Learning experience design = good instructional design. What are you doing if you’re an instructional designer and not creating an impactful, value-packed learning experience?
Unforgettable learning experience design is even more critical for corporate technology training. Without it, corporate IT training is a mere checklist of steps. That’s not sufficient to engage and educate employees on company technology effectively.
It’s ideal for a training session to unfold like a captivating story, helping employees connect their learning to their jobs. A quality learning experience design can make technical training more impactful and meaningful to the organization.
Yes, that means it’s time to move beyond thinking of corporate technical training as a simple software tutorial or click-through with no context or story. Forget mundane click-through routines and monotonous lectures. The essence of corporate technology training lies in crafting an unforgettable learning journey that resonates with participants more deeply.
Good corporate technical training isn’t a software tutorial with basic click-through instructions.
It’s about creating an immersive experience that imparts knowledge, sparks curiosity, fosters engagement, and enhances retention. It’s time to explore why an unforgettable learning experience is essential to elevate how employees learn to use company technology.
Every employee should walk away with more than just information; they should walk away with an experience they can apply directly to their job immediately.
What Learning Experience Design For Corporate Technology Training Is
Before getting into the details of learning experience design and what it means to corporate technology training, let’s first establish what it entails.
Learning experience design (LXD) is a relatively new term that cropped up in the past decade. It came from user experience design (UX), which has a relatively uniform description.
User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users.
Interaction Design Foundation
So, while it’s a new term in the last decade, it’s the same as what instructional designers have been doing all along. The goal is to create meaningful and relevant experiences for people to learn.
And as far as it goes for technology, it’s about how to help employees learn how to use company technology effectively. That is while also providing a meaningful and relevant learning experience.
So, after an employee undergoes technical training, they should know how to use the technology as required. That doesn’t mean making them experts or imparting all knowledge of the subject matter expert (SME).
It’s all about imparting the minimum level of knowledge in a meaningful and valuable way. That’s exactly what unforgettable learning experience design means for corporate technology training.
While instructional design should have been striving for an unforgettable learning experience all along, that wasn’t always the case. In fact, it was rarely the case. That’s why the term learning experience design has grown in popularity. It’s about bringing training to the next level of quality and value.
Learning experience design is taking instructional design to the next level of high quality training.
By incorporating storytelling techniques, real-life examples, and hands-on exercises, LXD ensures that employees get value they can apply to their jobs on a deeper, more meaningful, and possible emotional level.
This emotional connection or value creation is crucial as it helps create a sense of relevance and personal investment in the learning process.
LXD also recognizes that each employee has unique needs. Therefore, it can emphasize personalization by tailoring training programs to individual requirements. This customization can take various forms, such as providing different learning paths based on skill levels or offering additional resources for further exploration.
What’s Essential to Learning Experience Design In Corporate Technology Training
Unforgettable is good, but having employees gain tremendous value is even more important. When they can do their jobs with technology better, you’re helping them create more value for your company. That is in itself creating value.
There are some things you can do to create unforgettable learning experiences for corporate technology training. These will help make more of an impact and drive more value in company technology.
Storytelling
Stories have been used as a powerful tool for communication since the beginning of time. They can captivate our attention, evoke emotions, and make information more relatable.
Incorporating storytelling into technology training makes the tech more relatable and helps employees apply it to their work. By presenting information as a story with relatable characters and real-world scenarios, complex tasks and processes become easier to understand and apply to work.
For example, a realistic scenario would be more effective than simply explaining how a new software feature works and having employees click through it. That’s why scenario-based learning is so valuable in corporate IT training.
Scenarios provide a powerful way of learning how to use company technology in the context of real work.
Something as simple as a fictional character who faces a problem that can be solved using the feature can be extremely valuable. This approach makes training more engaging and helps employees understand how the knowledge they gain can be applied in real-life situations.
Storytelling is also great for triggering an emotional response, which makes a learning experience more impactful and memorable. Connecting emotionally with information makes us more likely to remember and apply it in our daily work.
Create Interactive and Engaging Learning Environments
Creating interactive and engaging learning environments is another essential aspect of LXD. Passive lectures and click-through presentations don’t cut it for real learning. They’re forgettable and boring.
Attention spans aren’t shrinking; employees are just too busy to deal with crap they have to work hard to decipher and understand. They want things to be easy to connect with, understand, and they need hands-on experiences.
That’s why software simulations are so valuable for software training and doubly so when intertwined with a scenario.
Learning experience design is based on a more profound and thoughtful development of valuable and meaningful training. That means incorporating interactive elements and tying the training to real life rather than theory and random process steps.
If employees don’t see their work in the training then they won’t see the training.
This thoughtfulness makes the learning process more enjoyable and promotes active engagement and knowledge retention. That means more knowledge and skill brought back to the work!
Instead of demonstrating how to use a new software, employees get to use it themselves (in a way) and also see how the work in it applies to their role. This hands-on approach reinforces learning and builds confidence in applying newly acquired skills while doing so in a safe learning environment.
It’s encouraged to create more interaction and multimedia elements such as videos, infographics, and animations to enhance the effectiveness of training materials. By leveraging these visual aids effectively, information will be easier to understand and learn.
Personalization
No two employees are exactly alike regarding what they bring to their job. They have different backgrounds, different skills, and differing strengths. Recognizing this diversity is crucial for effective learning experience design.
Personalization ensures that each employee receives training that is relevant, meaningful, and tailored to their specific needs. There are many different ways corporate technology training can be tailored to employees.
Employees with prior experience in a particular software application may be directed to an advanced module, while beginners can start with the basics. We’ve used tests at the beginning of courses to allow employees to test out of training either entirely or partially.
Corporate technology training should be as unique to each employee as possible.
Since it’s not always necessary to force employees to go through all training, providing resources such as performance support sometimes works best. Personalization also could mean contextual help that shows up only for specific roles or locations.
By personalizing the learning experience, organizations cater to individual needs and foster a sense of empowerment and ownership among employees. When employees feel their unique requirements are being addressed, they’re more likely to participate and invest in the training process actively.
Collaboration and Teamwork
Collaboration and teamwork are some of the skills that are of the utmost importance for employees. So why shouldn’t that also apply to how employees learn to use company technology?
Instead of isolating individuals during training, when possible, employees should learn together. That could mean creating employee-generated content or sharing their experiences on an enterprise social platform. Yes, they’re great for providing different ways to learn company technology.
This type of learning experience encourages employees to learn from one another’s experiences and perspectives. With proper oversight, this could be a valuable way to share shortcuts and better ways of doing things.
Collaborative learning environments allow employees to practice communication skills, develop empathy toward their colleagues’ challenges, and build a supportive network within the organization.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Learning Experience Design
Measurement is essential to ensure that the learning experience design delivers its intended outcomes. Organizations can employ various methods to assess the impact of an unforgettable learning experience.
How are employees’ skills before and after the training? With even a mediocre knowledge of the before and basic measurement of after learning, companies can get an idea of its effectiveness. It’s also obvious when employees leave training without knowing what to do.
Are they making a lot of errors? Calling the help desk a lot? Asking for more assistance?
There are many different methods and questions to ask that can help measure the effectiveness, even on a basic qualitative level.
Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as employee productivity, customer satisfaction, or project success rates can provide insights into the long-term impact on organizational outcomes.
There are many different ways, and every project will require a different approach.
Go Beyond a Single Event
Learning is an ongoing process that extends beyond a single training event. Organizations should adopt a continuous learning approach to maximize the benefits of corporate technology training.
This involves providing employees with opportunities for ongoing skill development and knowledge enhancement. Organizations stay ahead in the rapidly evolving technological landscape by fostering a culture of continuous learning in company technology. They’ll also demonstrate their commitment to employee growth and development.
Iterating and Enhancing
This one isn’t about helping take employee’s skills beyond the basics with continuous improvement. It’s about constant improvement of the training itself. Or rather iterativing and enhancing corporate technical training.
It’s not a one-time endeavor but an iterative process. Organizations should continuously evaluate and improve their training programs based on feedback and evolving needs.
Technology and how it’s used in the company is constantly changing. That means training needs to keep pace with it. Updated old training ensures that training programs remain relevant, up-to-date, and aligned with organizational goals.
Technology experts know when changes are made and when information is gathered from employees. All this knowledge and information shouldn’t go to waste. Organizations can use it to make informed decisions about modifying content or changing tactics.
Wrap Up
Learning experience design is essential to unlocking the full potential of corporate technology training. By shifting the focus from a mere transfer of information to creating immersive and engaging learning environments, organizations can transform their employees’ learning experiences.
Through storytelling, personalization, interactivity, collaboration, continuous improvement, and more, organizations can ensure that training creates value and impacts employee’s ability to use company technology.
It’s time for every company to embrace good learning experience design and revolutionize corporate technology training. Schedule a free consultation so we can work with you to provide an unforgettable learning experience.
We want to empower your employees to thrive in today’s digital age and drive your organization toward success.