If you research the term "instructional design" online, you'll often find another similar term called, "learning experience design." How are they related? What are their differences? Joining us today is Sonia Tiwari, a Learning Experience Design expert from Penn State. In this episode, we will dive into how instructional designers can focus on the learning experience, what research tells us for best practices, what tools to be aware of, and how to interpret job postings that mention both LXD and ID.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Sonia Tiwari, Luke Hobson
Luke Hobson 00:00
Courses should be designed with the end goals in mind. That's why I love an instructional design model called backwards design. This is when you start with the learning outcomes first, and then create the assessments, the activities, and then finally, the content. This lets you map out the entire learning process to see how learning is taking place. And for a limited time offer, folks, my course on backwards design is now available inside of it our readings, videos, assessments, and downloadable templates and guides to help you design your own courses. And of course, I'll be there to give you feedback along the way. Sign up today with the link in the show description or head on over to Dr. Luke hobson.com. To learn more. And now, let's start the show. Hello there, folks, and welcome on into your instructional design podcast. I'm Dr. Luke Hobson, and my passion is online learning. I'm here to help you make the online learning experience incredible for you and for your students. And you can find more about myself and the blog, the podcast, the YouTube channel, the courses and our community over at Dr. Luke hobson.com. Now you may have noticed that in that introduction, I left out something usually in the direction I save. I'm an instructional designer at MIT. And at the timing of this recording, which happens to be early Tuesday morning, I received an email yesterday telling me that I have received a promotion. So now my official title is senior instructional designer and Program Manager at MIT. And with this new title, I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you to you. One thing I didn't envision when starting all of these projects would be that I personally would become a better instructional designer. But from connecting with all of you, I had to step up my game, I had to become a better instructor, a better speaker, and a better listener, with every interaction I've had with you on Facebook or LinkedIn, Twitter or email, I've had to get better at my craft. So just like how you are learning from me, I'm learning from all of you too. And I've taken everything I've learned. And I brought these new skills with me over to my own courses at MIT. And it's absolutely helped out. So once again, thank you for listening to this show, watching my YouTube videos, reading the blog or taking my courses, you've helped me become a better human being. And I'll promise that as long as you keep on listening and watching the things that I do, as long as you're enjoying the content that I'm making, I'm going to keep on giving back as much as I can, and just keep on producing more and more content. And speaking of giving back, a lot of you have asked me about where do I begin this instructional design journey. And the thing is, I have content out there already about how to get started. But as I keep on producing more and more content, those lessons they're getting buried, which just kind of makes sense with the date and the time and things of that nature. So because of that I'm noticing or like, Oh, yeah, all that stuff is really starting to go down on the website, or the podcast or YouTube channel, they keep on getting pushed down further and further. So just as a reminder, if you're a new listener, or if you want to go back and check things out, I do have content already out there about just kind of how to get started. So you can choose whichever way you prefer to get your content. By the way, I have a blog, a podcast and a YouTube channel that will center around the same topic. And I do that just to make sure that whatever preference you have for absorbing content, I'm there to really just meet you where you are. So the first thing I would recommend is that I have a piece on what I wish I knew before becoming an instructional designer. If I could hypothetically go back in time and give myself advice about this entire field. What would I say? That's essentially what that piece is. And this is going to give you some indication about really just having the right mindset around the field and helping you be more prepared for what you're going to be going on into. I would also recommend to read watch, listen, whatever preference you have, as far as for with my content around transitioning from teacher, to instructional designer, this gives you a couple of different tips. Really just more about how to build upon your prior knowledge with education, and how to keep on furthering develop this skill set and transfer this over into the other fields. And even if you aren't a teacher By the way, if you have just experienced education in general, these tips are still going to connect with you. So I definitely recommend that as well. Now After all of those things, if you are still looking for more, and you want to really take action, that's definitely the thing I want to highlight here, instead of just trying to explore content, if you want to be more involved with this, then I would recommend for you to learn about an instructional design model. And that's where my course on backwards design really comes in handy. Because that's a course, it's going to give you the experience of the fundamentals, of course design as far as we're creating outcomes, course mapping, and a few other helpful tips along the way. And of course, I'm there for you too. I'll be there for you as your instructor, to be sure to give you guidance and feedback and make sure you're on the path that's going to make you successful. And if you follow all of those steps, then you are going to be in a much better place to continue your instructional design journey. And just to be helpful, I'll be sure to put all of those links in the show notes below. So that way, you're not just wandering all around cyberspace trying to find these things in as you're going about with this instructional design journey, one term might pop up, that's kind of bent a little bit confusing if you really aren't too sure about this field. And even if you are in this field, I still find it confusing at different times. And this is a term it's called a learning experience design or XD for short. Now, instructional design and learning experience design might sound similar to the general population. And unfortunately, it seems to be similar to employers. But there are some key differences. And I can tell from talking with some people that they are starting to face an identity crisis. Am I a learning experience designer? Am I an instructional designer? I wear every single hat at my organization. So what does that make me? And joining us today to clarify some of those questions and more is Sonia Tiwari. Sonia is a learning experience design expert at Penn State, and has been a guest lecturer for such great institutions such as Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Florida. In today's episode, we will dive into how instructional designers can focus on the learning experience, what research tells us for best practices, what tools to be aware of, and how to interpret job postings that mentioned both LSD and ID. There was even a splash of UX and UI thrown in there as well, too. So listen in today as we talk about every letter of the alphabet, and to try to make this dis not so confusing. But in all seriousness, folks, this is a fantastic episode, if it's really going to help you learn more about the learning experience design side of things. I won't take up any more time. Here is the one and only Sonia Tiwari, Sonia, welcome to the podcast. Hey, hi, Luke. I cannot wait to dive more into today's topic. This has been something that I didn't realize how much I want to talk about it until you're like, Hey, can we talk more about learning experience design? This is like, yes, let's talk more about this. Because somehow it has not been talked about enough yet on this podcast. So I cannot wait to dive on into everything with you and your story and all this good stuff. Before I get ahead of myself, though, for the folks at home who haven't met you yet. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about who you are and what it is that you do?
Sonia Tiwari 08:32
So Hey, everyone, I'm Sonia Tiwari. I'm a learning experience designer. I'm also a PhD candidate at Penn State University in the Learning Design and Technology program. And I design mostly educational games and children's books, and other educational interventions.
Luke Hobson 08:52
That's so cool. And it's such as like a diverse background, but also everything flows in really well. So which is like a very interesting kind of background. So oh my gosh, cannot wait talk more about this. Okay, I need to not get ahead of myself here. There's a certain pattern that I wanted to be able to talk about today for sequencing, which really is the first is that I kind of want to do more of like an overview of learning experience design. And then let's just hit home and get nerdier and nerdier as we keep talking about this field. So I know for many of the folks at home listening to the show, they have always focused on instructional design. That's the terminology that we have always used. And ours our field is constantly growing, and it's expanding. Now the term learning experience design is coming up more and more in conversations, books, research and in all different types of media. And for the average person, these terms sound very similar. So in your experience, how would you define a learning experience designed to an instructional designer?
Sonia Tiwari 09:54
So I'll give a quick example of experience design in everyday life because I think that will ease goes into learning experience design. So, think about birthday celebrations. If you're a child, you might cut a cake, have a birthday party in the backyard with all your friends and cousins. If you're an adult, you might hang out at the bar with your friends, or have a candlelight dinner with your spouse or go for a solo hike on a beautiful trail. So in all of these examples, the outcome is the same. It's a birthday celebration, but the way everyone experiences it is different based on you know, their age, personality preferences, etc. But when it comes to learning, we often ignore the experience aspects and everything just kind of falls into a template, like classroom and LMS. pdf slides, a few interactive elements. And that's it. So if you're an instructional designer beginning to think about learning experience design, think about not only what you will help the students learn, but also how they will experience this learning. So, for example, for an introduction to say genomics course, for ninth grade students, with the students enjoy looking at simulations related to genomics, what they enjoy building the DNA model with construction toys, or extract DNA from a frozen strawberry at home, or watch a funny animated short film about DNA, it could be a combination of these activities. But the focus is on how they're experiencing, learning, reading, watching the video doing an activity, playing a game. And we think more deeply about which one of these experiences are more approachable and enjoyable for these learners. So it's basically a mind shift from instruction to learning.
Luke Hobson 11:46
Oh, I like that so much as awesome. That's a fantastic way of putting it that was waiting for that, too, is it's like, wow, this is really great. Wonder what she's gonna say it? Yeah, that's phenomenal way of explaining it. So then how is it that this has not been a necessary part of instructional design for so long, because it seems so crucial to what it is that we do, because learning is a humongous part of our jobs.
Sonia Tiwari 12:10
I think like all organizations kind of lead their approach from where the money is coming from. So universities, typically they impart instruction. So that's their money maker, so that the whole language is teaching first, they want to take care of their faculty first, their instruction first. And then. But now the thing is, they're just like, so many universities, so many online courses, so many educational games, so much competition, then that the separating factor, is how you're making the learner feel, if I have, say, $10 a month to spend on a subscription to an educational website, I will currently go by the experience of it. Because you know, in terms of content and knowledge, everyone hires experts, and delivers the same kind of content. So ultimately, it's about which one makes me feel more, you know, enjoyable, which experience feels more enjoyable. So I will put my money there. And so that is why now the focus is shifting more on kind of pleasing the learner more than just, you know, offering instruction.
Luke Hobson 13:22
Absolutely. Now more than ever, our learners have so many different options and choices to where before they didn't, you were stuck with one option. And now you're like, hey, everything is online, I could do a number of different types of things. So that makes plenty of sense. In your experience. No, you mentioned more about like the educational type of a sector with like higher ed and such. But as far as for LXD is concerned, though, as far as for different types of sectors, are you seeing this more in one compared to another, like more in education compared to corporate or a government body or nonprofit or something along those lines?
Sonia Tiwari 13:57
So as of now, if you were to look up learning experience designer jobs on indeed or LinkedIn in the US, there are definitely more corporate jobs out there. But every now and then I see universities or nonprofits with these lists these jobs too, huh,
Luke Hobson 14:13
that's interesting. I wonder, huh? That's really interesting. I was wondering if it was going to be more of the opposite of seeing more for education, but, but this also keeps going back to how I think people keep lumping instructional design with literally everything, which is a joy. You're looking at job postings, you're like, wait a minute, that seems really specific to one different type of idea, but instead, you're kind of lumping it all together. So that's, that's interesting. Um, so Okay, so now since we've had a brief overview of what is that learning experience design, actually is for everything let's kind of now start to go into this entire shift of Jess really, just how to go about doing this. And I know that the first thing for anything trying to learn something new is you need to have the correct and appropriate mindset before you really start tackling it. Everything. So tell me more from the learning experience design side of things. What type of mindset should somebody have compared to something else?
Sonia Tiwari 15:08
I think it's just the, you know, the flow of the words as well, like instructional design, it kind of gives the impression that it's instruction flowing from the the teacher to the student. And learning experience design essentially, is doing the same thing, but with the different approach, putting learner first. So it's the reverse flow going from the learner to the instructor. So it's, if you look at like the job description, you might find a lot of similar things listed for learning designer and instructional designer or learning experience designer. But again, it's just the the focus from the beginning to the end is more on the learner.
Luke Hobson 15:50
So to have that correct mindset with everything, are there certain methods or certain methodologies that we should be practicing that perhaps maybe we're not doing so yet?
Sonia Tiwari 16:01
I guess, like a lot of things are similar, it's just a mind shift. So it's, it's hard to say that, Oh, just do more needs analysis, because ideas would say that, hey, they're already doing it, or to say that, you know, like, do more research. So it's just a shift in the mindset. So for example, you know, as an ID, you might be used to using certain models, say the ADDIE model. So just imagine the analysis and design phases are kind of longer or highlighted when you're thinking of learning experience design. And you're really trying to prioritize the learner through everything through design. So for example, in one of my research interventions, the goal was to help children ages four to eight, learn about weather prediction, those setting was a summer camp. So unlike, unlike a classroom, the experience was more informal and sort of chaotic. There were like 45 children in the camp. And it's very different from a classroom. So and children also want a sense of agency and enjoyment in the summer camp. So the experience because it was supposed to be informal, I removed any kind of formal evaluation, like a test or a quiz. And when we are learning about weather prediction, children watched an episode of Curious George, where George was trying to predict the weather in the form of a story. And then they crafted and mo meters and weathervanes with everyday materials, like paper cups and straws. They tested out these instruments with their friends. And they were visited by weather scientists who demonstrated some who like weather related experiments. And they got to ask questions. So if, if you try to look at it too much through instructional models, that kind of learner first approach gets diluted. So I was constantly thinking about, Hey, this is a summer camp. And even though I'm trying to collect research data, and it would be more publishable if I had like hard results, that Oh, there was an increase in their knowledge, because see, here's the pretest. And post test. When I focus more on the experience, it became less about the evaluation and publication and more about how the children are going to feel in that environment.
Luke Hobson 18:26
Absolutely. That's fantastic. They had so many different types of learning activities inside of there. That's it. That's absolutely incredible. So speaking of students, and like their journey is kind of like what you were just describing, as they were going through a different type of summer camp. I think most instructional designers do this, but not to the extent that we're currently talking about because you're, you're really talking about all these different ways that people can go and explore this content, practice it into, you know, a number of different things. So when you as a learning experience designer, when you're thinking about a student's journey, what topics come to mind that perhaps we might not be thinking about.
Sonia Tiwari 19:08
So the big difference with learning experience design is that it's not always about a course, it could be a product or a service or a game or whatever. So it's wildly different based on the type of product. But I'll give an example of say, a student in an online course at the university. So we can think about their learner journey in terms of onboarding to the LMS how they're accessing the course materials, how they're interacting with the teachers and peers, how they're interacting with learning resources, like games or simulations and how they receive and process the feedback from the teachers and peers. And now, I will share an image with you that you can probably link it in the show notes which gives an example of A user journey map. So it's basically just a fancy table on like the x axis, you assign stages of the learner journey like onboarding, accessing course materials, etc. And on the y axis you mark learners activities, feelings, experiences and expectations. So you kind of get a bird's eye view of what are the pain points, and what are some suggested solutions or things that you can improve in the next cycle.
Luke Hobson 20:33
What learning experience design is taught me to is that even though and we were talking about the differences, the terminology of instruction versus everything else, too, even if the instructions are perfectly written, clearly, that still might not be what the students are experiencing, because you're not the student. So I'm your example, this gave me an example of a class of currently teaching where we don't have discussion boards in this course, it's different, they want to do something new. So instead of having discussion boards, where I'm communicating with the students, we're now doing video checkins instead. So even though it's an asynchronous course, we're trying to add in a little bit more of this, humanize touch the things. And the way that students have to go and record their videos event to go and submit them in this type of a learning management system. Dropbox, if you will, is what it basically is, we have instructions written on there, everything from the stance of who designed the course is like, Oh, it's it's perfectly written, this is what it is. But we have still had a number of instances where students will upload the videos, but then they don't submit them. Because for everything else they use for us to just, hey, it's uploaded. Now it's good to go. Not, hey, it's uploaded. Now I need to click on this checkbox to say, Yes, I want to submit. And because of that is caused all this confusion from really everyone's perspective now, because the students there, you know, they're confused. But design team is like, we're also confused. We know how to make it better. Like it's clearly written this way. There's a tutorial, there's a video, there's a whatever. And I was like, Yeah, but they're still not getting it. So it's still a problem with the experience that needs to be changed. It's, it's been very interesting trying to solve that too. Because now it's, you know, many stakeholders, and blah, blah, blah, anyway, we'll get we'll get into politics in that one. But that's been interesting. That type of a problem. And you were talking a little bit about this, too. And absolutely, I'll include the images in the show notes and whatnot. I'll include everything at the bottom for everything for everyone at home. But one thing that comes up that doesn't get talked up that much is prototyping, of course, some folks do it. Some folks don't. Sometimes we do it in a variety of ways of, you know, even having just notepads around the room to just drawings, whiteboards, you know, you name it. But how does someone who is actually a professional at this, how do you do prototypes of courses.
Sonia Tiwari 23:03
So again, like, I don't generally by default, think about courses, it when it comes to learning experience design. So I'll give an example of a game because that's like my comfort zone. And educational games are also now becoming more and more part of formal courses. So before the prototype, I'll just give you like a cute, quick few steps that come before it, which are really important. So here, you'll see the similarity with ID and UX. So we start with analysis, like in a typical ID process. The first part is analysis, who are the learners? What are their goals, preferences, what resources do they have? Then I create personas for the learners, which are, you know, what are their goals, behaviors, attitudes of a typical student, or a few different personas that represents the diversity of the learners. Then I start thinking about specific scenarios where they will experience the learning are they in a classroom, on the go at the museum, etc, just getting more context of their environment and activities and their desired outcomes, and then the user journeys that we talked about. And then once I have an overall idea of this process, then I begin prototyping. So again, like prototyping looks completely different based on the type of educational products. And in the example of game design, I personally use Adobe XD and Adobe Illustrator for prototyping. I start by wireframing, which is just laying out the content and functionality of the game in simple outlines. Sometimes I create paper prototypes, where you basically draw by hand different views of the game. What will you see if you click on this button, what happens next and when you will out all the screens on paper and connect them with a thread or just you know visually see how they flow together. There's like this Sherlock Holmes kind of moment where you see all the interconnections. And it all makes sense, or you know, it doesn't. Then I create a rapid prototype, which is just like a bare bones version of the educational game, where you can see all the interactions and content, but it's not. It's not beautiful, yet, there's no illustrations or fancy UI at this point. And then finally, I create a fully functional prototype where everything comes together the visuals, interactions content. So it's good enough for testing, but it's not officially launched. Because it's kind of like this in in this in between stage.
Luke Hobson 25:46
Absolutely. And I mean, the things that I do, and I'm sorry, I always say courses, I could be referring to courses, trainings, programs, you name it, but just in my brain, because I've been in higher ed for so long, I say courses on literally everything. But when I designed, as we mentioned, anything, I do the same thing, where I'm just trying to see across the boards, from outcomes to objectives to just moving different things around to seeing with something break with something changes, if I just move this one activity over into here into this section, or if I bring this one over into here, and it's it's remarkable how much if you just take one activity and move it around, it could entirely change the experience, sometimes awesome, sometimes not so much. So is this really everything you're talking about is so important to do, because there isn't that much testing that seems to go on inside of the instructional design world, which is a bit baffling and scary to me, because I need to pilot everything, because I am not the person who's going to be going through the experience. So because of that, it's like yeah, I'm an expert on learning. But that doesn't mean anything if it doesn't meet for this particular person that I'm trying to design for. So I think about doing things as far as for with quantitative data, qualitative data, but it's you know, surveys, interviews, focus groups, things of that nature. And because of that it has really improved my learning to be able to design effectively for other people. How do you evaluate the products and their effectiveness? Do you do surveys and interviews or focus groups or observations or, or what's your preferred method to really gain this insight.
Sonia Tiwari 27:25
So it's, again, like, I'll acknowledge that research or designing customized experiences is a matter of privilege. In many schools, or in many institutions, there's like few teachers and too many students and not enough kind of resources to put a process in place. So I guess we both are coming from a place of privilege to say that, oh, we have this process. And, again, like in a university ID, team environment, you kind of have a semester system. So the timelines are sort of fixed you you think in terms of spring, summer fall, and you you can kind of plan your research and piloting and implementation ahead of time. But like outside of the University System, or informal learning spaces, like a maker space, or a summer camp, or working at a company to upgrade your skills for a promotion, all these like informal or corporate learning opportunities also exist. And it may not be possible to evaluate based on hard data in the way we do at university for courses. So for example, in a maker space, the evaluation could be based on the quality of the artifacts produced, or like students troubleshooting experiences, while they were doing something really challenging how they overcame that challenge. At an educational summer camp for children, the evaluation could be based on, say game data, or conversation analysis during challenging activities in the corporate world evaluation could mean measuring data from employee satisfaction surveys, or their performance analysis in terms of the financial quarters.
Luke Hobson 29:12
Now, when you're so now, at this point in time, we're kind of like going through this and like a linear motion, we have the mindset. We're going through, we're thinking about the journey, we have the prototyping in place. We've already talked about the methods even before that one. So now talking more about tools, because this every instructional designer, always most of the ones that I talked to, are just always so excited about tools. It's what they love to talk about. And sometimes the organization doesn't even use authoring tools. It's just not a thing, which is always something that I think blow some people's minds when they ask me a question about storyline. And I'm honest, and it looks like I don't have to use storyline like what I do at my role, storyline is on evolved we have an entirely different process. So I don't use this product which I know that a lot of People will use storyline or you know, the other popular ones that you know have to move captivate Camtasia in a variety of other things. But when I say tools to you, you have a, you know, a completely different idea about these different types of tools. So what tools should we be looking at as far as for with learning experience design in mind.
Sonia Tiwari 30:20
So I personally use Adobe XD for wireframing and prototyping. And for visual design elements like icons, animations, illustrations, etc. I use Adobe Illustrator After Effects premiere and animate. But then there are several other tools. I've heard great things about my role and cago for user journeys, balsamic envision at your omnigraffle sketch figma is becoming more popular, and then you expand for prototyping. And you can find the links to all of these in the LXD presentation on my LinkedIn.
Luke Hobson 30:57
Absolutely. And for anyone just hearing that for the first time, you should absolutely check out her presentation. It is phenomenal. it's mind blowing. It's where a lot of my questions came from. So if you look at the presentation, you're going to know where I was thinking with making some of these interview questions. And I know we didn't talk about this before, but my wife is actually a I always forget her title, senior UX designer, Team Leader UX design, she works over for wayfair. But figma is her life. So whenever you mentioned figma, I was like, Yeah, I've heard about that. And like 7000 conversations, at this point in time always talking about that. And that one is certainly seems to be picking up steam too. So I need to look into this more because these like all the tools that you just mentioned, because I actually have a background in graphic design. Adobe has been my life for forever. So everything you just said, I'm like, yep, every day Photoshop premiere, you name it, those are things that I use, but for a lot of other people, all the tools that you just said they have may never even heard about before, which is just insane. That, you know, our worlds of instructional design and learning experience design are so similar. But there's just this disconnect sometimes.
Sonia Tiwari 32:07
I think they're really we often forget that we are overall in the design industry. And yeah, creative tools of the trade are just shared by everyone in this space.
Luke Hobson 32:17
Yeah, no, it's true. It's true. And I can tell from talking with folks, that it's, it's not just people in our field who are kind of unsure about things. So like, there's this overarching umbrella of design. And within design, you have the different branches of instructional design, UX learning experience, design, there's all these different types of buckets that people can fall into and pass, they can go down. But then that's the individual of what you want to do, what kind of person do you want to be when you grow up? You're thinking about these paths. And then I keep on being sent over job postings from folks being like, Hey, can you explain more about what the differences with this compared to this one? Like, what what am I really doing here? And one of the common things that I see, but I'd love to hear more about your opinion on is that you have an employer or an hiring manager, who may have said that looking for an instructional designer, but as you're reading the job description, the responsibilities you're like, Yeah, I don't think you are I think you're thinking more about learning experience design, or vice versa, which, you know, happens there. They're blurring the lines here. How do you know when it's the right time to apply to one posting compared to another if the person who is actually making the job posting seems unsure about what they're really looking for in a candidate?
Sonia Tiwari 33:37
So my strategy is that whenever I'm applying for jobs, I just read the description, and I don't care about the job title. Right? Because see, if you if you think you have the skills that are listed and the duties that you have to perform in that role, if you feel like a fit, then just go for it. You're right, that sometimes the lines are really blurred. But sometimes they're also clearly drawn, I think share some examples from like my recent job interviews. I recently interviews with three different organizations that are hiring, learning experience designers, but their exact titles, the job descriptions and qualifications were really different. So the first one was a learning designer position at a public university. The description was very similar to an ID position like designing curriculum and courses, needs assessments, prototyping, developing training materials, etc. But in the interview, when I spoke to the head of learning design, the difference actually mentioned was that they weren't following any instructional models to the tee. They were really focusing on the learners and we're trying to develop unique learning experiences without worrying too much about following the rigid ID process. So there are a lot of similarities in the job description, but the difference was in the approach. The second one was that As a software development company, and even though the role said, experience designer for education, it was essentially just a UX role where I was expected to wireframe and prototype the software interface of an educational product. There was no room to apply learning theories or research insights, this position did not require a background and education, just a UX portfolio. So I guess like education was just and a flavor. They were Yeah, really not too deep into it. And the third one was a learning designer position at an educational entertainment company for our kids. So for them, the scope of learning designer, included curriculum guidance on a range of products like children's books, games, toys, children's media. And that was, you know, clearly different from the typical ID position. And this one required a Master's or doctoral level education in the field of education. So, in all of these examples, you'll see that, you know, learning experience design was framed differently. And I think both academia and industry will continue to sort of negotiate the bounds of what counts as ID, XD, UXD, LD, LXD, and maybe 10 years from now, you know, based on the demand and supply of these roles, we'll see which titles will sort of stick and which ones will evolve into like new letters.
Luke Hobson 36:29
There, we have literally every letter under the sun at this point in time, it's just gonna keep on going
Sonia Tiwari 36:36
I find a way to kind of summarize the state of these positions right now, I always joke that you know, UX is a glamorous celebrity. It is a trusty workhorse. And Alex D is like the younger cousin with an identity crisis.
Luke Hobson 36:52
Seriously, serious? It's true. And that's why I want to ask you about that one. Because I feel like that people don't even know who they are anymore when they're trying to apply to a job. Because you like it, because the way that you find most jobs is that you search by title. So that's why I loved your piece of advice for First things first, you're like, no, can you do the job? If yes, apply anyway, because the titles are only so confusing. And I have a buddy and he works in institution. And he is a learning architect. And I'm like, all right, that's a new one. You are an architect. I have talked to learning scientists, learning researchers, learning engineers, learning designers, and now learning architects and just I don't know, I think sometimes that people are like, you know, what's a cool word for this one, we're gonna throw out this. And now, this is gonna be the new job. I don't know. Sometimes
Sonia Tiwari 37:41
we get a asymmetric haircut and pick up a new title design evangelist or
Luke Hobson 37:48
make me the absolute design King. And we'll call it a day like I don't know. It's, it's, it's getting absolutely crazy. And you mentioned about UX UI. And I know a few instructional designers who actually took the initiative to say, hey, I want to go down this road and get a certificate and UX or UI, because I know it's actually going to help me out in my career, which I thought was really interesting and insightful. Not that many folks are doing that. Do you think that's what instructional designers should be doing going forwards is to try to explore those areas as well.
Sonia Tiwari 38:24
I mean, they're definitely more lucrative. I'll be honest, like blunt about this, that if you if you were as a designer to spend eight to 10 hours of your day doing something. And if you look at the hourly rates on Glassdoor, the annual salaries on Glassdoor, you'll definitely see those that you know, UX designers are getting paid more, while other designers might be putting in the same amount of time and effort but aren't getting paid less. So it is a strategic move. For a lot of designers. I used to joke that, you know, if you hold us if you toss a small pebble anywhere in Bay Area, and it falls randomly on anyone, and that person is a UX designer. Because, you know, I went to art school, I studied animation, and like everyone from all different disciplines like oil painting, automobile design, animation, illustration, all of us now are some form of UX. And it was again, like sometimes you have to pivot to more gainful employment, more stable employment. And in certain areas, definitely in SF Bay Area. If you're a designer, at some point, you do have to, you know, stay employed by doing more UX design work. It's just a lot of gainful employment available in that field.
Luke Hobson 39:49
And the more research I'm doing on this, the more I think that this is going to be one of those skills that people wish that they had developed further before really going down the ID world before years ago, I know talking to people about just like, you know, what's one thing you wish you knew about before becoming an ID, and you get a whole variety of answers. But one of them from more of like the technical hard skills approach was the amount of answers from coding. Like, wow, I wish I knew how to code beforehand. Why didn't anyone tell me how much was involved? And it's not true for obviously, every job, but for many of them, it's very helpful. Regardless, if you're just in I know that I've worked in a variety of different learning management systems that sometimes you put in a banner of in the banner goes completely way over to the right for no reason. You're like, whoa, wait a minute, like, what is it doing? Like, it has its own mind of its own for trying to format and you're like, well, if I just go into the code, it's a lot easier compared to trying to tinker around and like Blackboard to figure something out.
Sonia Tiwari 40:46
I think there's a tendency to sort of other eyes in the design field that are you like, I remember, you posted something on LinkedIn that someone was commenting that Oh, your background is not relevant. And you should? Yeah. So that's a weird. That's like a limitation. Because someone with like a coding background, when becomes an ID, like you were describing their job might become easier in some ways, like I coming from a game design background, when I transitioned into learning experience design that was helpful. So our backgrounds are sort of important in the sense that they make us unique, and they bring non traditional skill set into the ivory tower. Because if everyone was just you know, so purely theoretical, and just following ID models and everything, it would just be so boring. And actually, that's what's happening. That's why you still see those dreaded like, blue backgrounds and yellow fonts and academic interventions, like poorly designed, because we just don't welcome people with different backgrounds to take on these jobs.
Luke Hobson 41:57
So true. There's so many that you just look at them. And you're like, oh, why? And yeah, and that person was just a lovely gentleman who tried to rip me apart on LinkedIn for having a different type of a background, or it's just like you, I mean, like, especially too, because you know, as well for being in design, where beforehand, I was a freelance designer, but I did graphic design. I mean, that was how I built my chops to be able to actually negotiate with people, it was that it was working with people to say, hey, you will want to pay me only, you know, $100, for something that's going to easily take me so many different hours, like this is really like $1,000 job, like you're not, you got to work with me here. And that's how I learned to negotiate which then, therefore, now years later in my life, I didn't plan on becoming an instructional designer. But hey, I know how to negotiate and influence and persuade other people like smes, who I work with them every day, I need to know these people's skills. And it's those different backgrounds that Yeah, you don't need to have that traditional path to just become an ID, you can come in here from, you know, you and I are both coming from different walks of life, and both came to the same place. So like, you know, it's crazy. I don't know how I got on that rant. But that person is what I'm reading that that is fired me up. Or I was like, Are you kidding me? Like we all have different awesome skill sets to bring to the table? Like what is wrong with coming in from a different angle?
Sonia Tiwari 43:15
Like, no, it's really important because see, because LXD is that, you know, younger cousin, but then identity crisis, you develop an identity through bringing in so many diverse people and see what sticks what leaves over time, you get to evolve your identity. But if you if you're not wearing anything, if everything is saying staying the same, there's no experimentation, you don't know where there's no evolution, basically, it's staying the same. So yeah, I appreciate that. Let's talk about
Luke Hobson 43:48
a boring learning experience if everything is literally the exact same way where we're doomed, so no, diversity is good. Come on now anyway, to put putting that person aside for everything. Tell me more about the research behind what is currently out there. For trends, what are some of the latest findings that are currently guiding this field?
Sonia Tiwari 44:10
So my absolute favorite journal is the International Journal of designs for learning ideal. They present case studies of just beautifully designed research interventions or products, tools, environments that support learning so really diverse and their content. And in any given issue, you'll find at least a few research articles whose findings reveal that better design learning experiences yield higher engagement for learners and better learning outcomes. So that relation is important to remember that better design can lead to higher engagement. The other finding that I really care about is that strong learning experiences create long term positive impact. So there are several impact studies of PBS Kids media about how children's academic skills, there's social behavior is positively influenced by media even after they become adults. And you can read these reports from organizations like Education Development Center, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, American Institutes for Research and best Ed. And there's, there's a really beautiful thing by Maya Angelou that, you know, people will forget what you said what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And with the the PBS Kids Media Research, that's the third finding that I care about that great learning experiences are memorable. So if you if you craft, a learning experience that is well designed, learners will remember them for a really long time based on how good they felt. And the fourth finding is one from my own research. It is that you know, character, illustrations and animation can support positive learning experiences. So a few nerdy terms here, but like characters can be pedagogical agents. In the course content, like the the mouse on the ABC mouse website, or characters can be conversational agents, like, you know, Dora the Explorer, talking directly to the screen and encouraging children to reply. characters can also represent learners. So in terms of higher education, if there's like a gamified module in the course, and students are able to design their own avatars. That's a nice way to make learners feel included and represented.
Luke Hobson 46:36
So that is something to that I'm trying to just fully understand how to use more. Because when I think about some of the platforms, I've used, like gather town, for instance, for a virtual type of virtual conference that we attended via gather town, I got to make my own Avatar and, and some people didn't realize how to make their own avatar, so they became snowmen, and a hamburger and other like ridiculous things was funny, you know, it was a cool thing that we obviously still remember months later. And it was, it was just really funny with everything. But the topic of the humanoid versus realistic characters. And training is something that I'm still trying to wrap my head around as far as for what do people actually prefer more? And then I don't have an answer I've met. So that's why I'm, I'm talking about it. Because sometimes I know that when I've taken a training before, if it's like a human resources training, for instance, they'll typically use something that's a simulation that's like a cutout of a real person. And then they're just kind of like a talking head, then you got to pick and choose whatever. And when I take those trainings, I think back to my retail days of working at Sears when I was a teenager, and that's what it reminds me of like, it does remind me of something that's engaging and fun and says like, Oh, yeah, there's that training. But I used to do back in 2004. You know, it's just like, so
Sonia Tiwari 47:56
there's like a disconnect, because it's like when people try to think younger, but they're not, you know, like trying to connect with this new generation. So for us, the talking avatars like you're describing describes you. Reminds me of Sears, to me, it reminds me of that like annoying Clippy. Microsoft Word, please, who needs that anymore. But I think the younger generation thinks of characters and gaming more differently, like the gaming industry in general, in terms of just the annual revenue, it has surpassed like movies like there are games that made sort of more profits than the Avengers movie, which was one of the highest grossing movies of all time, but there are games two games, which beat that annual revenue. So there's just we can process that level of involvement and engagement and relation or emotional connection with games. So sometimes, in these training sessions, people try to address that, that, oh, it's considered young, let let us try this, you know, but they don't really know what to do. Because if you really talk to a hardcore gamer, they'll they'll give you that feedback that know what you're trying to do is not engaging, just having a talking cut out is not going to cut it. So I think that's just a poor execution of an otherwise Good idea.
Luke Hobson 49:31
Yeah, yeah. It seems like to me it's like they're almost trying too hard. That's what I see. There's this like, Oh, you don't have to do it like that. Because, you know, I play games as well. And I absolutely grew up on every cartoon and anime under the sun. That was my life for forever. And I still see things even though my 30s by like, you know, like that's, I would prefer that any day, but it has to be done right, which is the execution like that's what it says. The idea is there this It'd be awesome. But then it kind of falls short because I think about me, we'll take fortnight for instance, which every parent currently listening to this podcast probably has grown, as I said, fortnight, but the amount of money that fortnight is made to reach every type of person. And then because of that now celebrities are actually being transformed into fortnight to have their own characters and their own likeness, which therefore goes back to them as far as royalty rights. And like, that totally makes sense. So if I'm going to be trying to work with someone like that type of audience, yeah, I'm gonna go in that direction. But now if I have somebody who is 35, but I'm trying to train them on something that's with HR, I could tap into something like that, but it has to be done well. And a lot of these things are not done. Well.
Sonia Tiwari 50:44
Yeah, I kind of hate that word like edutainment. Yeah, I think that, you know, just take any popular genre and just throw in some education there and boom, edutainment. And it doesn't work that way. Because if you're copying the genre, also copy the quality. You know, if you're if you say that, oh, avatar was such a nice, well, let us make an educational film that's also three hours long. It's not going to work. You know, you can just copy the duration and the genre, but not think about the visuals, the storylines, the quality, and the eight years that James Cameron spend in making them. Yeah, that's and again, like that happens with games too, that oh, you know, Angry Birds. Look, it's so popular. Let's make an educational game. But like birds, but there's no gameplay, the characters are boring, the illustrations are crappy. And even young children, they have such high design sensibilities they can they can tell apart a bad game from a beautifully designed game. Oh,
Luke Hobson 51:49
yeah, that's it, the entire concept of gamification is just mind blowing when speaking with some people. And they're like, look at the game I made, like you're, you know, a vendor will come in and do a presentation. And they're like, Oh, this is gamification. And it's like, it was the worst game. Yeah, it's a game, quote, unquote. But like, games have ratings and reviews. And this is not fun. Like, you just made it so that I can be active and click around and see things. But like, there's nothing especially especially math, for the love of God, please, do more. We're trying to make games about math, it can be done. Well, I have seen it. There are great examples out there that can I mean, dreambox is one of them that I've gone through and seen a couple of different projects from dreambox. And they do a fantastic job of making real games, but being an educational type of a training tool, and there's just a lot of them out there. But just don't do it justice.
Sonia Tiwari 52:43
Right. I think like, it's also important to sort of remember that all these like games and everything, when it's produced in a university setting, there are just so many inbuilt sort of limitations for the people trying to do it, that if a researcher is doing it, it's funded probably by a research grant. And the grant already has a lot of things that they need to account for, in order to utilize their grants. So a lot of it is just fulfilling the requirements of the grant more than putting the learner at the center and thinking about the experience and whatever. Or like, you know, younger faculty members have this pressure of getting published. And in order to get tenure. So the motivations kind of are different. Versus I think, in the gaming industry, when they make educational games. in academia, they sort of look down at it that, oh, you're designing for money or profit. And our goal is purely education. But it's not true. I think money is a great motivator, because then you really care about quality. It's the highest compliment if if you can make someone pay for playing your game, that's the highest compliment that you can get that oh, this was so good. I actually paid for it. Versus like an education because there's there's no monetary value attached to it. It's like, you know, you're just gonna design whatever we think is right, whatever fulfills our ground or our publication requirement. And if we're going to write a study about how engaging it was, but no one really finds out whether or not like I've never seen an academic research on a game that concludes that our game was not engaging. How can they say that Oh, it was great. It improved the learning outcomes and children were engaged in the knowledge gain improved by such and such percent some fancy charts and whatever so there's, there's no honesty, but in in the gaming industry, you can cheat if if your game was that, you know, you will the world No, yes.
Luke Hobson 55:02
No, there's there's no hiding behind that. And you can't try to twist or transform a definition of something to make your own definition of engagement, quote unquote, near like, yeah, that's not really how it works. And certainly it's your point to money is definitely not a bad thing for you try to do I know, it's a weird topic. I know for a lot of people. But the The short answer is that if you are spending your money on something you are voting, saying that this product is worth it, and other people will try to check it out and see how it goes. And it kind of goes from there.
Sonia Tiwari 55:35
So right, and also it gives the power to the learner. That's the more important part. And that's what's missing in academia that we it's kind of an extra Bell and whistle for learners, that if you are getting an experience that's in addition to the basic curriculum that we had, so you should be grateful that we added the simulation. So it's a favor that you're doing rather than really that, oh, we really want to please you. So, again, like it's a difference and in mindset, and that is why you see more LFC type of roles in the industry where the money maker is the learner.
Luke Hobson 56:13
That makes plenty of sense. I'm just realizing we've been talking for forever. So let me ask you one more question. Before I get us out of here. You've already talked about a couple of your projects. But I would love to hear more. What is this been your overall favorite project to work on? So far, when thinking about the the overall learning experience,
Sonia Tiwari 56:31
I would say it's a game called microbes journey. And it was like a micro character that takes you through 5 billion years of microbial history of the earth. And I'm just happy with it. Because it was such a challenging topic to begin with. It was an introduction to microbiology course. And for undergraduates, and I was really worried if they would get like a microbe character with googly eyes. And but yeah, they were they were really appreciative of it. And they loved the design language, and it made it simpler and more enjoyable.
Luke Hobson 57:08
That's awesome. I love it. That sounds really cool. Actually, I'll have to check that out. But speaking about that, I'm checking things out. Where can people can go to learn more about you and your work and everything else that you do.
Sonia Tiwari 57:22
I'm recently more active on LinkedIn, because I'm looking for a job.
Luke Hobson 57:27
Fair enough.
Sonia Tiwari 57:27
Yeah. But like, generally, I update my website, Soniatiwari.com. And so and i at AI, W AR I and I post like blogs when when I when I don't really want to wait too long for a journal to publish it. I just like, put my thoughts, organize them in a blog, and it's published on my website.
Luke Hobson 57:48
Wonderful. And for all the folks at home, I will link to everything down in the show notes below. But Sonia, once again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been extremely enlightening and engaging. And just overall, their educational. I think too many people are going to listen to this. And here's some of these things for the very first time. So thank you once again for coming on the show. Thank you. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. After this episode was recorded, Sonia created a new blog post called ID UX and LXD differences and similarities explained, I'd highly encourage you to read that to help with your understanding of these fields and build upon this knowledge you just gained from the podcast, be sure to connect with Sonia on LinkedIn. And her website that I've linked to in the show notes below too. She also has a fantastic presentations on there that are really visually appealing and make the LXD field simple to understand. So I would encourage you to also go through those presentations. Those are actually what I was basing the interview questions around was that I saw these same presentations was like, Oh, these are great. I have a lot of follow up questions. So can we talk more about that on the podcast and that's really what you just listened to? If you enjoyed today's episode, share this podcast on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. And feel free to tag me in the post and tell me what you learn from the episode. If you haven't already, connect with me on LinkedIn and subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you are looking for a group of learning nerds that talk about all things instructional design, check out the link to our Facebook group called instructional design Institute community. As always, your five star reviews on Apple podcasts are deeply appreciated. That's all I have for you today, folks, stay nerdy out there and I'll talk to you next time.