Use Design Thinking to Improve eLearning Experience

“Designers don’t think their way forward. Designers buildtheir way forward,” Bill Burnett and Dave Evans said in Designing Your Life.The book guides readers in applying design thinking to planning and creatingthe life they want to live—an approach that is equally applicable to designingeLearning that employees will want to experience.

Design thinking focuses on the end user; L&D teams using the design-thinking methodologywill create eLearning that keeps learners’ needs and experience foremost. Aslearners’ needs change in the age of digital learning, “Design thinking allows organizations to innovate and disrupttraditional development processes that are no longer meeting these needs anddevelop digital products based on human-centered design,” Lauralee Sheehanwrote in a blog post, “Design Thinking in Digital Learning.”

A new look at an old process

Early in their book, Burnett and Evans distinguish betweenengineering problems and design problems. “Engineering is a good approach tosolving a problem when you can get a great deal of data and you’re sure thereis one best solution,” they wrote.

But, they point out, a design problem does not have a singlecorrect solution; it often does not have a clear goal or a fixed outcome, and thecriteria for success might be hard to define. A solution is found by seekingand testing different ideas.

This is also true of eLearning design: There are many waysto teach information or train people in new skills. Universal Design for Learning, which, like design thinking, is user- orlearner-focused, emphasizes offering learners a choice of formats for consuming information. This is an acknowledgment thatlearners’ preferences vary, as do the circumstances under which they seek anduse eLearning.

Design prototypes focus on user experience

Just as a design problem differs from an engineeringproblem, a design prototype differs from an engineering prototype—and isideally suited to eLearning design.

A learner-centered design prototype focuses on the end user’sexperience; a design prototype is not a solution or a product. It starts with aquestion; its goal is to figure out what the solution might be, according toEvans.

Creating and testing prototypes allows designers to discoverand confront assumptions they  have thatcould be incorrect. It also allows them to see how potential end users interactwith the solution, whether a physical product or an online course or game. Duringtesting, designers and developers see which elements users like, which they dislike—andwhich they never even notice or use. This information is used to improve thenext iteration, ensuring that the end product meets learners’ needs.

Reframe problems to avoid biases and assumptions

A recurrent theme in Designing Your Life is thatdysfunctional beliefs hold people back from living more fulfilled lives. In aneLearning context, dysfunctional beliefs might center around debunked myths,like those concerning learning styles or the brevity of people’s attentionspans. Dysfunctional beliefs might also focus on how people feel aboutcompetitive games or how much time they have available for training.

Assumptionsabout how much people know about using technology and how comfortable they are usingit often derail eLearning; learners are so frustrated by the navigation, thecomplex rules, or the hoops that they have to jump through to access contentthat, by the time they get to the content, they are in no mood for learning.

Dysfunctional beliefs and assumptions are not as immobile asmany in eLearning might think. “Reframing is essential to finding the rightproblems and the right solutions,” Burnett and Evans wrote. “Reframing alsomakes sure that we are working on the right problem.” Design thinkers must bewilling to pause their problem-solving long enough to examine the assumptionsand biases that might have shaped their approach—and possibly take a differentapproach as a result.

Recognize “gravity problems”

A “gravity problem,” in Burnett and Evans’s language, is aproblem that is simply part of reality: You cannot eliminate gravity as a wayto make your bike-racing time faster. You cannot, in additional examples fromtheir book, change the reality that, in the United States today, poets rarelymake enough money to earn a living or that few music lovers are likely to havecareers as members of successful rock bands. Gravity problems are not “real”problems, the duo wrote, because “in life design, if it’s not actionable, it’snot a problem.”

An eLearning parallel might be a technology or bandwidthissue that makes delivery of some types of content impossible. When TorranceLearning was working on training for Vitamin Angels, the team faced a number of gravity problems: Theirlearners lacked modern computer equipment. No two teams had the same equipment.Learners had unreliable internet access. Learners were distributed in remotelocations covering several countries—and languages.

The team could have followed tried-and-true designapproaches they’d used for other projects; they could have worked with the basicassumptions they use when designing eLearning for North American clients. Butthose solutions would have failed. Rather than fight gravity, the team implementedan innovative, learner-centered design that was wildly successful in thisextremely challenging environment.

Design is a team sport

Despite myths about solitary geniuses working out brilliantsolutions to vexing problems, the best solutions are not the product of a solomind. “Design is a collaborative process, and many of the best ideas are goingto come from other people,” Burnett and Evans said. “Great design requiresradical collaboration.”

The prototyping and testing process—in fact, most of thedesign process—entails what Burnett and Evans call “wayfinding.” Whiledesigners often have a direction or an end in mind, they rarely have a map.

Seeking mentors, collaborators, and testers to provide inputand ideas smooths the prototyping process—and is essential to getting from aninitial idea to a great design. Design thinking can help.

Resources

Burnett, Bill and Dave Evans. Designing Your Life: How toBuild a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. Knopf: New York, 2016.

Evans, Dave. “How to Make Better Life Decisions Through Design Thinking.”

Sheehan, Lauralee. “Design Thinking in Digital Learning.” November 4, 2016.