ID/LXD, meet UXD: Part 1

Instructional design is a practice that has ties to many fields, including one critical and often overlooked parallel to designing learning experiences: User Experience Design (UXD). UXD is a field that focuses on the human touch points to a system, most often a computer-based system.

I spent several years of my career as an Information Architect (IA) / (UXD). Although I was (for the most part) not designing user experiences specifically for learning solutions, the principles and practices of the field are incredibly intertwined with ID/Learning Experience Design.


As we consider new and ever-changing tools and media in which to encourage learning (eg, social media tools, virtual worlds, games, mobile learning), we can no longer rely solely on research in adult learning theory and behavioral psychology, We must also be keenly aware of the implications of human factors, user-centered design principles, interface design, and information architecture. With that understanding, we will not only be better prepared to design elegant interactions for learners, but we can also apply lessons learned from the field of UXD to view our overall learning design.


I’d like to share a few of the practices that I employed as a UXD to introduce a very relevant and useful parallel field from which to learn. Over the next flew blog posts, I’ll highlight a tool, practice, or concept that is integral to the design of user experiences. Think of these tools and techniques not only as they relate to interface and interaction design, but also how the concepts and thought processes can be interpreted and translated to benefit the process and outcomes of learning design. First at bat: the concept of transparency.

Transparency
Achieving transparency in interaction design is one of the central goals in the practice of UXD. When an interface is transparent, the mechanics of accessing information or completing tasks in the system does not require thinking about the interface. Users will get exactly what they expect when navigating a site or application, and information is perceived to be readily available.
If you have ever considered and cautioned yourself against “cognitive overhead” or “seductive augmentation” when designing a learning experience, you can see the relation here. The idea is to keep things simple: Design in a way that is purposeful and unobtrusive rather than adding unnecessary flash simply for the cool factor.


The benefit of this in interaction design is obvious: users do not need to spend excess energy deciphering where to look, what to click and how to get what they need. What can we learn from this in the learning space? In addition to transparent interface design in our deliverables, think about how the design of your learning activities provides relevance and practical application to the learner. Are your learners readily able to get what they need out of the experience?


Sometimes desired behaviors are explicitly stated, modeled, and practiced as part of a learning experience. Even then, we need to ensure that we are supporting learners in transferring the experience and adopting acquired behaviors in their daily life.


Metaphors, analogies, and cases are also examples of valuable and frequently used learning tools. These strategies may require a bit more in the way of translation to real life in order to make the value and application transparent to learners and solidify improvement in performance. This is increasingly important with the rise in popularity of games-based learning. We want to make sure that our learners walk away from the learning experience with not just “wow, that was a fun game” but “wow, that was a fun game… and I get it. I understand what I should be doing differently and how to do it.”


The next time you design a deliverable, ask yourself: Is this a transparent learning experience?

LXD > ID: Expanding our Profession’s Definition and Skillset

About a week ago, a fellow learning pro (thx Julie Dirksen @usablelearning!) posted a link to One Mind, a great blog about Learning Experience Design (LXD) from Joanna Wiebe. I have always preferred that title over ID for many reasons, some of which are articulated by Joanna as she describes her role as LXD. A portion of my career was spent as a User Experience Designer (UXD) and Information Architecht (IA), which was the main inspiration for my preference for the title, and it made me think a little more about why.

Instructional Design as a descriptor of this profession has made me cringe since grad school when I learned the difference between behaviorism and constructivism. Even back then, the title sounded outdated as it seemed to harken back to the roots of the profession, when didactic delivery of instruction was the norm.

Constructivism has long intrigued me, even before I knew what it was. When my sister became a Montessori teacher and I became familiar with Maria Montessori’s teachings, I saw a departure from the traditional forms of instruction, where the teacher has the majority of responsibility to ensure learning takes place in the classroom.

As in Maria Montessori’s teachings, and the theory and methodologies of constructivism, the onus of learning shifts, placing more responsibility on the learner to achieve the goals. As learning design professionals, we need to shift our own focus from designing delivery of instruction toward design of an experience or environment that fosters, supports, and encourages the learning that will accomplish our goals. We need to allow our learners to take on more responsibility, which will inevitably lead to a sense of ownership and therefore added motivation to succeed in the stated goals. How can we do this? By designing more holistic learning experiences that incorporate strategies such as social learning, authentic practice, and opportunities for experimentation. We also have a lot to learn from other professions and disciplines, such as UXD.

This is not to say that behaviorism and more traditional methods of instruction don’t have their place – I do believe that they remain relevant and have their place in appropriate learning strategies. I also believe that now more than ever we have the ability to provide our learners with holistic learning opportunities by taking advantage of new technologies and design strategies.

Is this simply a matter of semantics? Perhaps. But the exercise of pausing to think about the meanings that the titles evoke reminded me of the broader scope of our design challenges and I hope it gave you pause and inspiration as well. In my next few posts, I plan to highlight other professions (including UXD) as well as learning theories and strategies (like social learning theory) that can inform our processes and outputs in learning design, ultimately helping us create more holistic learning experiences.

A learning game… er… taxonomy?

I’ve been focusing a lot of time and energy over the past several months on games. Not games like Guitar Hero, Monopoly or even general shenanigans (although I enjoy all of those). Serious games, rather, and the myriad of ways in which they can be crafted to address learning needs. Most of my recent efforts have involved designing, writing, reviewing, and recommending games for various learning purposes. (Some of my favorite titles for recent game designs include Role Play Roulette, Heroes and Villains, Fortune Teller, and Screen Writer among many others)

In this post, I’d like to share some of the thoughts and strategies that have gone into my design decisions, and hope to generate a discussion where you can share your thoughts as well!

Games for learning can take on many forms with different mediums/delivery mechanisms, structures, and can be used to achieve varied desired outcomes.
• Learning games can be used as a strategy in and of itself for an individual learning event, or incorporated as a smattering of one or more smaller activities within an event.
• They can provide learners with opportunity for practice, and they can also be used as the culminating event of any learning experience, as a wrap-up or even an assessment.
• Learning games can be designed to be single or multi-player, to be played live in the real world (like ARGs and workshop games), with or without technology like mobile devices, GPS, or computers, and range from the simple (think omnipresent Jeopardy knock-off) to the very complex (like 3D war games that teach combat skills).

In a sense, determining a game strategy should not be all that different than the design of any other mechanism used to create a learning experience. It is another tool in the toolbox, albeit a valuable one, that should be considered as an option where it makes sense. As with any learning design strategy, it is essential to identify what it is that you want your learners to accomplish (all roads seem to lead back to those learning objectives, eh?).

Bloom’s taxonomy is a popular classification for different levels of skills and knowledge when crafting learning objectives. Desired behaviors and outcomes are organized into levels from lower order thinking skills to higher order thinking skills. If we think of our learning objectives in this manner, then it should follow that game strategy should mirror a similar pattern. That is, there should be a strong link between what we want learners to be able to do upon completion of the learning activity and the design of the game. Think about what type of game experience is suited to the goal. Just a few examples:
• If it’s important for learners to quickly recall data points, create a speed-timed game that requires fast recall (ever play Brain Buddies on Facebook?).
• If evaluation of information is a critical skill, create a storyline and characters (perhaps a courtroom scene?) who present their case with descriptions, data, counter-arguments, etc. and the learner is tasked with determining which is most appropriate to the situation.
• If it’s important for learners to determine when and how to call on others for information, data, and or involvement, allow for a multiplayer structure or an experience with multiple characters.

P.S. Creativity is critical! OK, the whole taxonomy thing might be bit academic. That is not to say that learning games can’t be fun. In fact, that is a requirement if you want people to play it and you actually want to call it a game. What’s a game if it’s no fun to play? Don’t limit yourself to traditional simulation-type designs that incorporate a score. Think beyond what you have already seen in corporate training. Think about games you actually play for fun and how you can be inspired by the structures of those games. Spend some time playing Wii, Nintendo DS, and poking around on sites like Kongregate (just log it as “research” on your timesheets. It is valuable time spent, I swear to you).

These of course, are not the only considerations for determining game design strategy. Many other factors besides desired skill level come into play, like target audience preferences, technology requirements, re-playability options… I could go on. But I think I’ll spare you for now and save it for another post.