Learning Experience Design vs Instructional Design: What’s The Difference?

When it comes to creating e-learning courses, you may hear the terms “learning experience design” and “instructional design.” Here, we are doing a comparison between learning experience design vs instructional design so you can get clarity on which one you actually need for your program. 

Instructional Design vs Learning Experience Design Differences

The biggest difference between instructional design and learning experience design is who they focus on. Their names indicate this major difference. 

The instructional design focuses on the instructor, while the learning experience design focuses on the learner. 

Instructional Design

Instructional design is the traditional approach and what you typically find in institutional education. It is all about the instructor. You focus on attending prestigious schools or lectures by a prestigious professor. 

The course focuses on whatever the instructor or subject matter expert thinks is important. It highlights only what they think should be taught. They also present it in whatever way they think works best. 

Learning Experience Design

On the other hand, in learning experience design, learners are the focus. The creators of the course look at what the learners want to learn and create a course around that. They specifically look for the biggest learners' challenges and address those. Also, the course will fit the learning styles and needs of the learners. 

Why Instructional Design Is Less Than Ideal

Traditional models aren’t always worth keeping around, and instructional design is a good example of this. Many courses created with instructional design are no longer as effective. 

They Don’t Address the Major Challenges

To start, these courses won’t necessarily address the learners’ biggest challenges, which is why they are taking the course in the first place. The course won’t add much value if it doesn’t even touch on those challenges. 

They Aren’t Engaging 

Courses made with instructional design may not be very engaging. Remember that they are taught in a way that makes sense to the subject matter expert, regardless of the learner. Not every learner will learn the same way as the subject matter expert. 

Use Learner Experience Design

When choosing between instructional design vs learner experience design, we strongly suggest using learner experience design when building a course. This lines up with our overall emphasis on focusing on the learner. 

Remember that your learners are the most important factor to consider as you design the course. Yes, you need the knowledge of the subject matter expert. But that knowledge should be used to address the biggest challenges of the learners and should be taught in a way that is useful to them. 

Your focus needs to shift to the learner throughout the entire course design process. If you want to learn how to build your course to engage your learners, check out our blog post “How to structure an online course to help students get better results?”

Conclusion

Learner experience design focuses on the learner, while instructional design focuses on the instructor or subject matter expert. That focus determines the topics covered and how they are taught. Successful courses should always opt for learner experience design, as you want your focus to be on your learners and their needs. Identify your learners’ biggest challenges, create content to address those challenges, and distribute the content in a way that will connect with your learner.