The Instructional Designer’s New Mandate: Deliver Just-In-Time, Searchable Content
Instructional design is a complex discipline. You’ve spent years studying instructional models, theories, and practices like Behaviorism, Constructivism, and Scaffolding. You've worked to learn and utilize methodologies such as ADDIE, agile, and SAM. You know your stuff — and the traditional framework you’re accustomed to operating in serves your organization well in certain ways. For instance, when you’re required to produce a new library of comprehensive, in-depth content to meet your company’s compliance, safety, and policy regulations, you know exactly how to approach it.
This approach works well for some companies, roles, and disciplines. A traditional ahead-of-time learning design mindset serves as the backbone for most organizations' curriculum-driven design. It's shown to "get the job done," as it were.
However, just-in-time, searchable content is what employees actually need to do their everyday jobs. This is the information and tool they crave. This kind of content — delivered on a mobile-first, intuitive Learning Experience Platform (LXP) — empowers your workforce to troubleshoot problems, look up helpful information to complete tasks correctly, and quickly find answers to questions that arise in the flow of work.
It’s time to ask yourself: do your exhaustive e-learning modules really give your employees what they need? They may have passed a quiz and earned a certificate, but what happens when they forget what they supposedly learned on slide 28 out of 67? Can they find that information again? Are they able to save that nugget of helpful content and access it later? When they’re away from their desk and troubleshooting a problem, do they even remember that slide exists?
You already know the answers to those questions. It’s time to evolve in order to meet your workforce’s changing needs. Here’s how to do it.
Develop Search Optimized,
Keyword-Rich Content
Let’s face it — Learning Management Systems (LMSs) aren’t built for easy information retrieval. They can show how many workers have completed assigned learning in a given month, and they do a great job of housing copious amounts of information. However, the content within the LMS system is not created with search functionality in mind.
Your traditional training modules, manuals, and day-long workshops aren’t searchable either. Of course, that means they become nearly useless when an employee finds themselves facing a problem on the floor, out in the field, or on the road.
Therefore, instead of structuring courses to deliver all the material you want employees to know, you need to anticipate the questions they might ask when they’re doing their jobs. Then, proactively create a learning ecosystem that is easily searchable and accessible to offer up relevant information at just the right time.
Content that supports searchable, just-in-time learning requires:
Clear, readable writing. Avoid long sentences, difficult vocabulary, and complex sentence structures. Keep paragraphs short.
Scannability. Use bulleted lists (like this one!) and frequent subheadings to help users quickly determine if a resource is pertinent to them.
Careful use of keywords and phrases. Pepper content with the words and phrases employees are likely to use when searching for help. Regularly review search queries in your system to adjust your keywords and better meet your audiences’ needs.
Active voice. Active voice is clear, direct, and easy to understand. Passive voice is often more difficult to read — avoid it as much as possible.
Ultimately, your goal is to harness the power of AI algorithms and adaptive learning to meet employees in their moment of need. That means your role is becoming less about learning per se and more about information design and smart content strategy.
Offer Easily Accessible Content that Can Be Saved and Bookmarked
If your employees can’t find what they’re looking for in about two clicks and ten seconds, you risk losing them. They’ll turn to other sources of (possibly unreliable) information to get what they need. Whether they ask a coworker, Google it, or make use of social learning options, they’ll arrive at solutions to their challenges one way or another. The problem is, the answers they find might not align with your company’s rules or specifications.
They need to access content fast — but it also needs to be useful and accessible. You can’t achieve this by layering search functionality on top of retrofitted content in your LMS. It just doesn’t work. Just because you can theoretically access content on your phone doesn’t make that content mobile-friendly or usable.
Think back to that 67 page e-learning module. If you simply make that module available on a mobile device, is it useful for an employee who’s out on a service call? Are they going to click through multiple “next” buttons to find the slide that lists out your product’s unique service requirements? Assuming they even know which tutorial contains the material they need, will they sit through forced narration to eventually find the one piece of information that’s pertinent to them?
By contrast, an LXP is built for on-demand, accessible performance support. It offers employees the ability to save the resources that are helpful to them, bookmark frequently used materials so they can find them again easily, and curate content that’s specific to their role. The result? Every single member of your workforce could conceivably walk around with a personalized portfolio of content that’s available to them anywhere, 24/7. How cool is that?
Create Just-In-Time Content to Meet a
Variety of Use Cases
Not only does your content need to be easily searchable and quickly accessible, it also needs to be adapted to various use cases. What does this mean? Your learners absorb content in different ways at different times. Say they’re driving to a sales call. They might tune in to a podcast to get up to speed on new product requirements before their appointment. Or let’s imagine they’re subbing for another employee who called in sick. To quickly learn how to complete a task they aren’t familiar with, they might read a quick step-by-step fact sheet or watch a short how-to video.
Offering content based on the possible use cases your employees will encounter is a smart content strategy and goes a long way in adapting content to their specific situation. However, that doesn’t mean you need to replicate every piece of content using multiple modalities just to accommodate personal learning preferences. Just because someone doesn’t like to read doesn’t mean they can’t get the information they need from a tip sheet. Likewise, your employees might enjoy watching videos, but that doesn’t mean you need to create a video for everything.
Don’t worry about recycling the same content in different ways. Instead, think through the different use cases your employees will encounter and develop content that hits the mark for each scenario.
Embrace the Value of Right-Timed
Performance Support
Your employees will encounter problems in performance no matter where they are. It’s your job to proactively support them. Don’t fight this shift —embrace it. Give them a mobile-first tool that provides a wealth of information at their fingertips. Make it searchable, fast, and easy to use. Help them solve their own problems and find the answers to their questions.
Will this require a sizable mindset shift? Yes. Will you need to change how you approach your job? Absolutely. Is there an upside for you? You bet. Providing helpful resources at an employee’s exact point of need allows you to add real, measurable value to your company’s bottom line by equipping your workforce to do their best work. That’s a win/win proposition — and that’s ultimately what just-in-time learning is all about.
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