What is a Learning Experience Designer?

How to get my job is our podcast series on Linkedin and Spotify where we sit down with amazing people within the Design and Product industry and ask them how their careers started, evolved, and what advice they have for those coming after them.

In episode 4 of the series, we speak with Ashley Thomas, a Learning Experience Designer at Google, who made many career transitions before finding a career that allows her and many others to thrive. We discuss Ashleys journey and gain an understanding of what Learning Experience Design is and how she is empowering thousands of people through design.

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So, what is a Learning Experience Designer?

In a nutshell, Learning Experience Designers design learning experiences using cognitive science, neuroscience learning theories. It has multiple disciplines involved like interaction design, UX design and they essentially craft learning experiences such a podcasts, E-Learning videos, in-person training, virtual instructor led training to figure out how we change behaviour. As a Learning Experience Designer, you often do a lot of product training for software and empower people to understand the product and what they're selling. In the learning and development space, interpersonal and leadership skills as well as onboarding is a really big area for learning experience.

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In a nutshell, a Learning Experience Designer really cool and educational learning experiences which can sometimes be as short and fun as a TikTok!

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What are the most important qualities a Learning Experience Designer could have?

First and foremost it's understanding the craft of instructional design and learning experience design. If you have the means or opportunity to study this at degree level it will really help ground you in the learning theories around design and what is good design. You'll get to explore different areas such as game theory, gamification and the psychology behind incentives and badgers that are used to motivate the learner. In terms of qualities, dealing with ambiguity is key. You. may have an idea of what you're trying to solve but sometimes you have to go with the flow because the business goals or content may change. Another important quality is understanding inclusive design and accessibility and using those frameworks to create for everyone. Being aware of your unconscious bias as a designer can improve accessibility and therefore the user experience. Finally, having strong communication will help you articulate your bandwidth when working to tight deadlines, be assertive and advocate for the user.