Design for How People Learn

Design for How People Learn Plot Summary

Introduction

Learning is a journey, not a destination. Whether you're a teacher, a trainer, an instructional designer, or someone passionate about helping others grow, you've likely wondered: why do some learning experiences transform lives while others are quickly forgotten? The difference often isn't the content itself, but how that content is designed, delivered, and experienced. Think about your own most powerful learning moments. Were they passive lectures with perfect PowerPoint slides? Or were they experiences where you were engaged, challenged, and supported just enough to discover solutions yourself? The truth is that creating meaningful learning requires understanding not just what to teach, but how people actually learn. This journey explores how to design experiences that don't just transfer information, but transform learners from the inside out.

Chapter 1: Map the Learning Landscape: Understanding Your Learners

Understanding your learners is the foundation for any effective learning design. Before plotting the journey, you need to know who's taking the trip, where they're starting from, and what baggage they're carrying. Consider Marianna, a newly promoted supervisor in an IT support department. She excelled as a technical support person but now struggles with managerial responsibilities. Her HR department sent her to new-manager training where she learned about paperwork processes and a coaching model for employee feedback. Yet back on the job, she's drowning in paperwork while her employees are starting to come in late. The coaching method she was taught helps a little with one employee but fails with another. As she gets busier, she doesn't complete all the coaching steps and doubts its effectiveness anyway. Marianna's story illustrates that her challenges aren't primarily knowledge gaps. She knows what to do but lacks the skills, confidence, and practical experience to implement what she learned. The training provided information but didn't address her real gaps – she needs guided practice developing supervisory skills, confidence in her new role, and strategies for applying theoretical knowledge in real-world situations. To truly understand your learners, start by identifying what kind of gaps they face. Is it knowledge they're missing, or is it skills that need practice? Perhaps motivation or attitude is the real barrier, or maybe they've developed habits that need changing. Sometimes the environment itself prevents success, or perhaps there's a communication breakdown. When designing learning experiences for people like Marianna, dig deeper than demographics. Ask what motivates them. Are they intrinsically interested or externally required to learn? What's their current skill level? How much context do they already have? Remember that your learners see the world differently than you do – they don't have your mental frameworks, your closet of organized information, or your years of experience. The best way to understand your learners is simple but often overlooked: talk to them. Ask about their challenges, what they find difficult, and what would make their lives easier. Then shadow them in their actual environment. This reveals contextual details that interviews miss – the interruptions, the pressures, the physical setup that influences their performance every day.

Chapter 2: Design for Engagement: Capturing and Keeping Attention

Imagine teaching a class where half the students are checking their phones, a quarter are daydreaming, and the rest are fighting to stay awake. Without attention, even the most brilliant content falls on deaf ears. So how do you capture and maintain your learners' attention? Jonathan Haidt uses a powerful metaphor in his book "The Happiness Hypothesis" that helps explain this challenge. He describes the brain as having two parts: the rider and the elephant. The rider represents conscious, controlled thought—the rational, planning part of the brain. The elephant represents our automatic system—emotions, intuitions, and gut reactions. While we often identify with the rider, the elephant is actually much stronger and harder to control. A learning designer at a financial services call center discovered this truth when trying to teach customer service representatives how to navigate multiple complex computer systems. Despite careful explanations and detailed manuals, new representatives struggled to remember the convoluted procedures needed to find customer information across four different systems. The designer realized the elephants were rebelling against this cognitively exhausting task. To engage both rider and elephant, the designer redesigned the experience. Rather than asking representatives to memorize dozens of abstract steps, she created scenarios where they solved actual customer problems. She incorporated storytelling, showing how resolving a customer's billing issue could make someone's day. She added social elements where teams competed to solve customer challenges. Most importantly, she built in moments of visible success that gave learners immediate emotional rewards. The results transformed the learning experience. Representatives still learned the same systems, but now they were engaged, attentive, and motivated. The elephant was no longer being dragged uphill by the rider; instead, both were moving forward together willingly. When designing learning experiences, remember that surprise, emotion, and curiosity are powerful engagement tools. Ask interesting questions that can't be answered with a simple Google search. Create challenges with real-world relevance. Show, don't just tell. And perhaps most importantly, remember that your learners' attention is a precious resource—don't waste it on information they can easily reference later or on content that doesn't directly contribute to their journey.

Chapter 3: Structure Knowledge for Retention: Beyond Information Dumps

Information alone doesn't create learning. Think about the last time you searched "how to fix" something on YouTube. You watched the video, understood every step, but two days later, could you remember the entire procedure? Probably not. Knowledge needs structure to stick. Consider Todd, a brand-new restaurant manager. His previous training consisted of seven disconnected modules: Hiring and Managing Staff, Safety, Ordering and Inventory, Bar and Beverage Sales, Restaurant Financials, Customer Service, and Health and Quality Control. Despite completing the course with good scores, Todd struggled on the job. He couldn't remember critical information when needed and had difficulty applying what he learned to real situations. The problem wasn't Todd's ability or effort. The problem was that his training dumped information without considering how memory actually works. Our brains aren't filing cabinets where we neatly store labeled folders of information. Instead, memory is associative and contextual. We remember things better when they connect to existing knowledge, when they're emotionally significant, and when we encounter them multiple times in different contexts. A redesigned learning experience for Todd structured knowledge differently. Instead of organizing by topic, it organized by accomplishment—what Todd needed to do in his first day, first week, and first month. Safety wasn't a one-time module but appeared in each level: first handling immediate safety concerns during a shift, then preparing for safety inspections at the weekly level, then improving safety records at the quarterly level. This spaced repetition across authentic contexts helped Todd build stronger mental connections. To structure knowledge effectively, think about your learner's mental "closet." Novices have small, disorganized closets with few shelves. Your job isn't just to hand them more clothes (information) but to help them build more shelves (organizing frameworks). Use chunking to group related information. Create visual organizers that show relationships between concepts. Tell stories that naturally sequence information in memorable ways. Most importantly, create "friction" that forces learners to engage with the material. When information flows too smoothly past learners, it doesn't stick. Questions, problems, and activities that require mental effort create the necessary resistance that embeds learning more deeply. This doesn't mean making things needlessly difficult, but rather creating meaningful challenges that require thought and application.

Chapter 4: Practice Makes Proficient: Building Skills That Last

Knowing about something is entirely different from being able to do it well. If someone gave you a lecture on swimming, would you feel confident jumping into the deep end of a pool? Of course not. Skills require practice—thoughtful, structured, and repeated practice. This truth became painfully clear for a client who had a large team of sales/service people with specialized technical expertise. Their existing training consisted of a two-week class where they crammed as much information as possible into new hires' heads, followed by some job shadowing. It was the cognitive equivalent of asking someone to bike straight uphill for two weeks without a break. Learners were exhausted, retention was poor, and many learned critical skills through trial and error on the job. The revised curriculum completely transformed this approach. The initial in-person class was shortened to just a few days. The remainder of the curriculum was spread across two dozen simulated sales calls completed over two to three months. Each simulation included follow-up assignments to be performed in the field, and a field assessment system tracked the development of crucial competencies. Managers could quickly identify gaps and provide targeted coaching. This redesign applied several principles of effective practice. First, it recognized that the brain processes new information differently than familiar information. Learning new material is cognitively expensive, like biking uphill. The brain burns significant glucose, and fatigue sets in quickly. By alternating between challenging new content and practice with more familiar material, learners could develop proficiency without exhaustion. Second, it spaced practice over time. Research shows that distributed practice (spreading learning over days or weeks) creates much stronger retention than massed practice (cramming everything into a single session). When practice is timed to match how often the skill will be used in real life, retention improves dramatically. Third, it provided meaningful feedback. Practice without feedback can actually reinforce mistakes. The revised program included not just immediate feedback during simulations but ongoing coaching from managers who could observe performance in real contexts. To design effective practice for your learners, focus on authentic tasks rather than abstract exercises. Create opportunities for deliberate practice with specific goals and immediate feedback. Structure practice to gradually increase in difficulty while allowing occasional periods of success to build confidence. Remember that the ultimate goal isn't practice itself but transfer—the ability to apply skills flexibly in real-world situations.

Chapter 5: Create Supportive Environments: Removing Barriers to Success

Even the best-designed learning experiences can fail if the environment works against them. Environment—the physical space, tools, systems, and social context surrounding your learners—powerfully shapes behavior, often more than knowledge or skills alone. In a financial services call center, customer service representatives struggled with their job despite intensive training. The issue wasn't their ability or motivation, but rather an environment that made success nearly impossible. Representatives had to constantly flip between accounting systems, credit systems, and customer records across four different divisions, none of which communicated with each other. Their computer screens looked like a jumble of text and fields, with critical information buried in multiple systems. It took about six months for a representative to become truly proficient navigating this maze. Unfortunately, due to company expansion, representatives could often transfer to better positions after about six months. This created a perpetual cycle of novice representatives struggling with complex systems—a problem no amount of training could solve. The solution wasn't more training but environmental redesign. The company created a new interface layer that simplified the process dramatically. Representatives now answered just three customer questions and entered two numerical values, while the system calculated the rest. The knowledge that representatives previously needed to memorize was now embedded in the system itself, turning a recall problem (very difficult) into a recognition problem (much easier). Donald Norman, in his classic design book "The Design of Everyday Things," calls this putting "knowledge in the world" rather than requiring it to be in the head. Consider the difference between a stovetop where you can't tell which dial controls which burner versus one where the layout makes the connections obvious. The second design eliminates an entire category of errors by making the right action intuitive. When designing learning environments, ask "What's everything else we could do (besides training) that will allow learners to succeed?" Could you create job aids that put reference information at people's fingertips? Could you embed prompts or triggers in the environment that remind people what to do? Could you simplify processes to eliminate unnecessary steps? Remember that proximity matters—the closer knowledge is to the point of use, the more likely people will use it. A reminder tag on jumper cables is far more effective than safety information in a manual stored in the glove compartment. The ideal is to make the right action easier than the wrong one, creating an environment that naturally supports success.

Chapter 6: Measure What Matters: Evaluating Learning Effectiveness

How do you know if your learning design actually works? Too often, evaluation defaults to what's easiest to measure rather than what truly matters. Take Hiro, a new associate at an architectural design firm learning to budget projects. His firm implemented a learning program with elaborate multiple-choice tests covering budgeting principles and procedures. Hiro passed with flying colors, but three months later, he made a serious error that cost the company thousands of dollars. The evaluation had measured what Hiro knew, not what he could actually do. The most common evaluation approaches—multiple-choice tests and satisfaction surveys—have their place but often miss the point entirely. They typically measure recognition (can you pick the right answer from a list?) rather than recall (can you generate the right answer when needed?) or application (can you use this knowledge to solve a real problem?). A more meaningful evaluation for Hiro would have several components. First, it would test his ability to actually construct a complete budget for a realistic project. Second, it would include observation of his performance in increasingly complex situations. Third, it would track real-world outcomes like budget accuracy over time. Finally, it would include qualitative interviews about challenges he faced applying what he learned. Robert Brinkerhoff's Success Case Method offers a practical approach to this kind of evaluation. It begins by determining what success should look like for the organization. A brief survey identifies who is using the learned material and who isn't. Then interviews with the most successful and least successful users reveal what's working, what isn't, and why. Even with a small sample, this method provides invaluable feedback for improving learning design. When designing evaluation, think about four key questions: Does your learning design function well? Are learners actually learning the right things? Can learners actually do the right things? Are learners actually doing the right things when they return to the real world? The best evaluation happens early and often. User testing with even a handful of learners can reveal problems before you've invested heavily in development. Observation of performance provides much richer data than tests alone. And conversations with learners weeks or months after training can reveal barriers to application that wouldn't be visible otherwise. Remember that evaluation isn't just about proving value but improving design. By measuring what matters—real performance in real contexts—you create a feedback loop that continuously enhances the learning journey.

Summary

Throughout this journey, we've explored how to create learning experiences that truly transform learners. We've seen that effective learning design isn't about information dumps but about understanding your learners, engaging their attention, structuring knowledge, building skills through practice, creating supportive environments, and measuring what matters. As Kathy Sierra reminds us, "Kicking ass is more fun regardless of the task. It's more fun to know more. It's more fun to be able to do more. It's more fun to be able to help others do more." Your opportunity as a learning designer is to defy the notion that learning must be tedious and difficult. You can create experiences that make learners feel capable and confident—experiences that help them become the heroes of their own learning journeys. While you can't make anyone learn, you can design environments that make learning both effective and enjoyable. Start today by choosing just one principle from this journey and applying it to your next learning design. Watch how that small change creates ripples of improvement in how your learners engage, remember, and apply what they learn.

About Author

Loading...

Julie Dirksen

Read more