The Learning Circuit’s Blog Big Question of the Month is Instructional Design: If, when, and how much. It may seem like an odd question, but here’s an elaboration: “For a given project, how do you determine if, when and how much an instructional designer and instructional design is needed?” And this is an important question.

Partly, it depends on your definition of ID. An enlightened version is a performance system view, which includes job aids, rapid elearning, eCommunity, etc. A more typical version is a templated approach to courses. If you’re talking about this latter, it should be used when you’re designing courses, and otherwise stay out of the way (and be replaced by an enlightened instructional design that incorporates deeper cognitive understanding and emotional awareness, e.g. my two white papers on Enhanced ID and eMotional eLearning; warning, PDFs).

However, if you’re talking about the more overarching version, then I say it comes in early, makes a determination what the goal and desired resource is, and then decides whether to do a course, create a resource, let a SME loose on it (with or without a template), or leave it to the community (and sometimes take back from the community to design something anew).

I think there’s a role for strategically outlining the solution and then making a decision about how best to do it, and there’s a role for some design smarts in architecting portals, guiding SMEs, supporting communities to critical mass, etc. There’s also a time to let go, but it should be an informed decision, not an abrogation of responsibility.

I was responding to a friend who asked what I meant by suggesting she could play a role in architecting a learning solution. I frankly don’t recall saying it, but I generated an explanation that on reflection seems to have more resonance than I originally expected.

Coming from the background of applied cognition and doing my thesis work in Don Norman’s lab when he was really into the usability stuff (e.g. The Design of Everyday Things; which anyone who designs for others should read) and subsequently hired to teach it (though my heart remained in learning technology; fortunately they let me research whatever the heck I wanted), I was steeped in user interface processes. I subsequently wrote in several different ways about how usability processes are ahead of the instructional design field (e.g. testing), and tried to incorporate them into my own design processes.

I’ve been a fan of Jesse James Garrett’s Elements of User Experience (PDF) diagram (you know how I am about diagrams), with his structure of working down from strategy, through architecture and experience design, down to the navigation and finally the visual design. In answering her, it struck me as an apt way to think about learning design too.

I realize that many designers start with an outline and start writing, but one of the roles I play with my clients is coming in and suggesting an outline of a pedagogical approach that then is developed as an outline of the pages and then finally is actually filled in. It’s a level above even the outlining, as well as the actual writing (though I’ll often model how to trim that down, too, and where and how to use visuals). It’s an approach that can be applied beforehand lightly, and I believe leads to better outputs.

As I say “if you get the design right, there are lots of ways to implement it; if you don’t get the design right it doesn’t matter how you implement it”. I know it’s recommended to take a structured approach, but I can’t say I’ve seen it implemented near as often as I hear it touted. I’ve been working on a project where they’ve brought in an interface design team and their systematicity tops what I see in the elearning field. The closest is where we start with the objectives, design the assessment and metrics, all before we actually get down to writing the content. How often do you actually see that? I think we could use a bit more rigor, frankly. It can come from templates for SMEs (e.g. in rapid development), to prototypical content, and reviews against guidelines afterward.

What we do crosses paths with usability, and we shouldn’t be unaware.

My name is Clark and I’m a Macaholic. My grad school experience was largely around applied cognitive science, particularly interface design, and I’d followed the leading edge work at PARC that made it into the Mac (after the Lisa flopped). If you care about user experience, you sorta have to practice what you preach and use a Mac if you can (and I understand if you can’t).

I recognize that Microsoft won the workplace war (Apple shot itself in the foot), but the superior design of Apple is finally getting wider acceptance (c.f. the iPod). Not that I don’t know how to use Windows (we have a PC in the kitchen, next to a Mac), but when I want to get work done, rip my MacBook Pro out of my cold dead hands (which of course was how I felt about the Treo until the iPhone came out, now I’m split :).

The reason I bring this up, however, is to laud a program that runs on the Mac that is exemplary of how to design a program to match the way you think. I have no idea if it’s similar to Visio (which I haven’t used), but it’s superb in working the way I think about things, making it easy to do the things I want to do. And I know I’m not taking full advantage of it! It’s often amazingly intuitive (an over-hyped concept in interface design), usually knowing how I want to finish what I just initiated. I’ve had really great customer service from them as well.

This program is OmniGraffle, which is a Mac only graphing program. You’ve seen the output if you’ve looked at any of my diagrams (e.g. the models page). I went back and recreated all my diagrams in OmniGraffle once I started playing with it because it’s really close to fun to use it. And you’ve got to admit that’s a powerful thing to say about what’s essentially a tool!

My academic integrity (still extant after these years away :) means I couldn’t laud a program I didn’t really believe in, so trust me that this is truly an avid fan’s unsolicited testimony. The colleagues I’ve pointed towards it also rave. If you use a Mac and create diagrams, I recommend checking out the free trial. If you use a PC, you might try to find a way to sample it just to see what an interface *could* be (try, for example: creating a shape, then cutting it and pasting a second one and moving it where you want it, then paste again and see where it ends up).

Jane Hart had a very clever idea and surveyed learning folks’ favorite tools, but I’m particularly interested in ones you use to think better (I use diagrams as my way to model and understand the world, as well as outlines in MS Word to write). I’d welcome hearing your ThinkerTools.

When I read the description of Pirolli’s Information Foraging book, I immediately sent the description to Jay Cross, guru of informal learning, because the principles of information foraging are key descriptors of informal learning on the web. Then I went and googled the concept.

You see, when you take the broader picture of elearning (see Tony Karrer’s current discussion), beyond courses to populating the ‘learnscape’ or performance ecosystem with eCommunity and portals as well, you want to make sure that your learners can get to the information they need. This means good information architecture as well as powerful search.

I was thrilled to see Jakob Nielsen’s information foraging page, where he covers simply not only the theory, but the implications for site design. It’s information we should use in designing our portals and resources for our learners. Will they quickly be able to find what they need because we’ve designed the clues to lead them to it? Or will they find incomprehensible barriers?

I’m biased, as by circumstance my background has been steeped in information architecture and interface design, but it’s a component we need to be aware of to truly support performance in our organizations. It’s needed in the systems so we’re not training around bad interface design, but also to meet needs whether it’s customers, our own employees, or our students. Check it out!

As the latest in the activities I do with my son through YGuides, yesterday we went kayaking around Sausalito. It was a nice trip: the day was sunny and warm enough, and we saw seals, cormorants, two Great Blue Herons, a pelican, terns, jellyfish as we paddled around.

There were some lessons, however, in the training. Our guide nicely prepared us for a comf0rtable trip, providing splash skirts so we could stay dry inside the kayaks, in addition to the required life-jackets.  And he gave us some useful paddling advice about using our bodies to turn, not just our arms (I’m happy with the latter, trying to keep my board-paddling muscles in tune), which way to turn the paddle, etc. However, they missed the boat (arr arr) on a few other things.

For one, the boats steer with a rudder at the back (in addition to the paddles) that is operated by the stern paddler. These pedals work in a funny way that seemed counter-intuitive, pushing left to turn left. Also, it’s easy to overcompensate one misdirection with too much the other way (common in driving and flying).  I could do it slowly, but if pushed my instinct was to push with my right leg to turn left (I can’t even place the origin: bicycle? surf/snowboard?). Shortly after taking off, he led us through a pier, and I managed to bounce the kayak against a barnacle-covered piling despite my best efforts, due to my tendency to initially make matter worse before I remembered to push the pedal the other way. Now, I can be slow on the uptake sometimes, but not usually on something like this. The lesson here was to give us more time to get comfortable before challenging us. It’s their boat, so they can risk it, but it wasn’t fun to make the mistake when it counted.

The other two problems came from paddling. While the paddles were pretty smooth, moving them in your hands for close to three hours can wear away your skin (particularly if your usual ‘hard work’ is pushing keys). They mentioned gloves on the site, but only for half-day trips. It was fun shoveling dirt today (helping out on the landscaping project my wife’s currently involved in) with pre-existing blisters on my hands. Not. I wish they would’ve recommended gloves for all, and the lesson is to consider your learners abilities.

The final problem isn’t a training problem, but of course ends up being. To be fair, they did say to keep your arms up while paddling. BUT, it’s hard when your digging deep to get out of the way of a dredge, or pulling against the tide and the wind (and, of course, arms can get tired and/or sloppy). I don’t mind pulling and digging in, but there was a consequence: the side of the kayak right where I was paddling had two screwheads sticking out from each smooth side. In 3 hours, I managed to drag my fingers across those screws several times, with a bloody consequence. It shouldn’t be a training issue, and I note that the other pair had the Seascape 2 (we were in the original Seascape, or Seascrape as I told the guide I’d renamed it) and it no longer had those screws. They were training me to avoid problems from a bad design! The right solution should be to have a good design first, and then design to get optimal performance, not train to cover a bad design! But, of course, that’s not always the case. Which is why usability folks, and I’ve been one and remain committed to the cause, suggest that you need to get the support folks and the trainers into the initial design process. They know what users will face, and can help keep problems from getting into the design.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good time with the lad, and I’m glad we went (my hands will heal :). Still, it could’ve been better, and as the saying goes, “it’s OK to lose, but don’t lose the lesson”. So, get the design right first, then prepare learners for success, and give them sufficient time to adapt to the newness. Please!