May Chapter Meeting: Designing from the Heart! Learning Empathy and the User Experience

Join us for our May Chapter Meeting -

Designing from the Heart! Learning Empathy and the User Experience

Program Description:

Getting to know your learner and wanting to design the best training you can for them is at the heart of a human-centered design practice called Learner Experience (LX) design. Learner Experience design focuses on developing empathy for your learners, understanding their needs, and creating a training experience that supports those needs. This practice can aid instructional designers, trainers, and developers to create more relevant and engaging trainings for their audience. However, in order to truly develop empathy for your learners, it is important to understand who they are in a way that goes beyond basic demographics. Creating Learner Personas to serve as specific representations of general groups of learners allows you to dive into their motivations, outlooks, and personalities so you can deepen your understanding and connection. In this session we will define Learner Experience and human-centered design, and discuss how it can be applied to the training lifecycle. We will also examine how Learner Personas can take audience analysis even further by cultivating a deeper understanding of your learners, which will foster empathy within your design team to help create training that is intentional and truly meaningful.

Program Learning Objectives/Job Application:

• Develop strategies for conducting in-depth audience analysis by using our Learner Persona template
• Integrate Human Centered Design practices into your Development Process by using Learner Personas to make better informed training decisions that account for your learner's needs
• Learn how to have intentional and purposeful conversations about learners with your team in order to create a culture of learner advocacy
• Determine a balance between satisfying business needs and accommodating the training experience of your learners

Speaker Bio:

Debra Jensen designs learning experiences and development solutions as the Senior User Interface/User Experience Designer at Reflection Software. Through her background in design and computer programming she has developed a passion for usability, good design, and user empathy.

Speaker Bio:

Alicia is an Account Manager at Reflection Software. She supports clients in defining what is at the heart of the training solution they’re looking to create, and then works with her talented RS team to make that vision come to life! She also helps to bring new clients into the RS family and has been known to contribute some blog writing as time allows. One of her main driving goals is to work hard so her 2 cats can have a better life

ATD Capability: Instructional Design