Design thinking is a methodology putting human needs at the centre of design decisions. The design challenge at hand is reframed in human-centric ways, designers try to find multiple solutions in brainstorming sessions, and use prototyping and testing to ensure the best solution for learners. The design thinking process consists of five stages:

• Emphathize
• Define
• Ideate
• Prototype
• Test

Empathize

In this stage of the design thinking process, designers should put aside their own assumptions about the learner and the design challenge at hand and gain insights into their users instead. Consulting experts as well as engaging and empathizing with learners to understand where they are coming from and what drives and motivates them is as important as getting immersed in the physical environment. There are a couple of ways to achieve a better understanding of your learners.

Interview and Observe

In order to learn more about your users, you first have to meet them where they are at. Put yourself in their shoes and understand what their day to day looks like. Book meetings and interviews to ask pointed questions, and use observations to get a realistic picture of the learner. Talk to supervisors and managers to learn more about high performers and strugglers on a team and focus on how the learning experience design can help develop their skills.

Empathy Map

A great way to summarize a person’s experience and what designers learned during interviews and observations is the use of an empathy map. It’s commonly divided into four quadrants and refers to what the learner said, did, thought and felt. It’s rather easy to determine what a learner said or did, but it gets a bit more complicated when filling in what they thought and felt. Draw the four quadrants on a whiteboard or large piece of paper and start writing down findings from interviews and observations. Ideally, work with your team and write ideas on post-its so they can be moved around as needed. Next, synthesize the learner’s needs based on the empathy map to define the design challenge. Keep in mind that needs are verbs, meaning they describe activities and desires. As a last step, synthesize insights. Look at the empathy map and ask why something is the way it is and use that knowledge to solve the design challenge. Use the empathy map to role-play the persona and ask questions such as “What would this person do when they see this?” or “Why would this person not move on to the next step?”

Learner Personas

An empathy map is the first step in creating learner personas. Think of personas as fictional, generalized characters, each with their individual goals and needs. Information that can help create a persona on top of the empathy map include, but are not limited to, job role, biggest challenge, demographic information, personal background, tech savviness and years with the organization. Once learner personas are in place, it becomes more intuitive to create content that resonates with these personas allowing designers to keep the learning experience solution human-centred.

Traditionally, designers complete a target audience analysis, however, design thinking is taking this analysis to the next level. It allows designers to create a more human-centered learning experience that makes learning stick. By emphasizing with learners, learning experiences are more meaningful which increase motivation and engagement. Instead of creating content that no ones wants to take part in, create unforgettable experiences that make an actual difference.

I love travelling, the adventure, the unknown, the people you meet, the cultures you are immersed into; my ideal trip is one where you book your flight and the rest will just fall into place. I do however also enjoy the occasional all inclusive trip to simply not think about anything, read my books and just relax. A couple of weeks ago I spent some time in Mexico doing exactly that.

While I was sitting at dinner, I watched a man in a wheelchair going up the ramp to the restaurant. He tried and failed at first so he had to back up and try again. He was laughing but I could tell it was really difficult for him and his wife had to give him a final push so he could make it up the ramp.

The hotel was actually very accessible; at least that’s what I thought until I saw this man. After dinner I went outside and took a look at the ramp again that I had walked up so many times before and all of a sudden I realized how steep it actually was. This got me thinking of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design.The hotel had the right intentions of building a user “interface” and design that is accessible to everyone. However, the reality looked very different. Just like in L&D, we have the right intentions, but often, we let our users hanging.

UI and UX design are finding their way more and more into digital learning, for good reasons. UI design anticipates what a user might need to do and ensures that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand and use to facilitate those actions.This includes input controls such as buttons and drop-down fields, navigational components, informational components, such as tooltips or progress bars, and containers, UX is going above UI and provides meaningful and personally relevant experiences. It is a process that doesn’t just include the design, but the entire experience you have with a product from purchasing it to troubleshooting it. Without wanting to go into UI/UX design in more detail (that’s a separate post for another time), one element that is crucial to this process is user testing.

Going back to the man in the wheelchair trying to go up the ramp, had the construction company actually involved a user when building the ramp, it would probably have been less steep, longer, wider, etc. The same holds true for learning. We cannot sit in our offices, shut out from the world, and build learning experiences without including our learners. What works for a designer, might not work for a user/learner. When creating your digital solutions, plan some time for prototyping and user testing. And I am not talking about an alpha and beta test that is done by the stakeholders. No, I am talking about an actual learner.

Organizations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build learning, are worried about budgets and timelines, but seem less worried about the really important aspect: the learner experience. If you create an outstanding learner experience, chances are higher that the learning will stick. So why not build in some extra time into your project and get your learners’ feedback before rolling out your ineffective solution?

Do you include user testing when building learning solutions? Let me know in the comments below.