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Taking Inspiration from Instructional Design for Research
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Thursday, March 10, 2022 • Advancing Research 2022
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Taking Inspiration from Instructional Design for Research
Speakers: Zen Ren
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Summary

UX research takes plenty of inspiration from anthropology and design principles, but what about our friends in Instructional Design (ID)? Contrary to popular belief, ID is way more than creating school curriculums and offers a whole new perspective on what it means to drive truly meaningful insights. ID’s time- and lab-tested principles all drive towards creating measurable change in students (or users), and its lessons are easy to adapt into the user research world. In this session, you’ll learn about basic ID process and learning theory, how to apply that to research projects, and finally how ID can help you rethink the classic UX heuristics evaluation. By diversifying the disciplines we pull from, we’ll become stronger and more flexible researchers who can tackle any kind of problem

Key Insights

  • User research and instructional design share fundamental goals around changing user behaviors through learning.

  • Bloom's taxonomy provides a structured way to categorize learning goals from simple recall to creating new knowledge.

  • Avoid vague cognitive terms like 'understand' in research goals; specify observable behaviors instead.

  • Applying Bloom's taxonomy to user research goals helps select more appropriate methods and sharper analysis.

  • Learning journeys in UX need not be linear; starting with complex creation and backward scaffolding can improve learning.

  • Complex tools like low-code platforms require supporting users primarily at the 'create' cognitive level, which demands layered learning support.

  • Instructional designers’ mistakes, such as missing cognitive levels or poor sequencing, can be reframed as UX pain points.

  • Users often compensate for missing cognitive support by overloading other cognitive processes, increasing frustration.

  • Measuring behavior change depends on project context and can be tied to problem-specific metrics like error rates or task completion.

  • Collaboration between user researchers and instructional designers enhances research questions, methods, and findings presentation.

Notable Quotes

"As researchers, our job is to explore behaviors which are driven by knowledge and we’re also making insights that can alter what our users learn and do."

"Instructional design is the creation of learning experiences that result in new behaviors, and those behaviors are the application of knowledge or skills."

"In the ID world, some practitioners try to never use the word 'understand' in project goals because it's too vague for behavior outcomes."

"Bloom’s taxonomy forces us to focus on what we can do with information, not just repeating facts."

"You can mix up and even go backwards in Bloom’s taxonomy stages; learning doesn’t have to be linear."

"Productive failure harnesses that the human brain remembers struggle well and uses it as motivation to learn."

"If users have trouble evaluating options, maybe a calculator tool helps more than a detailed explainer."

"Users adapt other cognitive levels as workarounds when the product misses a particular learning step."

"Measuring behavior change depends on the problem at hand; instructional designers look at signals related to that problem."

"Incorporating instructional designers in UX projects helps improve research quality and question framing because both fields bring distinct strengths."

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