Day 2 / 60Week 1 · Introduction to Instructional DesignLesson

What does an instructional designer actually do?

Learning goal

Describe the day-to-day work, artefacts and collaborators of a working ID.

Estimated time

25 minutes · self-paced

Warm-up

Guess: what percentage of an ID's week is spent building in an authoring tool?

Main lesson

The real week

Most IDs spend far more time analysing, writing and negotiating than clicking in Storyline. Building is the visible tip of the work.

~30% analysis, interviews, alignment
~40% writing: objectives, outlines, storyboards, scripts
~20% building and testing
~10% evaluation and iteration

Artefacts you will produce

example

Your credibility comes from artefacts. Each one is also a portfolio piece.

Needs analysis summary
Action map / objective set
Storyboard and script
Prototype and finished module
Evaluation plan and results

Titles and paths

Instructional designer, learning experience designer, learning consultant, eLearning developer, L&D partner. They overlap; the difference is usually how far upstream you work.

Examples from practice

— A junior ID's Monday: SME interview, revise objectives, fix quiz feedback in Rise.

Interactive quiz

Which activity typically consumes the largest share of an ID's time?

Reflection

Which part of the ID week appeals to you most, and which worries you?

Daily challenge

Map your current skills against the five artefacts above. Mark each: strong / okay / gap.

Portfolio task

Add a 'Skills inventory' page to your portfolio folder with those three columns.

AI design tools

Ten assistants for this lesson

AI Mentor

Instructional design questions only

Hi! I'm your ID Mentor. Ask me anything about what does an instructional designer actually do? — or instructional design in general.

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