Design As If Everything Is Optional

The zest, energy, emotion, and clear communication of need, value, and WIIFY (What’s In It For You) in many courses is often compromised before the project ever fully kicks into gear as a result of one simple Analysis question – Is the course required?   Knowing that the targeted audience has no options regarding enrollment or completion of the training can risk putting the Design team in a complacent position.  If you know you have a captive audience, the perceived need to work to keep them engaged can quickly fade.

I propose that the quality and effectiveness of future training would be improved if we designed with a mindset that considers the threatening possibility that the moment the audience becomes bored, confused, or doesn't see the direct value of the content to their lives/jobs, they may walk away (or exit). We should design as if all training is optional.

Out with the tired “tell ‘em what you are going to tell ‘em / tell ‘em / tell ‘em what you told ‘em” bookend structure that sandwiches dry facts/figures/processes and does little to establish motivation and relevance.  Goodbye to the lean-back, page-turning instructional models that spoon-feed bite sized nuggets of data, immediately followed by obligatory exercises that test for short-term recall (rather than deeper understanding).  Adios to letting the content drive the design because the audience’s physical attendance is a given (even if their hearts and minds are a million miles away).

In with capturing the learner’s attention so firmly within the first 60 seconds of the course that they lean in, wanting to know what awaits them on the next screen, ignoring the myriad of digital distractions that are a mere mouse-click or screen-touch away. Hello to positioning content in such a compelling fashion and with such personal relevance that the learner cannot help but understand and retain the information long after the post assessment has passed.  Welcome to a learning experience that causes the audience to desire ‘more’ and momentarily lose track of time because their curiosity has been piqued and they crave closure to the conflict within the situational story that’s been shared.

We need to design courses with the expectation that without a strong and motivational opening, a satisfying and memorable closing, and relevant and engaging information/activities every three minutes, our learners will simply direct their limited attention and time towards something (anything) else that seems more important or interesting.  We need to operate with the constructive pressure of being only a boring slide or overly complex sentence away from losing our ‘customer’.

How would your designs change if you knew that your course was totally optional, and the only people who would complete it are the ones that you managed to keep interested/curious/motivated enough to choose your instruction over all other options competing for their time and attention?   What would you do differently if success was measured by how many people completed your course because they WANTED to, not because they were OBLIGATED to?

Why not design courses like that anyway?  Is there a downside to purposefully creating compelling courseware?

Design is as design does

For a brief period of time after I gave up on Ceramic Engineering as an undergrad major (I had no idea it involved so much Chemistry - not my favorite subject), I seriously considered Industrial Design. Something about form and function, aesthetic and technical really appealed to my nearly even left/right brain split, but the pragmatist in me thought that getting a formal Engineering degree would open more doors, so off I marched towards the Tech Quad...

I never lost my interest in ID (not to be confused with my current day job, Instructional Design), and still get a great kick out of the thumbing through magazines like I.D. in my local mega-book store.

The latest issue of Fast Company (Oct '07) is focused on Design of all shapes and sorts and is a really interesting read (IMHO). One thing that struck me as I browsed the pages was a minor realization that although it wasn't an intentional goal (and certainly isn't as classically 'tangible' as other types of design), my interest in software, technology, and their hooks into learning have led me into the broad field of Design in a way that I might have experienced if I'd followed my heart rather than my head as a 19 year old.

Just how different is Instructional Design from Industrial Design, at its root? Just how far can you push the question (Software Programming vs. Interface Design vs. Architecture) before the differences begin to outweigh the similarities? Are there some fundamental commonalities that run, like a thread, through them all? Is it as simple as the urge to 'create' something?

The lead/cover article is on Yves Behar, the creative spark behind the much lauded XO-1 of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, among other things. In that article, he shared an insight that kicked the question above into gear for me:

"The simplest definition of design is how you treat your customer. If you acknowledge their intelligence, and treat them well from an environmental, emotional, and aesthetic standpoint, you're probably doing good design." By that standard, he says, few CEOs come close. "They just don't know how hard it is, and what it will take on their part. There's a pain in transformation, pain when you have to do things differently." Most execs hope skillful marketing will make up for design shortfalls, or that word of mouth around an occasional well-conceived product will float the rest of their wares. Such rosy thinking overlooks the tensions that arise when design gets factored into a big business. "Marketing people are incented to come up with great ideas," says Mitch Pergola, fuseproject's vice president and general manager. "Engineers are incented to drive out costs." To resolve those conflicts, somebody at the top has to make the Solomonic calls. "If you want to be design-driven, " Behar says, "the question is, Who's driving?"

Although he is speaking of the design of physical objects, much of the sentiment he captures could just as well apply to Instructional Design (or Software Design, or...). At its core, good design requires some recognition and respect for your customer/audience. In training terms, acknowledgement that your (adult) learners bring something to the educational table, based on their background and experience. They are NOT blank slates that are poised to be filled with the blessings of the wisdom that has been deemed necessary for them to imbibe. Time and time again, when ID's step off their artificial platform of being the fount of knowledge and assume a position of being an enabler and facilitator of information exchange, everyone is richer for it.

Good design isn't window dressing on some more important, underlying core. It is an equal at the table of required elements for success.