What does the day in the life look like for a learning experience designer? On today's episode, we are joined by Shreya Gupta. She's an LXD at Amazon and she breaks down for us what we need to know about this field and how to apply for an LXD role.
Connect with Shreya:
Figment of Imagination with Shreya (Blog): https://figmentofimaginationwithshreya.wordpress.com/
The Write-Ups: https://m.facebook.com/TheWriteUps/
Mentioned Resources:
iDTX 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCXV_VZ-ZJI
Clark and Mayer, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Science-Instruction-Guidelines-Multimedia/dp/0470874309
Design Thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r0VX-aU_T8
To learn more about myself and show:
IDOL Courses Academy
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Eduflow
An easier, more powerful platform to manage social learning at scale
Instructional Design Institute
Professional development for IDs and aspiring IDs
Transcript
Luke Hobson 00:00
Hey folks, before we begin today's show, I want to give a quick shout out to idol courses Academy. If you're looking to transition into the corporate instructional design space, you need the right guidance to do so. Dr. Sargeant, her team have done an incredible job with focusing on what's important to be a corporate instructional designer like storyboarding it models and theories, authoring tools, project management tactics and more. They even cover how to make your resume and portfolio stand out from the crowd and have an impressive completion rate with their students work in organizations like Google, Salesforce, GM, Uber, Walmart, and Amazon. Also, you won't be going through this learning journey alone, you'll be studying alongside other aspiring instructional designers, as well as working with experienced mentors and coaches. And as an added bonus, you'll get a free copy of my ebook, what I wish I knew before becoming an instructional designer. So check out the industry recognized program, it's showing up in job descriptions as preferred training and education by going to idolcourses.com/academy. Enrollment ends soon on April 1, so be sure to sign up today and use the promo code LUKE to save you $88 off your enrollment. And now let's start the show. Hello, everybody, and welcome on into your favorite learning nerd podcast. If this is your first time joining us welcome if this is your second, third, fourth, or how many more times Welcome back on in. My name is Dr. Luke Hobson. I'm an author, blogger podcaster. I'm a senior instructional designer and Program Manager for MIT. My passion and purpose is to help you make the online learning experience absolutely incredible for you and for your students. And I'm also here as well to help you with guidance along the way pertaining to things as far as for transitioning for some of you. And for a course anything else that might pop up within your career. Almost exactly one year ago to the day I had this idea about writing a book. I didn't know how it was going to go. But what I was trying to be able to emulate was that how I learned about instructional design was through networking, and doing a lot of coffee chats, and going to a lot of the favorite local watering holes, and just talking with people and learning more about what is this field called instructional design. And when I started to think about this idea of writing the book, that's what I wanted to be like, I want it to be a conversational type of piece, where if you and I were sitting down at a coffee chat, and you told me and you're like, hey, look, I'm thinking about doing what it is that you do. What exactly do I do? How do I go all about this? And the idea was this to give you a brain dump of information of here's everything that I've learned about, take it, run with it, do with it, what you will then idea came to me last March, even after that, I spent six months, and I wrote the book and that was it. No, it took me six months to write the book. But it was because I was so hyper focused and obsessed with every single day, I was talking about the book to someone else. And I started to hear from feedback from people like you who were saying of like, wow, I really can't wait to read this book. This is something I'm like looking forward to. I really needed this months ago, like, you know, where is it? And it kept on driving me and pushing me and then sure enough, after six months, it was done. Now released it into the world about around October ish, put it out there, sat back, waited and was like, I don't know how this is going to go. I heard from some friends save it. It was helpful who were already instructional designers. But for some people who have never been in this field before, I definitely was very curious of is what I'm talking about going to resonate? Is it the right type of depth and the right level to make sure that I'm not just spewing out academic jargon about I'm actually meeting you where you are and trying to be able to, you know, to guide you correctly along this path. And then the reviews started to come in. And then more and more started to come in. I kept on hearing from feedback from you and getting tagged on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter. And all of a sudden, I was like, Wow, awesome. This is actually doing the intention of trying to help out people and share what I know about instructional design. And then another six months goes by which now we are back in this March timeframe. And then all of a sudden, I was going through the Amazon listing and I saw that we officially sold the 1,000th copy of the book, which folks that's insane. You know a book about instructional design of all things I never ever ever thought it would reach one 1000 of you. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much for taking a chance on this book for reading it. Some of you crushed it in one day, which is actually kind of funny, not the intention I wanted you to do. By the way, there's definitely practice questions and reflections, I certainly want you to go back and do those if you skip them. But overall, I just couldn't believe as somebody spent so much time going through something that I wrote about. And then as the months went by the book actually became a part of the curriculum for some places. I heard from Dr. Robin Sargent, that the book was going to become the official book for idol courses Academy, which blew me away. And I've been connecting with so many of you from idols. So thank you so much. I also heard from my dear friend, Holly Owens, who made the book a part of Touro colleges curriculum for the Instructional Design Program, which is also crazy. And I heard from so many of you as well to who made the book apart of book clubs and studies and all these other different things. And it's just so awesome. And I am so appreciative of all of you already have an idea for another book, by the way, but I want to write I kind of want to challenge myself and kind of show you more behind the scenes in case if you want to write a book, which many, many, many of you have reached out to me about saying that that is your next goal. But before I go into today's amazing episode with our awesome guests who I'm going to be talking about in a second, I just have to say thank you so much. I have no idea about this wild ride that has become my life and where it's going. And it's something I never thought was going to happen. But like, hey, right place right time. And it's been so awesome to build a community with all of you especially offend the instructional design institute community on Facebook, join that if you haven't already. And of course, there's so many of you on LinkedIn and by email and everything else. So once again, folks, thank you so much for making the book a part of your life, and for actually hitting the 1000 milestone. And maybe I'll give a shout out when we hit 5000. If we do I have no idea anymore about how any of this is happening. But I am certainly enjoying it and being able to keep on sharing and to helping you on your own journey as well. Alright, so now let's talk about today's episode, we are going to be joined by Shreya Gupta. She's a learning experience designer at Amazon, absolutely brilliant person. And in this conversation, we are going to dive on in to the day in the life of a learning experience designer at Amazon, talk about design thinking, which I'm sure that many of you have heard about this framework before we're going to dive on into that, as well as to is that if you are thinking about applying for an organization like an Amazon where you want to become a learning experience designer, what do you need to know what tools and resources are out there to guide you. And Shreya does a fantastic job of breaking all of these things down and really just putting it into a succinct and a clear and concise way for us to be able to follow. One thing I do want to mention is that there is a bit of background noise for this conversation. By the way, I did my absolute best to edit it out. It's not that much of a big deal. I listened to the whole thing. Obviously, I didn't find it so distracting. But just FYI, I know that for some of you, you wear headphones, and you go for walks while you listen to this podcast, if you hear car horns in the background, it's not a car next to you, it's most likely the background noise. So just wanted to make sure that you were aware about this. No, you're not going crazy. There is a bit of background noise, and I just couldn't get rid of everything. So unfortunately, it is what it is. But this conversation was so awesome. It doesn't matter you are going to be hanging on Shreyas every word, as she says, Tell us us everything about learning experience design, and about her experience, her journey and all have her thoughts as well. So I'm not going to waste any more time. Here is the one and only Shreya Gupta trail. Welcome to the podcast.
Shreya Gupta 09:05
Thank you so much Luke, very happy to be connecting and speaking today with yourself.
Luke Hobson 09:11
Absolutely, this is gonna be a fun one. So I really excited to dive on in. But before I get ahead of myself, can you please introduce yourself to the audience? Tell us a little bit more about who you are and what it is that you do?
Shreya Gupta 09:24
Sure. So my name is Shreya Gupta. And I work as a learning experience designer with Amazon spent the last couple of years being a software developer to still communication executive. And now instructional designer or XD is unknown here, the org. So it's really been a mix of roles that I've had in the past couple years and I really enjoy that because now that I'm in LXD I can probably say I found my true calling. And it has been a bit of a struggle before I accidentally landed into this role but then also what's the way to because Well, that ends well.
Luke Hobson 10:03
Such a positive outlook. I love it. That's fantastic. So Alright, so now let's dive on in. Because I have to ask one question as someone who is also in the same learning and development space, in instructional design land. For the longest time, whenever I was on a project, the first thing that I had to do was always just like, introduce myself and say what it is that I actually do for a living, I have had a lot of blank stares of what is instructional design? Who are you? Why are you on this project? Now in 22, I don't get that as much. But before times, with being in person, I had that a lot. And I know I'm still going to encounter that. Now, for me, learning experience design starts to be like the new buzzword, if you will, that I keep seeing everywhere, and I'm seeing a lot of posts that some people get it, other people like don't get it at all. So when you're on these projects, are you having to go through the same motions of just explaining what learning experience design actually means to your stakeholders
Shreya Gupta 11:09
all the time Luke in fact, I can still relate to what you just mentioned, I have had a long, you know, a really hard time explaining what I do to my family members as well leave alone, employees, pure stakeholders, and everybody else. So why don't really tell them in a layman's language feels that I designed trainings for internal employees. But I also mentioned to them that that's not just what we do at work, because as an instructional designer, slash LXD, we get to Dawn quite a few hats. So we get to be the project manager, we are the design, of course, we are writers at times, we are researchers with readers, we are stakeholder managers. So there's so much more than meets our eye in terms of instructional designing. And I think people get it now, most people who have already worked with in the past, they do understand our journey to some extent, but to anybody who I'm meeting for the very first time or speaking with for the first time I tell them about, you know, all of this, in short, and then I also in case they're interested, I let them know about my journey of what I do at work like, you know, telling them about specifically the ADDIE module, that the model that we follow and, and you know, all that goes into creating the curricula that we do. So yeah, that's how I explain what I do to people.
Luke Hobson 12:36
Now, you mentioned both instructional design and learning experience design kind of like interchangeably, which I understand because even though my title is senior instructional designer, there is a ton of learning experience design in my position, also because I'm on a team of like four people. So I also wear like a million hats. Are you finding that kind of same thing that sometimes you get called an ID, and you just roll with it? Because you're like, well, it's close enough? Or for some people are like, actually, like, there's a difference? Let me tell you why.
Shreya Gupta 13:12
Yeah, so from personal experience, view, I would say that most orgs use this interchangeably. However, in my opinion, there is a bit of a difference. So when we talk about instruction designing, we're really referring to just one particular phase of you know, all that the bigger pie there is to instruction designing, whereas, whereas in terms of learning experience designing, we are referring to everything end to end. So if I talk specifically around an adding model, as an LXD, I'm going to perform an A to an E role, right. Whereas as an ID, I might only be responsible for the designing part of it. So that's the biggest difference I see when I talk about these two terms. But like I said, it would differ team to team or to work and people to people.
Luke Hobson 14:03
I love that explanation. Because that is very common to hear that someone will only do one as you select one slice of the pie. That's it. And that's all they do. And then for other people, depending upon the size of the organization, they do all of that and more because they have to, because the team is small. So it kind of it is what it is. I know my next question I want to ask you is a very tough one to answer. So whatever you can give me for an answer I will greatly appreciate but I'm always curious about the day in the life of people of what it is that they actually do because we see the job postings and we're reading about the responsibilities online. It's just like, Okay, I think I kind of know what it is that they do. But I always want to actually hear it from the real source. So could you tell us a little bit more about the day of life as somebody who works at Amazon and an LXD position?
Shreya Gupta 14:54
Yeah, I'd love to share about my role. So yes, given the fact that I am an LXD, that's exactly what I do. So like I said, I'm responsible for every phase or every stage of the ADDIE process. But apart from that, I also have recently been, you know, selected as the owner of the curriculum of the function that I represent. So, because of that, I'm also responsible for tasks like maintaining the curricula that we've created in the past, making sure that all the versions of the curricula that we may have created are up to date, making sure that we are archiving any outdated content. And of course, the regular responsibilities of LXD are always there if we're supposed to shoulder so we are supposed to action any requests that come in from our stakeholders or other people in the team, we need to collaborate with them in terms of understanding what the requirement is, or scoping out the requirement, putting dates to everything, you know, creating charters, making sure that we know about the SMES or the POCs, if we need to work with, and yeah, and then getting to design and develop stuff, rolling all of that out, making sure that the launch announcements go out at the right time. And not just that, but also making sure that we are evaluating the curricula that we have launched. So I think the last part that I just said is something that not a lot of teams or orgs would want to do. But I, I really, really recommend that all of us do that, because it's so important to measure what we're delivering just so that we can work backwards and get better at our jobs.
Luke Hobson 16:41
Makes sense. Now, would you describe that as like a general overview for all of like, the different departments at Amazon? Or is it more of like, that is what you think that for your specific department in your area? That's kind of the gist. Because I know for like MIT sake, that if I say like, Oh, I do XY and Z over here, I have to always try to mention like, also my area is like online and professional development, as opposed to some ideas at the School of Management are like, well, it's similar, but I do kind of different things. So I was just kind of curious if it's more for your specific area, or do you think that's a good type of just for everything?
Shreya Gupta 17:23
Not really, I wouldn't say that this is this applies to everybody in the org. And I also wouldn't say that it applies to everybody else, where it's something very team specific and would differ in, you know, department wise or wise. Yeah.
Luke Hobson 17:40
Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Probably a dumb question, in hindsight, but I wanted to ask it out just in case. So you've mentioned a couple of things as far as for with stakeholders, and understanding subject matter experts, people you're working with and everything like that. And I know that you recently presented at LXD con that was hosted by Amazon. So congratulations for doing that. And during that, I know that you talked about essentially, strategies for pitching to stakeholders. That was a longer presentation. But if you could try to like, give us a few highlights and moments of that, as far as your main takeaways, what would that be from your presentation?
Shreya Gupta 18:19
Sure. And so this was a 30 minute live session that I had with various audience members at Amazon last year. So what we discussed about was, you know, all the best practices that we can have a we can use while fishing to our stakeholders, like you said, and the idea behind the session was that newbies in particular, in instruction designing don't have to make any case works at work. So they know why they're designing a particular screen or a module. And you know, the rationale behind it. And they're not just kind of putting things to decorate, you know, on the screen. They're not just adding bells and whistles to the screens. So a lot of times, especially, you know, if I talk about from my personal experience, when I landed an instruction designing, I wasn't aware of the guidelines that we have. So this session aimed at presenting some of those guidelines. And every guideline that we talked about is laid out in the book elearning and the science of instruction, which has been put together by the stalwarts themselves, MER and Clark. So I just wanted to kind of let everybody in the audience know that what they do at work is not something which has been passed on as a legacy. But you know, it's something that has been researched upon in the past, and there is a reason to everything that we do. So yeah, that was what we talked about. So there were three dilemmas that we talked about. And every dilemma was then backed up by some solutions that we have in the book. And yeah, it was a it was a rather enriching and interesting session, I would say because it was highly intense. Not to not just a monologue by myself, but everybody participated. And we learn from each other in the process.
Luke Hobson 20:08
Absolutely. And I know that we can, I'll include that in the show notes as well, as far as for with some of the things you've shared online too, because I found a whole bunch of resources. So I'll be sure to share all of those two, so people can check them out. From that presentation, I'm trying to recall, did you go into anything as far as for diving into about influencing with sneeze? And any of those types of strategies? Or was it a little bit more about for design itself?
Shreya Gupta 20:32
It was more about designing? Yeah. Because in the interest of time, we couldn't touch on every strategy or every guideline that we have in the book. Yeah. And just to kind of, you know, add to that, it's not just a lexicon, but fuga also got an opportunity to present it IDTX conference this year. And, of course, each topic. And we talked about valorado, hotly debated topic, which was flipping the classroom. So a lot of us are cognizant about blended classrooms, but not many, but not a lot of us know about flipped classrooms. So that's exactly what we talked about, whether to flip or not, how to flip, you know, all of that. Again, it was a 30 minute live session, and we had a great audience to interact with that mean,
Luke Hobson 21:21
we're talking about debated topics. That's definitely one of them. There's quite a few out there. So hats off to you for trying to navigate those waters. Because I know that can be really challenging, especially among some of colleagues and peers who have some pretty strong opinions about some things when it comes to that. So definitely hats off to you there. Let's think more about talking about the methods of learning experience design. So we talked about design strategies. We talked a little bit about working with others as well. But is there a certain type of like tool that you absolutely love to use? I know you mentioned for a framework, you've talked about Addie a bit. But are there any other tools or frameworks that folks should be aware of if they're trying to think more about LXD?
Shreya Gupta 22:07
Yeah, I think I can start off with talking about frameworks first. So like I said, I'm a big advocate of Addie. But then ADDIE is something which really gives you a structure of doing things, it doesn't really tell you how to do it. And that is where this framework called design thinking is something that I really swear by design thinking has come to the fore, especially during the pandemic, or online times now, because it's very important for us as designers to be able to empathize with our learners, right. And it's one thing to say that we do that already. And another thing to actually practice it while designing. So if I talk a little bit in detail about Addie. First, it comprises five stages. So we start off with an analysis, when we're putting together the problem statement, we're talking about the requirement of creating training in the first place, whether or not we need to create it. And understanding these success metrics. Right? After that, we move to the design phase, wherein we create a story on a storyboard or really a structure of the visualization that we've done in terms of creating that content. Once that is signed off, we move to the actual development, wherein we use tools like storyline, or, you know, could be something like a PowerPoint, depending on the modality that you've chosen for your curriculum. And once you've developed that, once everything has been signed off, you then move to launching it, which comes under the implementation phase. And finally, you have evaluation, something that I touched upon a bit, initially. So evaluation is where you're measuring how well your curriculum has performed in terms of hitting the right targets, right, and how well or not so well, it has fared in terms of learners rate, how well it was received by the learners, and also trying to gauge how well your business objective has been achieved here. So that's a bit about Addie. Not coming back to Design Thinking, that's a model, which helps you, like I said, empathize with your learners first. So you're trying to understand the pain points of your learners. Now, you could do that using some kind of a survey, you will send a survey to people right at the start to understand where they stand in terms of learning, what is it that they're trying to achieve to this new training? Or you could have some kind of focus group prior at the start right when you're interviewing people who are supposed to be the audience of this new training. So just try and understand, what are they struggling with at the moment, which would then be taken care of by this new new training that you design for them. So once you have put all of that together, you move to defining problem statement. What is it that you're trying to achieve? What is the business objective behind it? And by when should you be delivering it, all of those basic questions should be answered during the stage. Once you've defined that, you move to at 18 phase, which means you're now thinking about possible solutions to the problem that you've identified. And then you move to the prototype stage. phototype is nothing but similar to the design phase of Addie, I would say, when you're prototyping, or putting together a structure of how you would want to roll out the training, what is it, you want to design, the modality of your training, etc. And finally, you reach the testing phase of design thinking, again, testing is something which could also mean a launch or development, you know, depending on the team you're on, depending on the way you want to achieve your objectives. So that's how design thinking model has been structured. And for me, I think I use both of these together in conjunction, and depending on the kind of project I'm on, I would like to use it differently each time. But then the whole idea behind using both of these is to make sure that we're walking into the shoes of the learners and making sure what we're doing is going to help them in the long run.
Luke Hobson 26:20
That was so impressive. I just did all that off the top of your head, by the way. super impressive. You just said everything, I detailed explanation, a breakdown of every single step. That was awesome. Just listening, I was like, Yeah, this is great. That was so cool. When so now that we just talked about all those different things, when I'm thinking about for talking about instructional design to a lot of folks, oftentimes one question kind of gets brought up as far as for like, is the course actually needed? Or is it more of just a training? Or a workshop? Or is it a full blown program? Whatever. And you just touched upon that a little bit where you said, like, you know, do we actually need to do this before we keep on going down this road? When you were just talking about those different frameworks and all those different steps, when it comes to designing a learning experience for say, a one day training versus something where you're like, This is gonna be a four week course? Do you change anything with your approach? Do you focus on anything a bit more like walk me through that, that the thinking going through things,
Shreya Gupta 27:25
I'd say when it comes to creating a longish curriculum, you know, something that's going to pan over multiple days, it's important to factor into your curriculum, the time to take breaks, and also the time to let your learners practice, right, because otherwise, it would become rather mundane, it would become super dis engaging, I mean, just imagining sitting through one way delivery of content for hours that stretch across days, it's going to be very boring, right to say the least, we wouldn't want that to happen. And any which way is whether or not this pans out for multiple days, or for just a few hours for one day. I think incorporating practicing practices, and everything is very important. So perhaps if you're creating something self paced, you might not factor into that as much the practice, you know, part of it, but then if you're creating a curriculum that's going to be rolled out to people for a lot of days, then you must have time for practices, and also time for them to go through things at their own pace. And also, you know, it's important to make sure that we have a lot of modalities. So it's not, it shouldn't just be an IoT led curriculum for multiple days, it shouldn't just be a self paced, either. It should be like, you know, a mix of videos, a mix of learnings, IoT lead modules, and what not. And of course, you can also plug into those some kind of practice case studies, you know, so that your, your learners, they know what they're doing, and they're able to practice, they're able to apply things even before they go back to work. So I'd say something that you can do, if you're thinking about creating a curriculum for a lot of days, you must have a mix of modalities. And you must have some kind of practice and adventure to your curriculum
Luke Hobson 29:24
cannot agree more. Whenever I think what you were just saying about how you don't want someone going through things as far as for hours upon hours in one session, when as a teenager, I worked at Sears. And when I worked at that retail store, the trainings were just I had to go and I was timed for the like, you must watch these videos for three hours this day, three hours this day. And the whole time we were all sitting there like is anyone learning anything? And it's like, no, it was just, it was not a good time. So because of that I couldn't tell you a single thing that I learned about from those multiple hours because there was absolutely zero activity engagement facilitation, you know, it was just me literally clicking Next, Next Next, and it was not the best way to design a learning experience. And luckily, things have come a lot longer since back then in 2004, to whenever I worked there, I don't know, that was a long time ago. What's a concept now that we've talked about all the right things to do? What's one concept that actually is not being talked about enough? In learning experience design? Is there something surprising where you're like, why aren't people focusing on this area more particular,
Shreya Gupta 30:33
I would say it's measuring the outcome of your trainings. Because in the last, you know, the some of the organizations that I've heard about or worked with, I feel that instructional designing is really limited to just that, that is designing, or at times analyzing, at times developing as well. But not a lot of people want to give a thought to how their trainings have been rolled out, or how much of an impact it has had on the learners or on the business. So I would highly recommend people to try and get their hands on some kind of success metrics, some kind of anecdotal feedback from the learners, or just just something tells them how impactful this training has been, or how useful it has been to them. In fact, more than talking about how useful it has been, I think it's more more helpful to talk about things that did not go well. So that you can then think about those and integrate all of those feedback comments into your curricula going forward. Or even in the same curricula that you had rolled out. Previously, you must go back and as a maintenance exercise, you might want to integrate those comments in there and then roll up to the next patches. I would say evaluation is something that should be talked about a little more often across organizations.
Luke Hobson 31:53
I agree. 10,000%, what questions do you ask of your learners then to get them to kind of open up whether in a survey or you mentioned for a focus group? What are your some or favorite questions to try to get them to go into more detail?
Shreya Gupta 32:07
Um, quite a few of really, some that I can think about at the top of my head right now would be? What is it that you would like to do to feel more prepared on your job? Right, so that insight would help you understand what is the pain point at the moment? What is the knowledge gap, right now that you need to fill as part of your training? So that's one. Second is? Do you have enough practice? Before you start doing your job? If not, how can we help you as designers? What is it that you're struggling with at the moment, so that we can incorporate those areas as part of the practice exercises, you know, so that you get a safe environment to apply what you will learn in? And also ask questions to the facilitators or, you know, discuss things amongst your peers. So really, we're trying to empower our learners before they go back to the work. And yeah, I think these are some of the questions I would certainly ask my monitors.
Luke Hobson 33:11
I love it. I mean, I know it reminds me actually, because one of the questions that I asked about is that our people are going through the courses, I try to be able to get feedback at the end of every single week. Like I don't want to wait as they're going through the prototype. But everything is like no specifically, is this type of scenario based problem relevant to your line of work? Did it connect with you? Like, are you finding this useful? Because for some types of things, which are really kind of all on you, as a designer to use your creative juices to think about, like, oh, what would this scenario be for somebody who was an engineer working at this place going through this point of time, like, what can I think about that would actually be relevant to them and realistic, as opposed to some things that like, you've probably seen it and experienced it as well, where somebody gives you a training, and they make a scenario and you're like, that has nothing to do with me, I have no idea what you're talking about, but like, it's under my realm of my job, so I have to learn about it. But it just, you know, doesn't resonate it. So those types of things for me, I found to be extremely useful. But then what I wanted to ask you about is that what helps me understand things more is that after I go through with that, I try to ask the same questions to multiple audiences, you know, to get a good, a good starting point for that type of number. But then I like to be able, if possible, to revisit and talk to those same people, again, months down the road, kind of like with Simon's protocol for really getting nerdy there for qualitative types of interviewing skills, where you can do something with like for one timeframe and then perhaps three months down the road six months a year, it's super tricky to do because of course, the person still needs to a work there. Be agree to do the interviews and and you know, remember everything and all that stuff. Have you found that to be helpful? Well, as far as you're trying to do that, in your role with the type of timing of things of going back to those same people?
Shreya Gupta 35:07
Well, I'd say it's recommended. We do that as early as possible once the rollout has happened, because like you said, people might struggle with recalling what they've learned, let's say three months ago. See, I could get tricky for them. And we may or may not always get the best insights or numbers, right, in terms of measuring the effectiveness of the curriculum. So yeah, what I'd recommend is we do that exercise, let's say three to four or seven days, right after the launch, if possible. Otherwise, what what we can do is perhaps we can create some kind of refresher trainings, just so that everybody recalls what they had learned back then and can then come back to us with any anecdotal feedback. It could be helpful to us.
Luke Hobson 35:54
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. When I was doing my interviews for my dissertation, I was actually shocked at how many people responded to Yes, where I did surveys first, and I said, you know, would you be interested in doing a follow up interview? And I had all these people say, Yes, which I thought I was gonna have the opposite problem, where no one was gonna say, yes. So now I'm trying to go through and do as many interviews as I could. But for some people, I couldn't get back to them until, you know, two months later. So the way that I had to start the interview was first acknowledging, being like, do you remember why you signed up for this in the first place? And I had a fair number of people were like, no, look, I have no idea why I'm here. And I'm like, okay, great. Let's start from there. And make sure that I don't gloss over the fact that I also would not remember saying, Yeah, I'll do an interview for you two months down the road, and then going on with my day and completely forgetting. And then all of a sudden, you're like, Hey, I'm here. What are we talking about? So it's like I had a, I basically had a script to remind them of what they went through what we talked about, and you know, trying to share some of the data points with them where they're like, and that's what finally made it click. So without that, it would have not gone well. So I definitely understand everything, but you're saying for there for sure.
37:10
Hey, the greed, I think. Yeah, so like I said, refresher trainings. Or we could also have some kind of chocolates, like you just said, having scraped or having some kind of document that reminds people of what had happened in the past, what we're talking about now. And yeah, so that they can just let us know about their inputs.
Luke Hobson 37:29
Make sense? Make sense. So the last thing that I want to cover is I know what probably a lot of the listeners at home right now are dying to know about. So let's dive on into this. For someone who wants to be a learning experience designer, because right now, if you go on LinkedIn jobs, and you type in LSD or learning experience designer, my gosh, like a million job postings are popping up for every organization I can think of, it's like the instructional design boom, and the LSD boom kind of happened simultaneously. And now there's so many different job postings. So for someone who wants to become like yourself going into this type of position, what tips, recommendations, resources, what should they do? Where should they go to be able to try to go and move over into this kind of position?
Shreya Gupta 38:18
This is my favorite question, actually. So thank you so much for asking this field, I completely understand where our learners our audiences might be coming from when they ask these type of questions. Um, so I would highly recommend everybody to have some kind of portfolio. Now portfolio is something most organizations most hiring people would want to take a look at, when they're interviewing you. But having a portfolio has many other advantages, something like you know, it makes you feel more confident when you're just starting out. Right. So not just having your assets up there on the portfolio, but also having a tab dedicated to your design process would be very helpful. Because it just empowers you as a designer also, so that when you're actually at work, you know, when you actually land such an opportunity, such a role, you would know what you're doing and why. So, yes, please take the time to put one together. And do not hesitate in utilizing LinkedIn when it comes to finding mentors. I have benefited so much from this platform, I cannot even, you know, I just can't express in words how useful this platform has been to me as an Eric stake. And you know, you'll find most people in l&d are super, super willing to help people and to learn from them as well and grow with each other. Say I take the time to network and talk to people, especially to people whose journeys you may look up to take the time to learn from them. And of course do some bit of your homework Well, so keep looking at the content that is shared by some good, you know, resources, like elearning industry that, that continues to post a lot of content. And you know, you can subscribe to that so that you get all of that content in your inbox every day, or every week, however you'd like it, make sure that you are also attending conferences. So a lot of times, you know, you get to attend those for free, not for the most coveted ones, they do have some kind of subscription fee. But then if you can find any free ones, you can have that as a starting point. So make sure you're doing that. And going forward. If possible, try and speak at such conferences as well, because, again, coming from a personal experience, it really adds credibility to your career and to yourself as a designer. Plus, yes, a lot of times people might want to come back and tell you, hey, this was really a basic topic that you spoke about, why do you even? How could you even talk about it, because it's just so basic, everybody knows about it, do not ever listen to those people do not listen to your own inner negative voice, which is telling you to back off, because I can say that it has benefited me. And it will certainly benefit everybody who tries to step out of their comfort zone. So that's another tip I would like to share. And that's not something a lot of NXT would probably want to talk about, because, well, it's not as mainstream right now, I feel not as talked about as it should be. But yeah, these are some of the opportunities that you must grab, if you do get them and keep learning, do not shy away from learning wherever and however you can. And even at work, you're going to be presented with multiple opportunities. So you will get to have your hands dirty and learn while at work. So that's going to happen for sure. But in the entire marine, you know, simultaneously keep make sure that you're seeking help, and mentorship wherever you can.
Luke Hobson 42:06
Awesome answer. I love the fact that you didn't just go into types of like, typical tips and strategies about the actual like content learning experience design, but you're just talking about building up your self esteem and your confidence and putting yourself out there because by far people don't do that. You're absolutely right. And especially for different topics, like you perfectly captured that by saying for some people who are going to be like, it's such a basic topic, everybody knows about blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, that's not true at all. There's, there's always a target audience, for somebody out there who is either just starting off, or they're super curious about something, or they just simply want to hear your perspective on the matter. They are trying to find a different perspective. So they go to you instead. And by doing that, and getting in front of people, as you said, My gosh, that absolutely builds confidence, it also makes that whole feeling of imposter syndrome go away. Because now the spotlights on you. And you're like, oh, I have enough of a recognition here. But I can go up and confidently talk about, you know, whatever the topic is, and that just keeps helping the more and more you can keep doing that. Oh my gosh, yeah, you will be in such a better place. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's may well end on that. I'm not going to get any better than that. That was a fantastic answer. So let's go out on there. Sure. And for the folks at home, who want to learn more about you and to follow everything with your journey, where can they go? Where can they follow you.
Shreya Gupta 43:36
Um, so I have a blog that you could follow or read out of, then I have two social media pages as well. So I am really passionate about writing. So these are the three places where I write, it's mostly fiction, or, you know, just something that I observe or witness around myself that I write about, and nothing really to do with Alex tea. My portfolio is a work in progress. So I wouldn't want to share the link right way. But yeah, these are the three platforms you can subscribe to, or follow me on and then also happy to connect with you all on LinkedIn. And I'm somebody who really loves to learn from people. So yeah, feel free to hit me up or reach out to me a case of you know, in case of any queries or in case you'd like to discuss about anything you may have launched.
Luke Hobson 44:26
I love it. I love it. Once again, thank you so much for your time for chatting with us today. Really appreciate it.
Shreya Gupta 44:31
Thank you so much for having me here and I had a great time. Trey once
Luke Hobson 44:35
again, thank you so much for coming on the show was an absolute pleasure to be able to chat with you and to dive on into everything about learning experience design. Folks, that is all I have for you today. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you connect with Shreya online and her different types of social media sites, as well as to as leave a review for this podcast. All Reviews are appreciated wherever you listen to the show. And lastly, if you did enjoy my book what I wish I knew before becoming an instructional designer, well then once again, please leave a review on Amazon for it. Those reviews really, really do help the book to grow. So any reviews as well are super appreciative. And thank you once again for allowing the book to hit the 1000 copy milestone and all that other good stuff. But hey, folks, that's all I have for you today. Stay nerdy out there, and I'll talk to you next time.