PART 2

DESIGN

The second part of this book turns to specific design principles that lead to positive learning experiences. Although the perspective imparted in Part 1 may be paramount to full success, I’m also convinced that the design principles described here will improve any e-learning design effort.

Who should read Part 2? Everyone interested in using e-learning to achieve success—to get people to do the right thing at the right time. This includes executives, business strategists, consultants, buyers, and others responsible for the success of organizations.

It may seem strange that principles seemingly of interest only to instructional designers are presented here for review by managers, buyers, and others. But, I do strongly recommend that both designers and managers read the design principles explored in Part 2, as it is important for all decision makers to be able to discriminate between weak approaches and powerful ones. Everyone needs to work together to adhere to essential values and principles. It is easy to go wrong, and there are so many false roads to success.

Background

Part 1 looked at the reasons why e-learning is so often a waste of time and money and how organizations are sometimes oblivious to both waste and lost opportunities. It also looked at what it takes to succeed with e-learning and how extraordinary the return can be when e-learning design is done well. The methods and principles that lead to highly effective e-learning seem simple and obvious when reviewed and enumerated, and yet, when you look at most e-learning applications, you find boring and ineffective presentations sprinkled with simplistic, uninteresting interactions.

The effectiveness of individuals and the power of organizations depend on their ability to perform, adapt, and change in response to shifting conditions. Learning is essential in many cases. If people find their training programs to be agonizing experiences, they will resist them and fail to complete them when allowed to quit early. Those unable to get themselves excused are likely to start the training with a negative attitude, and they’ll have a boring, unproductive experience. Desired performance changes will not come easily.

Just as problematic are courses of instruction that are pleasant and entertaining, but fail in their mission to effect learning. Learners enjoy the break from the daily routine, but return to the job no more able to perform than before the training.

No Reason for Poor e-Learning

Regardless of the reason for the ineffectiveness of an e-learning application, poor e-learning fails to build competitive organizational and individual strengths. There is no reason to waste the valuable and costly time of employees through ineffective training. And because there are decades of experience in the design of effective interactive instruction methods, there’s no longer any justification for building ineffective e-learning applications.

Because so much poor e-learning has been developed and high-impact e-learning applications have been so rare, many have concluded that there must be a strong cost correlation: Weak e-learning is cheap; good e-learning is expensive. They further conclude that while weak e-learning design can be done quickly, good e-learning design takes forever.

These hasty and truly misleading conclusions are dangerous for several reasons:

• They overlook advancements made by leading design and development organizations over the last few decades; these advancements point the way to much less expensive and far faster development of high-impact e-learning applications.
• They ignore the real costs of lost business opportunities and poor performance.
• They channel resources into alternative solutions that can have even less probability of making a lasting impact.

We don’t need to run from the challenge, but we do need to change our approach to it. Change in behavior doesn’t come easily, either for our employees or ourselves. Unfortunately, developing powerful, engaging learning events requires change. To succeed, we have to approach the problem differently, think differently, reorder values and priorities, and, in many circumstances, do things that are contrary to both intuition and common wisdom. We may, indeed, have to do things that seem contrary to popular conclusions drawn from formal education on instructional design.

Buyer Beware

The type of e-learning design that is an effective tool to meet business challenges and opportunities is not similar to the e-learning designs typically seen today. Effective e-learning builds learner interest rather than depletes it. It actually transfers skills and knowledge rather than just describes them. It enhances learner self-esteem and confidence. It builds competitive performance and contributes meaningfully to both individuals and the bottom line. Unfortunately for the uninformed buyer, it’s easy to be deluded into thinking that superficially appealing applications of instructional technology are actually effective or representative of what can be achieved. In fact, many impotent instructional designs look professional and can be defended on many grounds. When organizations stop using them because of unrealized expectations, decision makers are disappointed and baffled at best. At worst, they conclude that e-learning isn’t up to the task.

There is a costly difference between e-learning that works and e-learning that merely looks like it would work but doesn’t. While the measured effectiveness of a completed application is the ultimate test of a design and development process, trial and error is an expensive process to use. Discovering that a completed application doesn’t deliver reveals a costly mistake. No one wants to uncover this news. Measurement is itself costly and often considered either an unaffordable luxury or simply unnecessary. So it isn’t until an organization discovers it can set aside a training program without much ill effect that the weakness is finally realized. And then it appears as a cost-saving move to eliminate the program!

Give me a break!

You Don’t Have to Count on Luck

Much is known about what works and what doesn’t. Mistakes can be avoided. It is possible to be quite certain an application is going to be effective and yield a high return. Unfortunately, this is not widespread knowledge and does not guide enough design and development efforts. Informed leaders need to know what can be achieved and what to look for; they must become informed and demanding buyers. We can and must approach e-learning projects armed with the knowledge of what can truly be achieved within given constraints. We must insist on value so great that it is apparent even without measurement.

These, then, are the purposes of Part 2:

• To arm leaders with the knowledge they need to ensure success in each e-learning investment
• To guide designers in the application of values-based authoring that ensures success.