The relationship between Human Centered Design and Instructional Design

While listening to the conversation between Purnima Valiathan and Guy Wallace on The LEAD Podcast, I was surprised to hear about the ongoing confusion that’s prevalent among instructional designers in relation to Design Thinking.

Which exemplifies why I listen to podcasts – to open my mind to other perspectives and experiences.

I’m a practitioner of both Design Thinking and instructional design, so when Purnima kindly hosted me on her podcast, I took the opportunity to propose a couple of reasons as to why our peers might find it confusing.

And now, in the spirit of “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions”, I hope to clear up the confusion by offering two ways of thinking about the relationship between HCD and traditional instructional design…

The first way is to see them on opposite ends of an LXD spectrum.

At one end of the spectrum is Instructional Systems Design, which was born out of the US military in the 1970s. In this context the ADDIE model proved its worth for industrialised, standardised output. Adopting this approach, the L&D practitioner drives the design of the solution without necessarily any input from the learner. In its most extreme form, it’s a unilateral relationship between the stakeholders.

To shake off the command-and-control connotation of ADDIE and to humanise the process, the notion of Learning Experience Design arose to pay more attention to the experience of learning. For example, is it accessible? Is it engaging? Does it work in context of the learner’s environment? What do they think/feel/do?

Since Learning Experience Design means different things to different people, it invites input from the learner to varying degrees. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Hence it occupies the middle stretch of the spectrum.

At at the other end of the spectrum is Learner Experience Design (as opposed to Learning Experience Design) whereby you apply a Human Centered Design model such as Design Thinking to your work. Adopting this approach, the L&D practitioner designs the solution with the learner as an equal partner. In its most progressive form, it’s a bilateral relationship between the stakeholders.

Hence you might consider Instructional Systems Design a reactive approach. It’s useful when the problem is known or accepted, the solution is obvious, and speed and efficiency are desired.

In contrast, you might consider HCD a proactive approach. It’s useful when the problem is unknown or untested, let alone its solution, so you need to discover and explore the situation before you can design anything.

Another way we can think about the relationship between HCD and traditional instructional design is that they are two different lenses for looking at the same thing.

Notwithstanding the usefulness of the LXD spectrum, I challenge the command-and-control reputation of the ADDIE model. To me, it’s a classic case of not what you do, but how you do it.

For example, as a part of your analysis, you really should be empathising with your target audience. Until you walk a mile in their shoes, you won’t truly understand what they’re experiencing.

You should also be wary of assuming what the problem is, or blindly accepting what another party tells you. Until you dig into the reality of the situation, you won’t be able to define the real problem.

Similarly, when designing and developing the solution, you really should be ideating multiple options with your target audience to land on the most relevant one for them, in addition to prototyping and testing it to ensure it meets their needs. In the age of AI whereby production is hyper-accelerated, there’s no excuse to neglect it.

And when implementing the solution, it should be an MVP so that you can get it out the door quickly and serve your target audience as soon as possible; on the proviso that when you evaluate it, you’ll use those insights to continuously improve it.

By recognising the complementary nature of HCD and traditional instructional design in this way, we shield ADDIE from much of the heat that it attracts from its many detractors. It’s a sound model if you do it right – and by doing it right, I mean embedding HCD practices into it.