ID/LXD, meet UXD Part 2: Card Sorting

One of the most valuable exercises I employed when serving as Information Architect at a previous job is called card sorting. In this activity, a complete inventory of content is tallied for the end product or system. Each content item is written on an index card, and end users are asked how they would sort the cards into categories. (In my experience the exercise was always conducted using paper and pen, with end users physically moving and sorting the cards, although I suppose if geography were an issue an online system could be used as well.) Users were also asked to create new cards to include content that they felt to be important that was not already represented by the existing set of cards.

Each user would inevitably categorize content in slightly different ways, but patterns did start to emerge. Some of the time, our assumptions about appropriate categorization and linkages were confirmed. However, there were always views on how end users related content elements to one another that were quite unexpected. These finding were the most exciting and insightful of the exercise.

The resulting categorizations were then analyzed to identify common patterns and variance. Both the common patterns and surprising outcomes gave us insight into how the users viewed the content, and informed design decisions that ultimately made for an experience that was intuitive to those using it.

What can we, as Instructional Designers/Learning Experience Designers, take away from this? It may offer a way of approaching some design challenges from a different perspective.

A card sorting exercise can be a great way of taking inventory of existing training materials and drawing connections and parallels among them. We often work with clients who have a vast vault of old materials that could potentially be reused or plugged into new curriculum designs. Clear categorization and relationship mapping among the materials can help define prerequisites and different learning paths. We can also better identify ways to repurpose existing materials and identify gaps when defining new curriculum.

Another thought that comes to mind is an activity common to our standard practices: task analysis. Interviews and observation can be effective in determining how experts do what they do. Now, think about conducting a task analysis from a different perspective. What if experts were approached with a card sorting exercise to help us gain insight into their thought processes and reliance on knowledge for each step within a task? You might be surprised to see how the relationships are articulated through sorting cards.

My colleagues don’t know this yet, but I’m planning to spring a card sorting exercise on them some time next week. Well, guess the cat is out of the bag now. In the meantime, I welcome your input and experiences in using card sorting for learning design!

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.