Designing Learning, Not Just E‑Learning with Connie Malamed

Want to design learning that actually sticks—and gets you hired? Jackie sits down with Connie Malamed, publisher of The eLearning Coach website and podcast, author of Visual Design Solutions and Visual Language for Designers, to unpack how newcomers can skip the noise, master the essentials, and build a portfolio that proves real instructional design skill. We dive into the mindset shift from “make e‑learning” to “design for how people learn,” then get tactical: reducing cognitive load with white space and alignment, using dual coding without redundancy, and making accessibility a default through color contrast and non‑color cues.

Whether you’re transitioning from K‑12 or pivoting into corporate learning, this conversation gives you a focused path: design with empathy, keep visuals purposeful, and ship polished work that respects learners’ time. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so others can find the show. What’s one change you’ll make in your next project?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Guest Introduction
• 1:04 What Beginners Should Do First
• 4:33 Cognitive Load and How People Learn
• 7:42 Breaking In Without Going Back to School
• 12:04 Inclusive Design & Neurodivergent Learners
• 15:24 Visual Design Basics That Matter
• 20:48 Tools, Color, and Accessibility Tips
• 25:05 Building a First Portfolio That Lands Interviews
• 29:56 UX Methods in ID: Personas & Prototyping
• 33:46 Diversifying for Corporate vs K‑12
• 37:07 Avoiding Page‑Turners: Real Interactivity
• 41:44 Using AI as a Collaborative Partner
• 45:54 A Tool, a Habit, and a Reflection Question

Transcript

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, instructional designers and educators. Welcome to episode 90 of the Designing with Love podcast. I'm thrilled to have Connie Malamid with me today. Connie helps learning professionals advance their careers by building skills and visibility. She is the founder of the Learning Community, Mastering Instructional Design, and publisher of the eLearning Coach website and podcast. She is also the author of Visual Design Solutions and Visual Language for Designers. Connie publishes a monthly newsletter for learning designers with articles, resources, and freebies, which I'll make sure to link in the show notes. Welcome to the show, Connie. Hey, thank you so much for having me, Jackie. I appreciate it. From one instructional designer to the other and one podcaster to the other, it's wonderful to be able to have that community and be able to share that knowledge. So I love that. So uh as you know, a lot of my listeners are newbies, they're new in instructional design, or they're in education, they're looking to transition to this field because it's such a growing field. So to help us kind of start off that conversation, um, I want to kind of start with those first steps. So if someone's brand new to this field of instructional design, what would you have them do in the first maybe 30 to 60 days, such as one skill to build, one portfolio piece to make, and maybe one quick way to get feedback? Hmm.

Connie Malamed: 1:35

I I think um people get a little hung up in the tools and often think that instructional design equals e-learning. And the reality is when you're a practicing instructional designer, you may create participation manuals, um, you may create uh facilitator manuals, you may write video scripts, you may create a website with learning portals, which doesn't happen as much, um, but it should. Um, you might create um job aids. So you really need a very good understanding of how people learn before you dive into the tools. Because otherwise it just doesn't make sense. It's not going to have as much meaning. But once you really understand how people learn, then you have more of a sense of how to design and develop. And then you can start playing around with the tools.

Jackie Pelegrin: 2:28

I love that. Yes. You can't really master the tools until you know how they're going to work best for people and how it's going to help them learn. Uh, because that's what we're in the business of doing. We're not just around to we're not just here to input, it's that's I've heard that so many times that I'm just the one to input the content and then it just does it on its own. And I'm like, no, that's not really how it works, right? We have to be we're the architects of learning, but we also help to drive that success and that growth. And uh yeah, so that's amazing.

Connie Malamed: 3:01

Uh you know, it's it's pretty similar to um for anyone who's a teacher, they don't just walk into the classroom and read what the textbook says. They're they're constantly thinking about uh the students and how will the students best learn. It's the same thing in adult learning. I one time I read um our brain is not a recorder. And uh I love that because because people who aren't in education or any kind of learning profession, they think they could just throw everything at people and they're going to remember it. And it's just not, it doesn't work that way.

Jackie Pelegrin: 3:37

Right, exactly. Yeah, and that that kind of reminds me of all the theories that we learn about, right? If we if we do go for formal education, and I'm sure you teach this in your classes about cognitive load theory, and that's been coming up a lot in my classes, and I've been reminding my coworkers that are curriculum developers or instructional designers about that, because it's so important not to just do an info dump on our learners and just expect them to catch it all, right? Or understand it.

unknown: 4:06

Yeah.

Connie Malamed: 4:06

I mean, sometimes I think that the limitations of working memory, which is what causes high cognitive load when you um tax your working memory too much, is really almost the most important element of visual of um instructional design. It's just so important to understand how limited our processing power is, you know, within every moment.

Jackie Pelegrin: 4:31

Right. That's so true. Definitely. So kind of building off that momentum of newcomers, uh, what uh from what you've seen, what are three specific moves that you think can help newcomers break in the fastest, especially without going back to school? Because some may not be able to go back to school right away, but they want to come into this career.

Connie Malamed: 4:52

Well, there are a lot of um professional degrees that you can get, professional certifications. There are a lot of communities, you know. I have one called Mastering Instructional Design, but there are many others. And from what I can tell, they seem like they're they're good because we're a caring group of professionals, you know, who want to help people do a good job. So uh the other thing is just to teach yourself, for example. I always recommend uh my friend Julie Dirksen's book, Design for How People Learn. Um, it's a classic, it it really helps you get started with understanding. I think another thing people can do is to find what their unique talents are. And there's this term that's called talent stacking. I have an article about it on the eLearningcoach.com website. And talent stacking is looking at your own, your individual, unique skills and stacking them together so that you're kind of different than everyone else. Um I think that's kind of a cool idea. And then another thing is to possibly find an area or two that really interests you, such as accessibility, visual design, AI, video, you know, whatever it is, and really dive into that so that can be, you know, your specialty. Not that not that you'll uh be exclusive. You do need to know a lot of things, a lot of areas, but I rely on other people to be to have expertise or a lot of competence in other areas because it's impossible to learn it all. It's it's such a as we were talking, it's a giant Venn diagram.

Jackie Pelegrin: 6:42

Right, exactly. It's so true. And that's why I love having guests like you on the show because everyone brings a unique perspective and unique insight to this field. And uh, as educators and instructional designers, you know, we've yeah, we've just and so I I even had a guest on my show not too long ago that taught we talked about inclusive design, we talked about neurodivergent learners, and it really opened up my eyes to that. And I thought, I need to bring this back to my team because she said one in five learners are neurodivergent. And I thought, oh my goodness, that means we're not tapping into some of those learners if we're not, you know, doing that and and recognizing what their needs are. Then I had another guest that was talking about Gen Alpha in that generation, and she opened up my eyes to that. And so I was like, wow, this is really expanding my wheelhouse, right? And my my insights and my knowledge. So I love being able to bring those diverse sets of perspectives and experiences in. It's great. I love it.

Connie Malamed: 7:44

Yeah, also we have monthly speakers, and we also had a speaker that could have been the same one to to talk about neurodivergence um because I needed my eyes opened up to it, even though I grew up with a brother who was like that. Now they know so much more, you know, and and we can accommodate it so much more easily.

Jackie Pelegrin: 8:02

Right. Exactly. Yes, that's so true. I love that. And you talked a little bit about visuals, um, and your your two books are about that. So since clear visuals help us to make learning click, um, I wanted to kind of talk about that as well, because some some of our early instructional designers or some that are new to the field may not understand how visual design is so important. And I actually did a PD years ago with one of my colleagues about visual design and how important that is. So it's really great. And we we referenced your book. So it's it's wonderful. So drawing on your two books, Visual Design Solutions and Visual Language for Designers, uh, what's a simple checklist that a beginner could use to make their next slide or their screen easier to learn from?

Connie Malamed: 8:47

You know, and I do actually have a checklist, but uh, so I'll give you that link. Great. But um let's start from the beginning. Uh there are more resources devoted to vision for sighted individuals than to any other sense. So that's one reason it's so important for learning. The other thing is, and this is theory, uh, dual coding theory, which says that um if you use both channels, visual and audio, um, or audio, you will uh be able to get information you know processed in two different ways, which is stronger than just using one channel. So those are some of the reasons why visuals are so important. And as far as a checklist goes, um one really important thing to remember to help you feel more confident is that you do not need to be able to draw or to render to be good at visual design. Visual design is very functional and utilitarian. And uh you even can't even be too clever, which is kind of disappointing when you want to be, you know, wild and clever. Um, you really have to think in terms of learning and clarity. So you don't want to fill up every space. In terms of a checklist, you want to have enough white space, which is the space between the graphics and between the letters and words and sentences. So, and it doesn't have to be white. So you want to have enough white space so that people can process the visual information. Um, you want to make sure that your color combinations are okay for people who may have color blindness, and there's another word for that. Do you remember what it is?

Jackie Pelegrin: 11:15

I don't remember what it is either. I was uh yeah, I was talking about accessibility the other day with somebody uh and that came up, yeah, and I couldn't remember either. Yeah.

Connie Malamed: 11:24

Okay. It'll come up in the middle of the night when you're probably yeah. Um and you never want to use color as the only indicator because for people with color vision deficiency, that's what it's called, they may not see that. It may it may look almost like uh typically it's red and green, and on occasion blue and yellow. It can look kind of grayish to them or brownish to them. So those are a few things. Um other things are you don't uh try not to use too many fonts. You can get find one font that has multiple styles, uh and uh you know uh by multiple styles I mean it has irregular or Roman, it has bold, it may have black, which is very thick, it may have thin, which you probably rarely want to use, it's going to have italics. So if you're not really expert at visual design or graphic design, I would just stick with one uh one font. I know it's hard. And let me give one more. Um alignment. That's a good one. Oh yes. When you're looking at your graphics and they don't look that great, just start aligning things um horizontally, vertically, and it'll make it look much neater. And don't forget, um, your goal is to have people learn, and it's not for them to uh complement your great design.

Jackie Pelegrin: 13:01

Right, that's true. Yeah, the fanciness is not it's not what really counts, right? It's yeah, it's getting getting to the heart of the learning and what it is that they really need to do that so they can go to their next job or their next uh whatever it is they're looking to do and advance in that. Yeah, I love that. You know, it made me think of the Canva has this color wheel tool that's really great for that for visual design, and you can pick your uh your primary and compliment, and it'll give you a good complimentary color that goes with that on the color wheel. Um so I love that because it's a digital tool, and I'm like, wow, and you don't even need to be uh a member of Canva to do that. So when I did my episode on the solo one on accessibility that's coming out a little bit before this one, I shared that. Um so it's it's really a fun tool. I like using that. And then you can also do the other different types of combinations too. So it's a lot, it's a great tool I always send my students to. I'm like, here, if you're not sure, here's a really good tool that you can utilize.

Connie Malamed: 14:02

Yeah. And the funny thing is, you don't need too many colors. You know, you need a primary color that you're going to be using, a complementary to highlight things, um, you know, a few others to make it a little bit more interesting, you know, like a neutral background. And you don't want to have crazy backgrounds. You're always thinking about how it will be for people to process this visual information. Visual cues are important too. Pointing things out to people helps them process it more quickly. So if you have an arrow or a highlight, um, use those if it makes sense.

Jackie Pelegrin: 14:41

Right, exactly. You know, and it's interesting too how visual design complements the multimedia design principles really well because we, you know, it we have like you talked about making sure that things line up and uh that kind of lines up with you know all the different principles within Mayor's 12 multimedia principles. So it's interesting how my students will make those connections and oh, I see some of that related. And I'm like, Yes. Yeah, it's really neat. Yeah, I love that. Some of them, you know, actually will reference that and they'll be like, Yes, I use Mayor's 12 principles and I use visual, and I'm like, oh, you did both. Great, I love that. So they're quite once they become conscious of it and aware of it, it just becomes part of what you do. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's great. So you and I, we've both have been working in the field for a while. So we've we're veterans, right? So we know putting our work out there can feel awkward at first. And I know sometimes even I still feel a little awkward about it sometimes, but I think I've gotten past that most of the time. But um, what do you think is an easy plan for a first portfolio? Maybe one mini project to create, where to share it, and a weekly habit to get in in front of the right people.

Connie Malamed: 15:53

In terms of portfolios, we have a portfolio course in uh in my community, and I recommend people go showing that you can go through an entire visual, uh sorry, I keep saying visual design instead of instructional design. That you can go through an entire instructional design cycle. So put in, you know, first of all, start with a scenario that's relevant to where you want to work. So you may not know um what area, but you may know if you want to work in uh ed tech, higher ed, or in workplace training. That includes government, corporations, associations. This is how I kind of categorize it. And choose a pretty neutral topic that people can relate to and that is politically okay because that changes um with you know the times. Come up with um something that allows you to show that you're helping people improve their work performance, or if it's for students, like at K through 12, you're helping the students learn and improve their performance. And then um show that you can go through the entire cycle. So go through an analysis and put that on your portfolio. And you you may have to make this up, but that's okay. Um, you know, because you you're not really interviewing people. If you can really interview people, that would be great. And um get the content, um, analyze it, do an audience analysis, come up with some level of design and um prototype. And if you can, if it's e-learning or if it's a manual, you know, show a finished product, that would that's even best. So I would just show that you can do the entire cycle. And even if you use a um process that's a little bit different than someone else, you know, I think it's okay. It just shows that you understand the full instructional design world. Um, so that's what I would put into a portfolio. You know, that one, if you're only going to have one project, show it from start to finish. If you can somehow volunteer somewhere and put it in the real world, uh that would be even better. Um, do your students get a chance to volunteer and do that?

Jackie Pelegrin: 18:11

They do, yes. And uh one of the requirements in the master's program at GCU is that they build a portfolio and they put artifacts in it, like you mentioned, and projects that they're working on. And all in a lot of their projects, they have to go through, they go through the whole ADI model process, like you said, the whole the whole process. And they uh they have that opportunity to do that needs analysis and and be able to implement it, test it out, you know, with with learners. So it's really fun. And then some of my um some of my students have done that. They've volunteered or they've done internships just on the side, whether it's uh most of the time it's not paid for, but gives them that opportunity, like you said, to get out there and do that. So yeah, it's really, really neat. Yes, absolutely.

Connie Malamed: 18:56

One thing that I like to add to the Addy process, which maybe they're doing in a lot of schools or or organizations nowadays, is to pull some things from user experience design or marketing and put that in. And one is to add personas to your audience analysis and perhaps empathy maps and to add um prototyping. So there are things that we can grab from other fields that make the ADI model even more rich and robust. And I'd like to add those too.

Jackie Pelegrin: 19:27

Yes, those are great. I I love that. And that's something that uh my learners or my students get to to practice with uh that you mentioned the empathy mapping, journey mapping, prototyping. Yeah, so it's really great to see that our program at GCU is on top of that because I didn't learn those when I was in my master's. I graduated from Walden in 2013 and we didn't do empathy mapping, journey mapping, prototyping that I remember. So when I started teaching Connie, it was funny because I thought, what is this? What's I mean, I had got I have my my other, I have an MBA as well, so I got my business degree and have that business background, but we didn't do empathy or journey mapping then either. So I was like, what is this? This is new to me. So it was really, really funny to and so I had to actually as an instructor go out and do a little bit more research about it and practice doing some myself, but then I discovered that Canva has some empathy and journey maps in there, and I was like, oh, so it really helped me to learn, okay, this is what it's about. And once I started seeing my students produce the work, it all clicked with me. I was like, I get it now. That's that's amazing. So as an instructor, even in the field for a long time, I learned I learned some great information on that.

Connie Malamed: 20:42

So it's very since I had my first uh job, uh or even when I was in school, I oh I immediately got interested in user interface design and user experience design. And there's a lot that we can pull from those fields, one being a subset of the other sometimes, because they seem to um, I don't know, experiment and come up with things maybe perhaps more quickly than we do. Although things are, you know, we're getting pretty uh good at that now too, you know, changing, being able to change. And then um there's a new book out, Train Like a Marketer, or some um by Bianca Bowman and uh Mike Taylor. And they bring in a lot of nice marketing um tricks and techniques that are good for uh instructional design.

Jackie Pelegrin: 21:28

So our field is so it overlaps with almost everything, you know. Right. It does. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, you know, like my marketing degree and my MBA have really uh helped me in this field because I've been able, like you mentioned, you know, with the empathy mapping and journey mapping. And you know, in marketing, it's all about understanding the customer, right? And understanding the client. But in this case, we have to do that too. We have to be able, we work with stakeholders, we work with subject matter experts and being able to understand where they're coming from and having that empathy, I think is so important, right? In this field too. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Yes. And then, you know, educators, so many, I would say probably 80% of my students are in K through 12 education. So those that listen to this that are in my classes or have been in my classes, they'll know who they are. But it's very interesting because I noticed with um, this was a while ago, Connie, and I and it brought some attention to me. One of my students, uh, when he graduated, he was on my podcast, but he talked about his experience in creating his portfolio and and going out there and actually using it as a marketing tool to get jobs. And he said, Well, I'm a K through 12 educator. I want to go into corporate instructional design. And so I said, Okay, well, try to see how you can create those artifacts that are not just K through 12 education, but diversify your portfolio. And he realized that as he started going out and trying to get jobs, that they were like, Do you have any examples of corporate? And he realized he made the you know assumption that, oh, I'm just gonna work on projects that I'm familiar with. And so I tell my students that all the time, try to diversify. And but I love that idea of having you know that whole cycle. Have if it's just one project, make sure it you go through that whole cycle. But I always let my students know if you're gonna have multiple types of artifacts, you know, diversify if you can.

Connie Malamed: 23:23

It really helps in that area. I mean, in in some cases, I don't think this is true in all cases, but in some cases, I would just leave out anything, unless you want a job in K through 12, um, you know, an ed tech, uh, an educational publisher, um, I would completely take out anything that has to do with K through 12 because there are some people in the world of workplace training that they just don't want to see, you know, um cute pictures or flowers and horses. You know, they really want to see the things that adult that you would do for an adult.

Jackie Pelegrin: 23:56

Right. Exactly.

Connie Malamed: 23:57

Not always, not always. Some people are compassionate about that and they understand that it's the skills are very parallel.

Jackie Pelegrin: 24:04

Right. Yeah, that's true. I've had some of my some some of my students that will work on projects and and it's really great when they work on something that, like, for example, financial planning or budgeting or something like that. And I'm like, that's great. I love that, because even though they're a K through 12 educator, they recognize that need to be able to do something that will benefit their community. And I I was like, wow, you you hit the nail on the head, you you've got it, you know, they made that connection and thought, okay, I need to really get out there and and even if it's just like uh with family members, I even tell them that I'm like, if it's just with family and friends, do something, right? That can really benefit your community. Um, you know, and it doesn't uh but I love that idea of volunteering too and get it getting into a community, whether it's your church or you know, somewhere you where you volunteer on a regular basis and seeing where those needs are and where they could benefit from that. So yeah.

Connie Malamed: 25:03

You know, that reminds me of um a woman I was helping and with her portfolio, and she um her son was in the Boy Scouts, so she made a little bit older, so and they were going on these big hikes. So she made a um an e-learning course for Cub Scout leaders for how to take children on a hike, or you know, how to how to do some more uh advanced hiking skills and camping skills. And I just thought that was a perfect, that's a perfect example of what you're talking about. It was in her community, and they were thrilled that she was doing that, and she was helping people out and at the same time creating something for adults.

Jackie Pelegrin: 25:45

Wow, that's great. Yeah, so it served so many purposes, right? So yeah, that's great. I love that. And and it shows as instructional designers our creativity and our innovation, right? Because we we want to have that creativity and that innovation that we can bring to the community and bring to learners at large. So I think that's great when we can intersect the two. Yeah, that's great.

Connie Malamed: 26:10

Well, I look at a lot of portfolios and I I do want to give people a little tip. Um, one of the true uh you know signs of a beginner's portfolio is that their e-learning is more of a page turner. In other words, you could turn it into a PDF document and it would be the same thing. So, what you really want to do is take advantage of the medium and make it highly interactive. And interactive doesn't mean clicking on something to reveal text. Interactive means that uh people are you're using the medium to help people learn, to take them on an adventure or a challenge or to simulate something real, to start off with a story or a challenge or a game, to just uh draw people in quickly. And that to me, you know, when you start with a just a boring list of objectives and then it's next, next, next, next, um, it's just a sign of a beginner.

Jackie Pelegrin: 27:18

Right.

Connie Malamed: 27:18

That's so true.

Jackie Pelegrin: 27:19

Yeah, that reminds me of something I try to do in all of my uh materials as well, and bring that that interactivity into it to where it's meaningful, right? And it's not one of my one of my uh coworkers, she said, we don't want to just make eye candy. I said, You're right, we we don't want to just make eye candy, we want to make it meaningful and purposeful. So I think that's so important. Yeah, I love that.

Connie Malamed: 27:43

Sometimes you have to click to reveal simply because you have limited real estate. And I've had um I I've done a lot of medical e-learning, and I've had uh I had a doctor say to me once, please don't make us quick to look at the text. It's just so funny, but I had to because there wasn't enough room. But um, I tried to make it exciting, you know, too. Yeah. And you know, let me just say this too. It's not that hard to at least begin instead of a list of objectives, you can tell a one-paragraph story that lets people know what they'll be learning. You know? Right. I can give an example. Like um, so and so is a doctor. Uh he got a gift from a patient. He went he wants to look up her address so he can send a thank you note in the in the um medical record. Is he allowed to do that? In this course, you'll learn whether so-and-so was allowed, you know, to look up private information. And then at the end, you know, did you learn? What do you say? What do you think? You know, it's just so easy. You can come up with a very short way, very short story to draw people in. Of course, you can get much more involved, but just for a quick, you know, opener, it's easy.

Jackie Pelegrin: 29:02

Wow, that's great. You know, I kind of did that with the accessibility and action. I did an e-learning, it was like a it's a self-paced course I did in Genially. I'm not sure if you've used Genially. My students are actually really loving that. Uh, I mean, they use you know, captivate, they use the traditional uh tools like uh that and our articulate rise and storyline and stuff like that. But lately they've been checking out Genially, which is something my students introduced me to, and it's an interactive tool. And so with each of my solo episodes now, I create an interactive tool and or not a tool, but an interactive type of piece that can accompany that to help learners that maybe want to have a little bit more of that deep dive uh into it. So I created for the accessibility one, I created a self-paced course. And at the very beginning, what you mentioned, I did a little, didn't realize I did it at the time, but when you mentioned it, I did a story at the beginning. And then I had a little audio that said it says listen, and then they got a little bit of that, you know, dual dual coding, right? So they got to read it and then it wasn't verbatim on the screen. I've learned that. Try not to do verbatim. But then in yeah, and then in the next screen, it had like the it didn't have the objective, it had the objectives, but it wasn't like word for word, and then they got to click on something and get a little tip, so it had like a tooltip with it. So yeah, that's cool. Great idea. Yeah, so it's really neat. And what's nice is it genuinely has all these uh they have all these different templates that you can utilize, and then I just you know massage it and I I take things. It's you know out and repurpose it. And so it's it's never what it what it truly was at the beginning, but that's okay because it's a template, so it's really neat. And then you just modify it to meet your needs. So it's a really fun tool, and my students have enjoyed doing that. And they they had an assignment last week where they uh had to build an e-learning module, and it was for a fake XYZ type of tech company, and it was about privacy laws and things, so it was really fun, but they had to utilize AI as well to kind of get some of those policies and procedures. And so it was really fun for my students, and they're like, some of them, Connie, actually felt like they were cheating when they utilized the AI. And I said, You're not cheating. As long as it's as long as you're, you know, taking that as your first pass and you're not utilizing it as your one and only source, then it's okay. And you're doing the research and you're checking you know the source information. But it was so funny because one of my students in her write-up, she said that. She said, I felt like I was cheating the whole time. And she and she even messaged me and she's like, Is it okay for me to use this? I I just feel awkward. And I'm like, I get it, I understand, but look at it as your collaborative partner. That's what one of my guests said. And I was like, that's brilliant. I love that. Your collaborative partner. So yeah, I love that. So it was great because my students really got to see that process of going through that and and doing that e-learning module and and really utilizing the technology and not letting the tools replace that that process, but coming alongside them to do that. So I love that because that brings that back around. Yeah. Yeah.

Connie Malamed: 32:15

It's a good assignment.

Jackie Pelegrin: 32:17

Yeah, definitely. They had another one too in this class that I think you would have enjoyed too. And they had to utilize AI, but it was about situational leadership and um that model and being able to understand different readiness styles and working with other people. And I was like, this is great because for those K through 12 educators, they don't necessarily work with other employees, they work with other staff maybe at the school. But it was really interesting because they they had to take the prompts for each readiness style and then put it into whichever tool, most of them use Chat GPT, but then uh they had to work with that. And so they played the instructional designer, and then the AI tool played the the employee, and they had to work through that and get them comfortable and go through that situation to get them to the next readiness level. So it was really interesting. And then they did a write-up on it. So that was cool too. So it's a lot of fun to see where you know those technologies are uh are coming to into place and how they're being integrated into our daily work as as IDs as well. So that's neat. Yeah, yeah, that's great. I love it. So I wanted to, I've been doing this in some of my most recent episodes, so I figured we could do this too with the uh the bonus questions. So I wanted to do something like that, and I know my listeners will enjoy it and I can, you know, create like a snippet for them. So what do you think is uh one tool, one habit, and maybe one reflection question you can recommend uh for those that want to land that first ID role?

Connie Malamed: 33:47

Okay. Um, you know, one thing we haven't discussed yet is how important writing is. And I know when I finished my degree program, I was shocked. Um, number one, it I wasn't a great writer. Uh and number two, how much writing was involved in instructional design. I mean, unless you're taking a completely technical route, which some people do, it's pretty shocking. So I think any tool that will help you make your work perfect, like um a grammar tool, a spell checker, because when you create uh, let's say writing for a manual or for e-learning, it often doesn't get checked well enough by other people on your team. Many instructional designers work alone, and many don't have, if they're on a team, they don't have funds for an editor. If you work for a publisher, you're going to have that. But it really is like uh working for a publisher. If you're working for a large organization, I work for a um well, I would freelance with a large uh hospital organization, like maybe five, six, ten thousand people could take your course. And if you have a few errors in it, it's just horrible.

unknown: 35:10

Yeah.

Connie Malamed: 35:10

It just makes you feel awful when someone says, you know, like one year later, I noticed these three typos. Why didn't anyone say it first? So it's really like you're working for a publisher, whether you are or not. That's how good and perfect your work needs to be. And um, when I'm teaching these instructional design classes in my community, that's one of the big things that um people aren't aware of. It's because I wasn't either. You have to be super detail oriented. You can get through an entire graduate program and not be detail-oriented. Um, the professors don't like get on your case for every little m every little error. And um, so that to me is the number one thing. I would get a tool that finds your errors, um, that fixes your grammar and checks your spelling. And then you have to check, you know, because sometimes they're wrong, the tools. So you have to check the tools, you know, check check what corrections you can't just go through and say, yeah, correct it all. So that's one thing. Um for a habit, uh it's related. It's just like you really have to triple check your work. If your portfolio is filled with even has a few misspellings and links that don't work, forget it. I mean, they have 50 other people who have a perfect one, or a few people who have it really looks bad as someone who now knows how to be detail-oriented, and that was not natural for me. When I see it, I go, no, you know. You can't have somebody who does sloppy work. So I think that's just super important. Probably you have to get somebody else to check your work because it's very hard to find your own mistakes. I can't find my own mistakes. I'll reread, reread, reread, and somebody will send me an email and say, Oh, you have a typo here. No, yeah, that's true. I've noticed that as well. And that's with, you know, a grammarly check, a word check, you know, I don't know how it happens. Um, and then what was the third one?

Jackie Pelegrin: 37:10

And a question maybe that uh maybe they could ask when they're landing their first ID role, maybe like an interview, maybe it could be like an interview question, or maybe something that if they know someone in the field, maybe something they could ask that would help land them that that role.

Connie Malamed: 37:25

Um let's see. One thing, I mean, when you're back again to the portfolios, when you're showing your work and demonstrating it um and designing it, you always have to think about, and you can talk about this during an interview too. Um, there's a saying that people always say, and maybe you teach this, or what's in it for me? That's what the audience is um thinking. You know, what's in this for me? So picture busy people, they're working all day, they have, you know, they may be out in the field, they may be truck drivers, they may be office workers, but they're busy and they don't want to take compliance training that's only going to teach them uh rules and regulations that they may not think are relevant. So you have to find a way to make it so relevant to them that they understand what's in it for them. Um so when you can do that in your work and then talk about it in an interview, such as, yeah, well, I know that people may not want to do this training because it's compliance training. So I made sure that they could see um how it was relevant to their jobs. So let's say um you are uh working in a fact, you're creating training for someone who works in a factory. Well, one interesting approach could be um have them go through the course as though they were the quality assurance person. And then when they see it from another viewpoint, it may make it more reasonable and understandable why they have to, you know, be so careful when they're doing their production work in the factory. But you always have to find some angle that will make it interesting to them so that they actually are paying attention. Because um, most of the tests that we have at the end of e-learning, you can go through and pass without even taking a course. They're so easy. Because we don't want people to fail. So it's it's a it's our own fault.

Jackie Pelegrin: 39:21

Right. It's that fail-safe, right? I love that. It's almost like thinking of um, you know, what you mentioned about coming at it from a different point of view. It almost makes me think of, you know, being like a TV producer or movie producer. They want to try to think of who's my audience, what point of view am I trying to get across? Yeah, I love that. And bringing it from a different point of view that may they may not think about, I think is it makes it relevant, makes it interesting. And then they're yeah, it really helps them to say, okay, maybe, yeah. So workplace, you know, mistakes or accidents from this, yeah, I can understand why this is a not a good thing, you know. So we want we want to reduce it. So that's a great idea. Yeah, yeah.

Connie Malamed: 40:05

You can also make games to that, you know, simple games. I know we can't make complex games, but simple ones. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Jackie Pelegrin: 40:12

I was just gonna say, yeah, because I agree with you. Games, yeah, games are really important. And uh, because it's true, compliance training can be so dry. So, how can we make it interesting and relevant? Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. Those are great, great tips, absolutely, for sure. Uh, so as we wrap up, are there any other top tips or advice for listeners who are looking to transition into instructional design or who are just starting out in the field that you'd like to share?

Connie Malamed: 40:39

Well, maybe one other thing is that remember who your audience is in terms of looking at your portfolio. So it's going to be a busy manager who probably, or it could be a recruiter, but if it's a busy manager, um, and recruiters are busy too, they don't have the time to go through an entire course. So put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you're busy, you're looking at 25 portfolios. What would you like to see? You know, you want it to be clear and concise, and you want to, if they're looking at your work, have it be, you know, perfect. Um, if they're looking, they don't want to just click next, next, next. I know we're usually making things for the learner, but in this case, we're kind of making things also for the busy manager who may be hiring you. So um keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that uh everyone, not everyone, but um many organizations are using uh systems that sort through and filter resumes by keyword. So keep that in mind too. Learn how those AI um talent systems work. Those are two tips.

Jackie Pelegrin: 41:50

Yes, I like that. You know, I I teach my students in the capstone course they because they finalize their portfolio. So I'm glad you brought that up because they finalize it and they have uh and I'm supposed to look at it, make sure the and it's funny because the final assignment that they have is where they have to click through, make sure things work, like you said, and make sure they've checked their spelling and grammar and things like that. And I'll I'll get assignments sometimes where I look through their portfolio and I'm like, oh, there's obvious spelling mistakes, and and it's just the visual design is just not. I'm like, I don't have a colorblindness, but I have a visual impairment uh that makes it hard for me to see bright colors. It's just really hard on my eyes. So I'm like, wow. And I and I've seen some of my students work and they're just they're the whole design of it. And I'm like, whoa, that's way too bright. You gotta tone tone it down a little bit. So I give them that advice. But yeah, I agree that uh that's those those are big, big things for sure. Um, and then I go over the applicant tracking tracking system with them and I show them a video of that. And yeah, so important. And now with AI, right, it's such a big big component of that. So yeah, making it yeah.

Connie Malamed: 43:01

You know, one other aspect of visual design and accessibility is you just reminded me of it is contrast. You really have to have sufficient contrast so that people can read it. Um, because almost everyone has some kind of little disability somewhere. For me, it's contrast. I have to have enough contrast to be able to read it. Um, you don't like bright colors, you know. If you need sunglasses, then it's not you know not a good design. So there keep a lot of those things in mind and you know make it kind of sophisticated and minimalist and neutral so that you're not uh impacting people's brains. Right, absolutely.

Jackie Pelegrin: 43:40

Yeah, it's true. If I if I have to put sunglasses on, I know that's not a good sign. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I I'm like, I one time I was at uh at our at the campus and they were having an event and they have this big jumbo chon TV, right? Because it's in the arena, and they started showing this video, and I I couldn't watch it, I had to look away because it was so bright and just overwhelming. I was like, whoa. Yeah, and I'm like, I can't, I just can't handle it. My eye I'm starting to get a headache. So I'm like, wow, that's such a good uh, you know, good advice, you know, for put yourself in the learner's shoes, right? And and what they may need and what they may want. So that's great. I love that. Thank you, Connie, for all these insights that you shared today. So I know all your wealth of experience and your expertise are going to inspire all of my listeners to come into this field and pursue their own path in instructional design. So uh so I think that'll that'll be wonderful for them. So glad we got connected and you had a chance to come on the show.

Connie Malamed: 44:39

Yeah, so am I. Thank you. Uh I I never tire of talking about this stuff, sadly.

Jackie Pelegrin: 44:45

I think we could, yeah, it's funny because I some people I've had on, they're like, oh, I could have we could have talked for hours. And I'm like, I know. And then once I have someone on, then we're like, I always say, come back on the show again if whenever you want. You're welcome to come back on. So I I always lay out that perpetual welcome, Matt. So they're always, you know, welcome to come back. And then people do, they reach out to me and they're like, hey, can I come back on, you know, to another time? And so it's really neat because I'm doing a series with uh with a gentleman right now. Um, his name is Russell Van Brockland, and he's a New York state Senate-funded dyslexia researcher. And so that's another area where I I've learned a lot. Connie, it's it's amazing. He actually will do exercises with me in the in our episodes. And so I've done three parts with him, and he's coming back for part four. He we may have to do five because of just the complexity of what he's teaching, and he wants to break it down, make it simple. But yeah, it's really interesting because he's dyslexic and I'm not. So I'm learning through that. And so it's really neat um to learn that. And it's not just for, you know, what he's what he's teaching me is is mainly for kids that are in grade school, but it's like, wow, I I had student, I had kids that I knew when I was growing up that had dyslexia, and the teachers just didn't know how to handle it. The parents didn't know how to how to handle that. And so it really brings that to mind of that. And so he finds their like or their dislike, and then he uses that as their um as the element that he can, and he helps them find what book they like. A lot of them love Harry Potter, so he helps them with that. He gives them the, he says, get the audio version and the print version, and he helps them with that. But yeah, he did this exercise with me, and it was really interesting because he said, Okay, Sally, Sally, she likes swimming, right? Okay, so put the the like as the plus, and he's like, fill that in. Sally, does she like or dislike swimming? And I'm like, She likes it. And he's like, I'm gonna test you, see if you did it right. And he said, No, you didn't do it right. And I was like, What are you talking about? She I said, Sally likes swimming. And he's like, Does she like or dislike it? I said, like, okay, do put put the put it in there. And I said, Sally, oh, I get it. He says, That's what a dyslexic person, they don't realize that they have to change the like to likes. They say Sally likes swimming, and and then I have to correct, and I'm like, oh my goodness, I get it. So yeah, wow. So it was really interesting. And I don't know if adult if there's adults that have that as well. I'm sure they do because if they don't get the proper help, you know, that you have dyslexic um you know, learners. So, but yeah, it was such an eye-opening experience for me. So yeah, so I'd love to have you back anytime on the show.

Connie Malamed: 47:32

So glad it was really a nice conversation.

Jackie Pelegrin: 47:35

Yes, absolutely. Great. Thank you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going, you can share it with a friend or colleague, leave a heartfelt review, or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support, big or small, makes a difference, and I'm truly thankful for you.