As learning experience design (LXD) is gaining traction around the world, there are great opportunities to seize on and big challenges to overcome. For example, there’s still confusion about what learning experience design is and how it’s different, while those who know are changing the lives of learners. Here are the six biggest challenges and best opportunities for learning experience design.
Challenge: Inaccurate job descriptions
Finding a job as a learning experience designer is hard. It’s a young field that is relatively unknown. Fortunately, there are more and more job openings for learning experience designers popping up. The problem is that these jobs are rarely actual LXD jobs.
Often, job openings are listed for learning experience designers, but when you look at the job description, it has little to do with LXD. For example, in few cases a design background is required. Instead of mentioning design research, creative skills, visualisation, iterative design, prototyping or user testing, it mentions needs analysis, instructions, rubrics, ADDIE, assessments and learning management systems.
They are looking for instructional designers, nor for learning experience designers. Rebranding instructional design (ID) to LXD doesn’t do justice to either field and only adds to the confusion. LXD and ID are two different fields. Each with their own history, focus, skillset and strengths. Let’s hope the job market will catch up with this notion.
Challenge: No money for design research
When you design a learning experience for a client, chances are that there is limited budget for design research. As designers, we know the importance of empathising with the people we design for and understanding what kind of design would work best for them.
Unfortunately, clients generally want to see results as soon as possible. This means skimping on design research and focussing on producing stuff. For example, they could prefer longer e-learning modules over a more carefully crafted design that is based on design research and shorter because it’s more to the point.
My solution is to invite clients into the design process. This allows them to see the importance of each step of the design process first hand, including design research. Once you have them on board, it’s smooth sailing!
Challenge: Serving all learners
In an ideal scenario you can design learning experiences for individual learners. You’d be able to create the most personal and profound learning experience design possible. In the real world you design for a diverse group of learners. Making a design that suits these groups in all their diversity is a challenge.
Dealing with different countries, languages, cultures, ethnicities, professional backgrounds and personal preferences can be a puzzle. How do you do justice to these differences in a realistic way?
It starts with understanding who your learners are and if you can divide them into smaller groups based on individual differences. For example, if you design for refugees, some fled from political prosecution while other fled from a natural disaster or from war. Each group has it’s distinct reasons to seek refuge and you want to keep these differences in mind as a designer.
Next, you can look at what they have in common. While their stories are different, they all had to leave everything behind and start a new life in a different country. This unites them despite all of their differences. By focusing on what they share and recognising their differences, you’ll be able to create an engaging learning experience for all of them.
Opportunity: Better collaboration across fields
As an interdisciplinary field, LXD combines elements of several design disciplines like user experience design, interaction design, graphic design, game design and experience design with learning disciplines like cognitive psychology, instructional design, neuroscience and experiential learning.
It’s a great opportunity for professionals from these fields to come together under the banner of LXD and collaborate on amazing learning experiences. This strengthens and deepens LXD as a significant design discipline and created ideal circumstances to learn from and with each other. You can further enrich LXD by learning from other fields like theater, sports, arts, music and cinema.
When I train professionals with different backgrounds, I love to see them share expertise. They learn valuable lessons not despite but because of their differences. When you work in teams, having a variety in design and learning backgrounds is hugely beneficial.
Opportunity: Making a difference with LXD
The goal of LXD is to make a difference in the lives of learners. To achieve that, a mediocre learning experience is going to cut it. Unfortunately, we’ve all had loads of mediocre experiences. That’s why a lot of people aren’t very excited about the prospect of mandatory e-learning. They expect an experience that is less than exciting based on previous experiences.
Creating a run of the mill course, training or e-learning module isn’t that hard. Especially with the use of artificial intelligence. This probably means learners will be flooded by learning experiences that are more of the same.
That’s where LXD can make the difference! By designing in a human-centered, creative and empathic way, you’ll surprise learners with a memorable learning experience that is made for them specifically. They will appreciate the effort and care you put into your design and get something meaningful and valuable from it.
Opportunity: Resources to transfer to LXD
Back in 2007 when I came up with the concept of designing learning experiences, there were literally zero resources available for me since the field didn’t exist yet. Now, eighteen years later, that has changed.
As pointed out by one of the participants from the meet-up, it’s much easier to transfer to LXD with the resources that are available on LXD.org. My team and I have made it our mission to support (aspiring) learning experience designers and I’m glad to hear that our posts, books, events, meet-ups and videos are noticed and appreciated.
Also, if you want to learn more about the disciplines that have shaped LXD there are plenty of opportunities. For example, there are great articles, videos and courses on user experience design available, many for free! By diving into these disciplines one at a time, you’ll guaranteed to grow as a learning experience designer.
Whether you are a teacher, instructional designer, user experience designer, game designer or anyone looking to transfer to LXD, visit LXD.org to learn more!