns the designer, who does not necessarily have to sit in the HR or training area. This can be also a learner. Accordingly, learning offers, or learning content, are defined, prototyped, and then evaluated and improved so they are closer to the learner's needs. Depending on the feedback, the loop is run through many times.

Below, the tighter loop describes actual experience-based learning. After a concrete learning experience with one or more senses (listening, seeing), the learner reflects, abstracts, and examines to what extent behavior, mental models, and attitudes need to be reviewed and changed. This changed behavior or mental model is then tried out again in a concrete situation (active experimentation) and the cycle is continued. Learners typically pass through such cycles unconsciously. It’s sometimes called, learning by trial and error. But if it is actively considered and reflected in the design phase of learning and corresponding elements are integrated, experience-based or experiential learning is promoted with a much stronger focus. It is also the learning cycle in the design cycle itself in which experience and active experimentation are used to learn and further optimize.

Of course, the model can be generally used for transformations and any problem solution. After all, every transformation is about design and learning processes, whether on an organizational, cultural, or structural level – or when designing new business models.

Figure 4: Double-Loop Learning Experience Flywheel 

Learning from Others, Examples from the SAP Community

User centricity and learning experience are already priorities at SAP, and they’re becoming increasingly important. Approaches such as design thinking have also been developed in a significant way by SAP and propagated for many years. What does this look like in the context of LXM? Here are a few examples.

In SAP Learning Hub, the digital learning platform is used to acquire and maintain SAP product skills. There are ongoing developments and improvements for the learning experience. For example, UX reviews are regularly conducted as part of SAP user group conferences. User stories that describe frequent actions by users are evaluated. Completely new applications or functional areas such as a mobile app to stay up to date are good examples of current developments. Everything that is important for the learning experience is developed further. Recently, users were able to conduct remote reviews in the SAP Learning Hub "test lab.” As part of the onboarding community (called the Welcome Learning Room), for example, new designs of the search UI or learner profile were tested and optimized remotely. To learn more click here, or you can book a live demo with an SAP expert, or experience a free SAP Learning Hub trial.

A relatively new learning experience is the SAP Enable Now Web Assistant, which enables learning in the flow of work inside SAP software. If a user does not know how to operate the software, a simple context-sensitive explanation is displayed. Guided tours in live mode are provided to guide the user through a process step by step. To understand the process from end-to-end or to onboard, tutorials can be started directly from the help tab, which is now called “user assistance” rather than “help.” All content is delivered standard as part of the software but can be enhanced or changed using SAP Enable Now. This tools also provides many features like storytelling templates to create per se richt learning experiences. Find out more in a demo.

SAP User Experience Management by KNOA checks user activities and evaluates them. In this way, you can get hard facts about where transactions errors or issues occur. Of course, data can be analyzed anonymously. The goal is to get data points to change or optimize the user interface, improve trainings or documentation accordingly, and respond to user performance needs. This is particularly interesting when preparing for an upgrade, during a software implementation, or after an SAP project, for quality assurance. Through the data analysis it helps to make the learning experience relevant. For more information, see sap.com/uem-by-knoa.

Qualtrics EmployeeXM is SAP's experience management solutions unite insights into customer, employee, product, and brand experiences – on a single integrated XM platform. You can analyze interactions that people experience with or within an organization to predict and prevent problems or optimize processes. SAP XM complements O-data (operational, transactional data) with X-data (experience data) to influence business decisions in real-time. Customers interacting with a company (customer experience) and building opinions about a brand or product are important. Bu so are employee opinions about relevant touch points and phases from onboarding to retirement, whether for managing transformations, increasing employee-loyalty, commitment, or productivity. It is much more than a static survey every other year; the measurement and combination of experience data is done regularly. (SAP HXM on SAP.com).

The SAP S/4HANA Simulation by Baton Simulations shows that design principles from games like storytelling, progress-feedback or competition can help to create good learning experience. Here a business simulation is played directly in an SAP application. As a muesli producer or water retailer, teams play against each other in several rounds using all kinds of SAP functionalities. The fun environment combined with competitive nature between groups and the playful learning contributes significantly to the positive learning experience. Get more information here.

SAP Live Class blends learning with classroom training. A good learning experience can also take place in a more formal setting. For example, SAP Education uses Zoom as a video-based virtual classroom. The experience includes lip-synchronous, real-time video, and audio transmission. Simultaneous digital translation is also planned, which will allow the trainer to be understood in the learner’s native language. Blended learning also enables more flexible learning and the use of the strengths from different formal learning methods. In this way, a trainer can give good feedback or answer questions. Digital learning content enables more flexible learning at a learner’s own pace. For more information, see here the SAP Live Class Infopage.

Learning Journey optimization: SAP regularly optimizes the entire customer journey in the area of training for customers & partners. Different touchpoints are improved, examples are search engine optimization, a web shop for finding learning offerings, role- and solution-based learning paths (Learning Journeys), chat options, video references, or webinars in the selection of learning offerings, to flexible options for purchasing learning offerings. With subscriptions, flat rates, 3 to Run or discount cards, elements of digital marketing and commerce are also present in the training sector, always with the aim of improving the (learning) experience. (SAP Learning Journeys on sap.com).

Education Consulting: As part of SAP projects, SAP also helps customers on training strategies, learning needs analysis, and supports them with creating customized learning content, usually for end users. Agile design methods are also used here. For more information, see the education consulting webpage.

Podcasts: What could be a more intimate learning experience than regularly listening to people – in stories, interviews, or discussions? Podcasts are right in the ear of the listener. They can also be consumed at off-peak times, whether on the way to work, while exercising, or when gardening, for example. Click here for the SAP Education Newscast on Spotify / ApplePodcasts / openSAP / Google.

The Learning Experience Manager is a simple application that runs inside a standard internet browser and is integrated with SAP SuccessFactors Learning Management and SAP Jam, SAP’s Enterprise Social Network. It allows employees to capture and/or share any learning which takes place outside of a learning management system (for example, while watching a TED Talk video) and comes with learning record store, which becomes your central database to store and report on all kinds of learning experiences. For further info see the SAP appcenter.

User centricity and learning experience are already priorities at SAP, and they’re becoming increasingly important. Approaches such as design thinking have also been developed in a significant way by SAP and propagated for many years. What does this look like in the context of LXM? Here are a few examples.

Recap & reflection

Joe Pine’s original work on experience management was recently updated. Now, it is not the individual experience that is top priority, but the transformational experience. This perfectly fits to learning and development. Here, the goal is always transformation: be it of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or behavior.

When implementing experience management, a holistic approach is important. Some tool vendors rave about the Netflix of learning – but to rely solely on technology is too one-sided. Nor does such a system create the best value for every target group.

The learning ecosystem is a helpful approach. Here, all learning offerings relevant for a company are collected, curated, and often presented as a hub. A useful framework – the solution for learning and development – does not always have to be an LXP.

Learning experience is a new view with many well-known elements. From the agile world we have values like autonomy and self-organization, which are important to sustainably implement new processes and methods in the sense of a modern instructional design. (Instructional design is the practice and science of developing learning content or learning environments).

Learning can also be a product. According to product management and design, learning offers should then also meet the criteria of business, people, and technology – corresponding to the design thinking categories of desirability (want, need), feasibility, and viability (realizable).

In a corporate setting, learning is increasingly consumerized. The Internet works like a free market for knowledge and skills, i.e. alternatives to a company’s internal training catalogue are only a click away. It is therefore becoming increasingly difficult to control and monitor employee learning. The only exceptions are mandatory topics such as compliance, although this raises the question: are lengthy, boring e-learning courses the best method for this topic?

A good learning experience always depends on the context and individual preferences. This is a viewpoint contradicted by some instructional designers. They’re in the practice of considering learning from theoretical perfection, not from the learner's point of view. I e.g. got once negative feedback to provide pdfs and printouts to consultants when I was a product manager. I got told that interactive e-learning is much more effective. However the consultants loved to print out their guides and used it during their work.

This is precisely where the paradigm of learning experience design has its strength. Through user research, iterations, and tests, you are much closer to the learner’s needs and pain points. As a result, you generate more value and hopefully a better learning experience. Learning does not have to be exhausting and painful, even if some people propagate that. It can be fun.

One criticism of user-centric approaches is that disruptive innovations are often not driven by customer needs, as bold innovations are often beyond the imagination of a user. Steve Jobs is often quoted in this context. Product experts are integral in the process, for example in the ideation phase or in research. But, if you don't develop something with the customer in mind, the risk of failure is much higher.

Reflecting on one's own behavior is a basis for experiential learning. The ability and will to self-reflect is, like many things, not equally possible for everyone. Therefore, we also have to take external feedback and instructions for reflection and adaptation into account. 

Making new a learning experience needs openness and self-organized learning at the learner side. Learning designers need to provide open access to all sorts of learning and experience offerings, as well as a context to make new experiences either simulated or even better in the real world. As you saw above it is a mix of analogue elements like CX/UX-methods, Canvas, agile methods and digital elements like LXPs, data analytics, recomendations or social software.

In conclusion, the Double-Loop Learning Experience Flywheel can be used for just about any transformation or problem solving. After all, every transformation is about design and the learning processes, whether on an organizational, cultural, or structural level.

The Double-Loop Learning Experience Flywheel can be used for just about any transformation or problem solving. After all, every transformation is about design and the learning processes, whether on an organizational, cultural, or structural level.

 Just do it (Minimum Viable LXM)

Measurement of customer experience often runs through an index like the Net Promoter Score (NPS) of employee experience via platforms like Glassdoor. When measuring learning experience, it is important to note that it is no longer formal training in the sense of a "Happy-sheet" that is measured but rather every touch point of the learner. As always, the aim is to measure the process, the emotional experience, and the output in order to provide feedback to learners and learning and development managers regarding status, improvement options, and impacts. Technically, new approaches such as xAPI and a learning record store pay off here. Different learning activities are measured and stored. However, this has not yet become a standard like the former e-learning standard SCORM.

Without the corresponding adapted and extended guidelines and framework conditions – in terms of purpose, mindset, and values – the best processes and tools are of no use. Time or monetary budgets, transparent career perspectives, or participation in important decisions that provide empowerment opportunities are examples of where one can start to show value.

Ask the Right Questions!

Which self-assessment questions can be asked to help plan a roadmap for the future? Here are a few suggestions:         

• How do we cover the points on the Double-Loop Learning Experience Flywheel? Which points do we still have to address?
• Does my learning design use the elements of experience-based learning (reflection, trying out, experimenting)?
• Is the design of learning experiences an iterative process with rapid prototypes (Minimum Viable Product)?
• Whom do content and technology serve?
• Do I create opportunities for networking and reflection?
• Do I use visualizations instead of a script or storyboard?

Tips for Implementing Learning Experience

•  Inform and educate yourself: There are many books, videos, and podcasts on design thinking, experience management, and more. See a small selection below.
• Status quo and roadmap: You should approach mindset and toolset together but also plan for the medium term. Of course, the roadmaps need to be reviewed and adjusted regularly.
• Check and extend your own mission, purpose, and values.
•  Explore the possibilities – start prototypes and MVPs. Simple, secure environments are usually available in your own team or division. But why not use this approach everywhere?

P.S.: We hosted a webinar recently with quiet some discussions as well as inputs. You find the recording "Learning Experience Design matters!" on Youtube. We also recorded a Podcast on "Designing Learning Experiences that learners love" with Rudyard Hopkins which you might find interesting.

Any feedback? Pls just type it in the comments!

Further Resources

J. Pine, J Gilmore (1998) on HBR.com: Welcome to the Experience Economy

Learning Experience Market (J. Bersin)

A peek into the future with the godfather of the Experience Economy (SAP Blog)

Situated Learning on Wikipedia – Experiental Learning on Wikipedia – Connectivism on Wikipedia

Tips, Tools, Sources for remote learning incl. Mission & Badge

Learning Development Framework Tools like the Canvas methods (Jan F?lsing)

LernOS: Framework for the learning organization (Cogneon)

Smart Learning Environments (Bosch, Sirkka Freigang)

Learning Experience Leader Podcast (Greg Williams)

Employee Experience Management – IDC Paper SAP HXM on SAP.com

SAP User Experience Community

Learnhacks: Blog with many examples crowdsourced via SAPCommunity

The Power of Experience Management: openSAP MOOC

SAP Education Newscast: Spotify / ApplePodcasts / openSAP / Google

SAP Learning Hub: live demos, free trial – sap.com

SAP Education free Webinars

SAP S/4 HANA Simulation Game

SAP User Experience Management by KNOA

SAP Education – on sap.com

SAP Add On for LXP in the SAP Appcenter

SAP Enable Now (E-Learning and Performance Support)