You can either watch the video or read the blog.
Let’s start by examining their definitions.
- What is Instructional Design?
- Instructional design is a system of designing instructions, which enables learners to acquire new knowledge, skills, or behavior as per set learning goals.
- Purely considered a responsibility of an Instructional Designer.
- What is Learning Experience Design?
- Designing and controlling the overall experiences that learners have when consuming the training.
- Some consider this to be the domain of UX or Graphic Designers and LMS Administrators.
Now, the difference or the relation between the two is a hotly debated, but inconclusive discussion in the industry.
Some consider Instructional Design to supersede Learning Experience Design, while some consider Learning Experience Design to encapsulate Instructional Design as they consider Instructional Design to be limited to writing and designing instructions in training.
Essentially, depending on how you look at the two lines of thinking, both opinions are true. In a modern environment, an Instructional Designer must not only excel at writing instructions in a course, but should also understand how to design engaging screens, slides, Learning Management Systems, and learning portals. They may not design such systems themselves but may need to supervise or control the design while collaborating with specialist designers or administrators.
This is because each design decision will have an impact on whether you achieve the learning objectives for the course. So, the Instructional Design team and the specialist Design or Admin team must work together for the greater good of learning. At the end of the day, Instructional Design does take the role of the big brother in this relationship.
