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Choosing the Right Learning Intervention
Choosing the Right Learning Intervention
Training isn't always the answer to a performance problem. Sometimes people need better documentation, clearer system feedback, or a workflow that prevents the problem from occurring in the first place.
When learning is the right solution, I start with what someone needs to be able to do. The task and the audience determine what comes next. Someone who needs help completing a specific action may need support in the moment, while broader proficiency may require practice and a structured path through more complex material.
That has led me to solutions ranging from two-minute demonstrations embedded at the point of need to certification programs designed around progressive product mastery.
| The goal isn't to create more training. It's to provide the right support for the performance someone needs to achieve.
Putting Short Demonstrations at the Point of Need
Putting Short Demonstrations at the Point of Need
At LibreDigital, users of a workflow application needed help completing specific tasks, but those tasks didn't require another lengthy training session. I created a series of short Adobe Captivate demonstrations, typically two to three minutes long, that supplemented the existing user manual.
Each demonstration was produced in two versions. One began with a question and was placed directly in the application's Help experience. The other was designed for use alongside the PDF FAQ. The same approach supported both internal Operations teams and external customers.
50%
Reduction in live demonstration time
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35%
Reduction in customer support emails
Short task demonstrations gave users procedural guidance at the point of need, reducing reliance on live demonstrations and customer support.
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| Design principle: Use the smallest learning intervention that helps someone perform the task successfully.
Designing for a Global Technical Audience
Designing for a Global Technical Audience
A different learning problem required a different approach.
When new functionality was added to software used by outsource conversion vendors, Development owned the technical specifications, but those specifications didn't tell production teams how to apply the functionality in their day-to-day work.
I translated the technical requirements into operational instruction and created an interactive Adobe Captivate tutorial showing how the new functionality should be used. The audience included global vendors with different levels of English fluency and technical experience. Rather than forcing everyone through a fixed presentation, I gave learners control over the pace.
Technical specifications were translated into task-focused instruction, with learner-controlled pacing designed for a distributed audience with varied experience and English fluency.
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| Design principle: Design for the people who need to use the knowledge, not for the people who already understand it.
From Individual Lessons to a Learning System
From Individual Lessons to a Learning System
Point-of-need instruction can solve an immediate performance problem. Broader product proficiency requires a structure that develops knowledge over time. Learners need to know where to begin, build on what they've already mastered, and understand where to go next.
Designing Paths to Product Mastery
Designing Paths to Product Mastery
At Kibo, I designed certification paths as part of a larger asynchronous learning program serving customers, employees, and partners. Rather than treating certifications as separate collections of courses, I structured them so that learning could build progressively across different areas of the product.
A full-stack User Certification covered the broader product experience, while focused certifications used subsets of those same courses. Completing a focused certification counted toward the full certification, and completing the full certification automatically granted the certifications represented within it.
| This allowed learners to pursue the knowledge they needed immediately without having to repeat the same learning if their role later expanded.
Certification paths reused shared learning rather than creating separate curricula, allowing completed coursework and demonstrated competencies to carry across related credentials.
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| Design principle: Build learning paths so progress accumulates rather than starting over.
Learning Is About Performance
Learning Is About Performance
A completed course isn't necessarily a successful course. The useful question is what someone can understand, decide, or do afterward that they couldn't do before.
The examples on this page vary enormously in scale because the learning solution followed the performance need. A brief demonstration was enough for one problem; developing broader product proficiency required an architecture that could support learning over time.
| The format can change. The measure of success remains what the learner is able to do with what they learned.
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