1. Design

The first stage when designing a learning experience involves considering where it will fit into a program, and what the objective is of the department or institutional strategy.

Along with defining these vital factors, the design phase also includes:

• defining the learning experience (project descriptions, learning outcomes)
• assembling the team
• creating a communication plan
• drafting curriculum alignment framework (CAF)
• drafting assessments

The heart of learning experience design

Regardless of a project’s complexity, human-centred design (HCD) takes centre stage – and it’s the mindset maintained throughout the entire phase. That means, not only do we consider who our learners are and what we want them to gain from their experience, but we also gather feedback from multiple perspectives (faculty, industry, institutional leadership/priorities, etc.). This helps us design a more robust and interactive learning outcome, which is, after all, the heart of learning experience design (LXD).

The final step of design is to draft, revise or update the learning experience’s curriculum alignment framework (CAF) – then the project is ready for development!

2. Develop

Now that the blueprint has been set for the learning experience, it’s time to put ‘rubber to the road’!

In other words, it’s time to put that well-designed plan into action and develop it. Like the Design phase, you’ll maintain a human-centred design (HCD) mindset throughout, keeping the learners in mind while you build and iterate:

• activities
• media prototypes
• assessments
• overall learning experience content

Bringing the blueprint to life

The Develop stage involves four elements:

• creating the learning experience content
• assigning specific work for the design team
• following institutional practices
• providing completed deliverables

Once you implement an efficient workflow plan with your team to ensure good communication and adherence to timelines, you’ll need to work to maintain a flexible learning strategy overall. This means incorporating multiple perspectives and leveraging all available resources at your disposal.

As milestones are achieved and final touches (such as editing and formatting) are applied, invested stakeholders will take one last look through to ensure learning experience integrity.

Once they’ve signed off, it’s time to hit the big green button – that is, implement the learning experience.

3. Implement & Evolve

This is it – this is the moment you’ve been waiting for… It’s time to Implement your learning experience for the betterment of students everywhere! Then you’re free to ride away into the sunset knowing the world is better for your service.

As much as you may want to hang up your hat and call it a day, implementing your learning experience design is actually not the final step. Evolution is the final, and never-ending step. Because students are constantly growing and changing, learning experiences are always evolving. That means there’s no sunset silhouette ride for learning experience developers.

Fostering evergreen experiences

Even though the learning experience is complete, the experience will be continually reflected upon and adapted based on current feedback. We’re striving for a continual evergreen process to make sure learning experience content doesn’t stagnate.

This means that once implemented, we:

• reflect on the learning experience as it’s delivered, analyzing data and completing surveys
• determine what works and what can be improved on
• evolve, adapt and deliver again

Project co-lead: Kelsey Janzen, Production Coordinator, LC Studio

Role: Co-lead the project management, and strategic direction; consultation on project scope and timelines; coordination of developments and design teams

Project co-lead: Trevor Gellrich, Learning Experience Designer, LXD Team

Role: Co-lead the project management, and strategic direction; learning experience design and instructional design expertise; mentorship of instructional designers