Instructional design =
The process of methodically designing, creating, and sharing instructional materials. The goal of instructional design is to offer user-friendly and effective knowledge acquisition to the end-user.
Here are some examples of good instructional design in practice.
As a rule, instructional design tells us to avoid non-relevant information and complex language that will only serve as a distraction.
Your training materials and instructions need to facilitate immediate and meaningful action. They need to be easy to grasp and as concrete as possible.
Avoid training for training’s sake. Most of us learn by doing. That’s why the best training materials are also meant for on-the-job usage, with a focus on being as task-oriented as possible.
Visuals are very important in instructional design. Using clear photos and gifs combined with action-oriented text is the best way to support efficient learning.
👉 Article: 7 Tips on How to Create Great Visuals for Instructions.
⚠️ But be careful with videos ⚠️
Videos determine the pace of learning for the user.
They're difficult to edit and update and not scalable (eg. to translate).
👉 Article: Why Video Work Instructions are a Bad Idea.
Until recently, most training materials were published as word documents or PDFs. Paper-based manuals are somewhat less common, but they’re not entirely extinct. The problem with these means of delivery is that they are hard to locate, difficult to work with, and nearly impossible to sift through.
Make it easy for frontline teams to access work instructions and training materials with mobile or wearable devices (like Realwear) through for example QR codes or NFC.
Evaluating the performance of your training materials is a key principle in instructional design.
This principle also supports kaizen, lean manufacturing, and other continuous improvement practices. Successful instructional design is often built and improved based on user feedback. This feedback is best collected when your users are performing a specific task.
Read more about Instructional Design:
👉 How to Choose the Best Instructional Design Tool
👉 Instructional Design Models Compared: Which One Should You Choose for Manufacturing Training?
👉 Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Best Practices & Guidelines.