Shedding light on the dark side

The first in a series of three blog posts, inspired by a recent workshop held for people new to the e-learning industry, that aims to dispel any myths or misconceptions when it comes to design.

We've just run a workshop called The Dark Side - an introduction to the e-learning  business for people new to the industry with a particular emphasis on the design side of things, hence the "dark side"; recognising that there seems to be a bit of an aura around instructional design.

Maybe this is simply a reflection of the fact that "design" means different things to different people. It's visual, it's about layout, it's the 'look and feel', the top level design of a whole corporate approach to training, or it's course level structuring of content, defining learning objectives and an approach that means they will be achieved. It's a word that people like to bandy around because it sounds good!

At the end of the day instructional, e-learning design, is not mysterious, nor is it rocket science. However it is demanding because it requires you to consider a number of often complex and ambiguous things at the same time: the business and the training objectives, audience, content, brand, media, technology and budget.

Then there's a touch of the 'renaissance' about it in that an Instructional Designer, as well as having an analytical mind, being able to grasp alien content quickly, engaging with subject matter experts, communicating with external client and internal development team alike, and then scripting, sometimes audio and video, sketching out storyboard animations, briefing art direction and specifying all the graphics and … hang on a sec, maybe it is welcome to the dark side after all. And while we’re at it … what about a pay rise?

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