Dos and Don'ts of Instruction Design

chillibreeze writer — Chithra Uppili

What does instructional designing mean? It’s the art of combining traditional teaching methods with time tested learning theories for creating courses to empower the learner. Instructional Design forms the fulcrum of any online course. The success of any educational design lies in the strong foundation that the instructional designer lays in designing the course.

The Dos and Don’ts in this article are based on my experience as an Instructional Designer for a corporate company. I have been following many blogs and websites that give nuggets on how an instructionally sound course can be developed. I understand that as IDs we need to be sound in our basics and apply the learning theories as appropriate. But let’s face it, majority of the online training developed for the corporate market are treated as projects similar to software development. Not that it is bad, but we get caught in the web of project metrics while creating a course. More often than not, we allow the client or the SME to drive the project. How often have we said, “The client wants it that way”, and ended up compromising on the design.

This article is not intended to teach you how and where to apply the learning theories. Rather I want to outline a very common set of Dos and Don’ts that are often ignored. Keeping these simple things in mind and following them will help you concentrate well on what you are best at, Instructional Designing. Let’s first see the Dos.

1. Begin with the End in Mind

In a corporate scenario, when a project is to be executed, the first thing that is done is to identify a Team Leader and set up a team. In the case of elearning, often it’s the Instructional Designer who is the Team Lead and at times even acts as the Project Manager. Given this, it becomes the ID’s responsibility to create the project plan, interact with the client and the SME (who at times are different people), do the resource planning, and keep track of the project metrics. All this apart from Instructional Designing! Do not forget that the end product of the project is an instructionally sound and effective course and not the project metrics that your boss seems to lay emphasis on!

2. Analyze the Requirements

Yeah I know, we do the needs analysis, the task analysis, and the audience analysis. May I ask when the last time you did any of the above analyses was? The corporate world is so well organized that all the client has to do is fill up a requirements gathering form that has a set of mandatory questions. This requirements gathering form has fortunately or unfortunately replaced the majority of the analysis phase for an Instructional designer. So it makes it even more important that we understand the client’s requirements intimately. I say this because the client fills up the form based on what his understanding of elearning is and there are instances where there are gaps in the requirements. For instance, one client had mentioned that he wanted a single WBT to be developed. But when we received the source content we realized that we will have to create 5 WBTs! And that’s not all, we had already charged the client for just one WBT. So it’s important that you understand your client’s requirements thoroughly.

3. Present Your Design and Get it Approved

Now is the time to let your creative side take over. The course is going to be your brain child. It’s an awesome feeling to be able to apply all your Instructional Design strategies and see a blue print emerge in the form of a Design Document. Boy, don’t you feel mighty proud that you’ve come up with the best design strategy! But wait a minute. Does your client/SME understand the design document? Will he understand it when you say, “The strategy used in this topic follows the Bloom’s Taxonomy.” Most of the clients don’t. In fact they don’t care. All they care to see is how the course will look – will it cover the topics they intend covering. The elaborate design document that you just created is good for you and your team to work on. But the important thing is to convince the client that the design you’ve come up with is efficient. Give your client a simplified version of the design. A 3–4 slider or a prototype would do the trick better than giving them a 25-30 page document that is full of jargon. You don’t want to shock the client later when you present him the first version of the course. Ensure that you present the design to the client and get it approved.

4. Freeze the Content

Now that you are done with the design, you can move on with the development. The development begins with the storyboarding phase. The storyboard is where your design starts taking shape. You concentrate on content flow and content chunking. At this stage it is very important to get your client’s approval on the content. Yes, you’ve created the content based on the SME’s inputs. But you have rearranged it now to suit the design, to maintain continuity and consistency. Get the storyboards approved from the client. Also make it clear to the client that any addition or deletion to the content should be done at this stage, because tampering with the content later would mean tampering with the design and can lead to a lot of rework.

5. Visualize with the Team

The storyboard, ideally, should be comprehensive for a developer or a graphic designer to start developing the course with minimal interference from the ID. But as I say ideally, it’s not the case always. It would be a good idea to have a visualization session before the development begins. This ensures that that your team of Graphic Designers and developers are in the same page as you are. Also it is a great forum to ensure that all that you have visualized is practically and technically feasible in the given time frame.

Following the above dos would enhance your efficiency as an Instructional designer. Moreover if we can avoid certain things as an Instructional Designer, we will be able to utilize our time more efficiently.

Do Not Overlap the Design Phase and the Development Phase.
Do Not Add Ambiguous Visuals – to supplement the text.
Do not assume anything – cross refer client/SME.
Do not begin without finalizing scope. Check with the client of their specific style, color specifications.
Do not decide anything without keeping informing your client.

It is the effectiveness of the instructional design that sets apart a great course from a good course. If we can be more organized with our work and do the basics right, nothing will stop us from developing great online courses!

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—About our writer:

Chithra,

A physicist turned Instructional Designer turned writer. Enjoys reading, writing, cooking and is passionate about photography.

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