I've been an ID for over 10 years. I lost my job in November and I've had absolutely no luck finding anything else related to ID. A handful of interviews and very little follow-up.

I'm considering looking at other job positions, but I don't know what to look for.

• Project management was the part of the job I hated the most, so that's really not something I'm excited about doing full-time.
• I'd be interested in some kind of LMS support role, but I don't know how to look for that. (I've done LMS admin in Canvas and Moodle, and I enjoyed providing support for students and instructors. But I don't have hands-on experience working on the backend of an LMS.)
• I was an instructor before I moved into ID, and I really don't want to do that again.

Other job roles I should consider?

I had my 3rd/final interview with a large tech company today and only had 1 hour of sleep before the call. (Anxiously overthinking my design)

I had to present a short lesson that I created for the task they gave and although they loved my course design, I fumbled around explaining my design/development process 🥴😩… after weeks of preparing…multiple rounds… and then this.

The Hiring Manager kept telling me how much she loved the design and my intro about me but at the end of the interview…it was dry.

It was “the recruiting coordinator will reach out and have a great rest of your day”…. No next steps or anything.

I’m over being an ID 😩 I know this doesn’t mean anything definitively but I’m tired of the endless rounds to not make it….

The current company I work for does not do data to measure our projects. It’s usually like, we have a project that needs updating, please do it. So I work on it, and it’s done. We do bi-annual org updates where we check on overall stats on our staff but that’s about it.

When using the STAR method, how do you talk about your design work to the hiring manager(s), especially in places that don’t quantify results very well?

Hello! I'm in an ID Master's program, and I've become really interested in creating A.I. driven courses that respond to users as they progress through the lessons. Instead of pushing information and skills out to learners, I want to pull them into the course and have my A.I.-driven back-end customize student pathways with a focus on skill gaps, learner-driven investigations, engagement, and motivation. Does this exist?

I should add that I had a one-on-one demo meeting with someone from Cypher Learning (formerly Neo) today. The tool looks pretty good, but she estimated approx. $9,000 starting cost for 1-500 users. No option to buy or subscribe myself.

Here is my software wish list:

1) AI course creation: If the software has such a well developed back-end, I'm sure it would also have an A.I. course creator. I could provide my course objectives, my preferences, my timeline, my # of modules, my types of assessments, etc., and the A.I. would generate a course that I could review and modify as needed.

2) Content drawn from high-quality materials: I teach college courses, so my courses need to have citations. I want to be able to upload a stack of articles (and maybe a textbook) for the software to draw from. Then, the software would provide citations for information, pictures, videos, etc.

3) A.I. engagement for motivation: The software would ask questions of the user in the beginning to determine ways to engage the learners through individualized non-essential content. For example, if the learner's hobbies include horseback riding, the course might change some non-essential graphics or topics to reference horseback riding.

4) A.I.-driven customized learning pathways: The system would respond to the learner's gaps in knowledge and create fun investigations for the learner. For example, after the initial pre-test, the A.I. might create a scavenger hunt, a flash card game, and a movie for the learner, all based on the learner's gaps and preferred ways of learning. Oh--the system would need to ask learners to identify their favorite ways of learning, too.

5) Imbeded grading: The course would do most of the grading for me, but I would like to review comments created by the A.I. before pushing them out to students. I would also like to easily be able to retrieve grades or use an LTI tool to hook into my university's LMS (Moodle).

6) Single User Purchase or Subscription Option: I won't be able to convince my small college to buy this, so I'll be getting it myself. I'm not even sure I want them to know I'm doing it, so if the software allows me to conceal the name of the software company I used to create it, even better.

Thanks for your ideas!

I am happy to report that I will accept a fantastic job offer. I'm excited about this incredible opportunity.

I would happily take any professional instructional design advice on rocking this role!

As stated above, new employer provided me with a… newish? (Scuffed up and squeaks when I open it up)… laptop to work on. Great for running most adobe applications, fan does start to kick off during a meeting that I screen share in.

But, ugh, well, storyline pretty much murders it… like I can’t even get it to boot without crashing…

I’ve told my boss twice and called IT. Boss said, keep trying to work with it… IT says… yeah not enough ram (obvi) you should request a different computer, etc.

I am trying to finish this project but it literally will barely open.

I have been pretty lucky in the past with jobs providing really lovely tech this is the first where the tech is… at this point… impossible to complete projects on. I can’t even have my notes open to use storyline. I’m started to get a bit frustrated and behind.

How would y’all handle this?

I'm working on an immersive theater show where indivduals will participate in different kinds of short trainings but the catch is that are actually really good! (I'm exploring this from the angle of folks feeling a lack of control, school systems being out of whack, and the decline of apprenticeships). I'm in the research phase and trying to collect examples of stellar training programs in any industry. Links to examples or anecdotes are all helpful. Thought instructional designers might have good and unique insights into this. Looking for a wide scope of examples... from boyscouts to corporate training to learning a sport.... whatever training experience made you or your learners feel equipped and confident to do the job well. And details on how / why the training worked would be helpful, too. Thank you!

Edit: for typos

Like, very obvious copy-paste of chat-gpt output in the document's description and instructions... In Step 2 you will delve into a fascinating exploration of... blah blah blah

We are creating a Style & Design guide for all Web Based Training (WBT)s in our organization. It will include things like

-Guidance for writing objectives -Guidance for knowledge checks -Style Guidelines (colors, fonts, etc) -Recommendations for the amount of text per slide

Does your organization have one of these specifically for WBTs? If so, what does it include. What works? What doesn’t? Any advice as we move forward creating this document will be helpful. Thanks!!

Hi everyone.. i am a beginner user of storyline

I need to practice and develop more projects with storyline .. if you have any lessons plans that i can develop or fake projects

It would be a big help

Thanks in advance

Should an ID ask for a higher salary from a non-profit organization vs a private sector company?

Hi all,

We have built something to make online course more engaging and accessible, and wondering if it is truly useful, or it is getting attention because AI-chat is sexy and hyped.

I've taken many online courses, and a problem I experienced often - which often caused me to drop out - was that come Lecture 4 I would forget something that was mentioned earlier in the course. And naturally I had no idea whether it was mentioned in Lecture 3 or Lecture 2, which meant that I had to search these lectures to first find where it is, and then re-watch that lecture and possibly surrounding context, and then go back to where I was on Lecture 4. I thought this was a real problem.

What we built is an advanced type of search really, in the form of AI-powered chat. We index the whole course content, and answer questions you may have about anything in the course with a brief explanation and provide a link to the source so you can go dig deeper within context.

Do you think this is a useful addition to online courses? Do you guys experience this problem? Are there other solutions to this problem? Different curriculum designs perhaps?

I am not clear whether sharing links is appreciated so leaving it out. Feel free to DM me and/or I can update the post to share the link based on comments.

I've been thinking about salaries, as my current ID position is going nowhere. I work at Costa Rica and would like to have an idea of what a good salary looks like outside the US.

Hi everyone!

I love this sub as everyone here has solid advice and is awesome. I'm not an ID anymore, that ended in 2011 and I do more program managment, OD and talent development. I need to have a salary discussion with my boss to adjust my pay. My pay is too low and I didn't ask high because I thought I was going to have a role with a narrow focus. Its time to get my promotion and adjustment and they only want to give me $10k more. They also don't provide a prof dev stipend to keep up my SHRMSCP or CPTD credentials.

I'm coming up on my two year anniversary for this company that hired me to set up a management development training program. I've done far more than that. I reduced annual costs of compliance training by 20% on a $300,000/yr spend. I also set up talent initiatives including performance reviews, career development planning, replacement planning and succession planning. I also led the implementation of the LMS and Talent modules on Workday. I think I should also note that my two Workday modules are the only ones that didn't require any adjustments or rework since we went live in December. Every other team has had to rework their processes. for pay, benefits, recruiting and onboarding/HCM. I've even made my own custom reports that are wowing people and they were too cheap to send me to the reports class, I figured it out.

Given all that, what should be a going wage for the blend of things I do if anyone can advise. I cant find a good reference or job title to justify an increased wage either. Onet isn't much help and the ATD salary report doesn't help me get where I want to be. I"m in Houston and I think I deserve to make at least $120k/yr because I'm doing far more than what I was hired for. My current job description doesn't include my experience with authoring tools, LMS admin, managing vendor relationships and the customer success people., or setting up talent pipelines. I now handle all LMS help tickets instead of HRIS but I barely have tickets. Usually tickets are me explaining to people how Workday works rather than fixing an issue.

Any insight/advice is welcome.

Thank you.

Have any of you encountered this? I've only replicated this so far in Safari, but I am trying to test more browsers and devices.

We are running into an issue where Storyline audio blocks are having an audio player sync issue if a user switches to another browser tab while listening to audio. The audio continues to play and will eventually finish, but the playbar in the audio player will be way behind, and our message to move to the next section won't appear.

We are embedding Storyline components into Rise and then uploading them into our system.

When we use Rise's audio player we don't encounter this issue. Have any of you encountered this, and any tips on how to solve it?

Hi everyone,

Another month begins, filled with dozens of opportunities to learn something new, discover emerging technologies and tools, find inspiration for your projects, learn from inspiring presentations and facilitations, or simply be entertained during your lunch break.

This month brings a mix of learning opportunities focused on:

🔍 Training methods & tools: Including best practices, customization, and tech integration.
🚀 Career development: Stay ahead with insights on skill demand, impact measurement, and motivation.
🤖 Tech in learning: Explore topics such as emerging tech, gamification, and the role of AI.
💻 Online platforms: Engage with webinars, demos, microlearning, and VR experiences.
📈 Organizational improvement: Learn about alignment, building relationships, and compliance.

Which events have caught your eye? What do you plan to attend?

Happy learning,

LXD

I’m in a training atm that is the epitome of Death by PPT. 12 hours over two days. A slide deck that numbers over 500 that they are reading from. A 100+ page PDF participant guide that is not 508 compliant. And we still have several more hours to go.

Send help!!! Funny memes, your favorite dessert recipe, or pics of adorable baby animals would be greatly appreciated. Anything to keep me awake until 5 pm.

Hello everyone,

I’m part of a company specializing in cybersecurity, where we currently provide in-class awareness training for our clients. We’re looking to automate this process by developing an online course that we can sell or grant access to small companies (30-200 employees). The idea is to enroll about 10 companies in the first 12 months, with plans to expand afterward.

We have our content ready and an animator/illustrator on our team, but we’re new to the instructional design software scene. I’m particularly interested in SaaS platforms like LearnWorlds, especially due to their features like interactive videos, grade tracking, and progress monitoring. However, I’m also considering using dedicated software like Articulate to create the courses and then hosting them on our site for better control and customization.

Here are my key considerations:

•	Ease of setup and use
•	Cost-effectiveness in the long run
•	Scalability
•	Customization capabilities
•	Control over data and user information

I would love to hear from those of you who have experience with either or both approaches:

1.	What are the main advantages or disadvantages that you’ve encountered?
2.	How do these options compare in terms of long-term management and scalability?
3.	Any specific challenges or tips you’d suggest for a company in the cybersecurity training sector?

Your insights would be incredibly helpful as we make this transition. Thank you!

[on a throwaway account]

I’ve worked remote on the East Coast of the US for the last year or so at my current company. When hired, they told me to work EST hours despite the rest of my team being in California, basically. Randomly, they decided I had to be “butts in seats” on California time, which means 12-9 my time. With a family, kid, and social life, there’s no way. There’s a lot more to this, but basically I’ve had to search for other work. But that’s not even the point of this post.

When interviewing, I’ve been asked, “What’s your approach?” I always, always, always respond with Action Mapping. What do we need these people to DO? I’m not in the business of making slides clickable and pretty. Everyone digs how I say, “We’re not school; we aren’t studying to answer knowledge checks.”

I eventually talk to the only(-ish) ID at Deel about a role opening up. They have a lot of work and need more hands. Cool. She explains that currently, their training is all Rise courses that are just walls of text. She’s under a lot of pressure to get things out quickly. Isn’t everyone? She explains that with more hands, they can be more deliberate with what they make, make improvements, and actually have intake meetings. Sweet, that’s my favorite part, getting into every single detail of an issue/subject.

During our interview, she mentions she loves my website, style, and writing ability. Near the end, she says she’ll send over the case study (barf) but “not to work on it too hard, you can clearly do this.” No worries, whatever, I’m about to be forced out of my current job. Let’s do it.

When looking at the instructions, it asks to introduce a new product to a specific group so that they can “understand” it, “describe the benefits,” etc. The lone action item is “provide troubleshooting for customer issues.” I lean into that, with a few things understood:

•	I don’t know the product

•	I don’t know the scope of the role

•	I don’t know the process for providing support

So I lay everything out, not getting too into-the-weeds due to the above. We’d build a Help Center/Resource Guide with instructions on how to navigate the product and include short videos explaining benefits/importance of why users use it the way they do (“users upload this doc here so they make more $”). They’ll be given a list of objectives to complete with a dummy account for the platform, fake files and documents included. Finally, they’ll be given customer troubleshooting scenarios in an interactive Storyline course. Finally, I make a very clear, metrics-driven objective: support cases for product will increase by %. I make very-very dumbed down version of all of these as she said not to work too hard and it’s more about my process, not the actual content, right?

I’m also to give a timeline for development. I always underpromise and overdeliver, and when it comes to a brand new product that the audience has never seen before–it has always taken a long time to gather info, prototype, review, etc. I say 30+ days, dependent upon how big the product is (I don’t know as I’ve never used it) and what’s already built. I also planned on explaining the nuance behind my reasoning for the whole thing, too. You know, like you would on a call reviewing content.

I send it in before the scheduled interview so they can look at it. I receive this response:

It was noted that the case study lacked a clear direction for the learner to navigate the course, such as specific instructions like ‘click here’ or ‘go there’.

Additionally, it seemed there might have been a misunderstanding regarding the audience, as there were references to AEs having support queues, which typically aligns with customer support rather than the intended audience.

Furthermore, the timeline for the project appeared to be outside of Deel’s usual pace, which we extensively discussed during the interview process as a critical aspect of the role.

From where I’m sitting they don’t want someone being the face person, interfacing with SMEs, stakeholders, and end-users. They don’t want anything that actually provides practice opportunities. They want regurgitated slides. Could I include “how to click” instructions? That takes like two seconds, you’re gonna ding me on that? You didn’t explain what AEs do or what their job scope is outside of providing support. And if you want to introduce a brand new product to a group… it’s going to take time!

Could I have asked for more clarification? Obviously, but given their current state (Rise-only) and what I aimed to do (increase a metric), I feel completely offended. The idea behind case-studies and take-home assignments is trash anyway, but to be so disrespectful is outright ridiculous. I don’t think I’m quite at the point believing they “stole” my work as it was much more conceptual than useable, but to not even get the chance to explain myself is utterly pathetic.

Furthermore, the need for all these companies to “move fast” is getting too damn high. I’m so SO SO sick of everyone everywhere just needing garbage to be made for the sake of speed. I always joke: Speed, Quality, Effectiveness. Pick two; and we know what all these damn places want.

Trash experience, but thankfully I already found another gig.

TLDR: current company soft-firing me, interviewed at a “fast-paced” company, misled with a case-study, they cancel the review of my work, they only care about making slides clickable, I need a Tylenol.

Hi everyone!

I have a Canvas course I am proud of but can't figure out how to showcase it in my portfolio. I know that it's mainly for higher ed jobs, but I'm not excluding those from my future. In fact, the lower pay, when weighed against other benefits, is not the worst thing for me.

However, how oh how do you showcase a Canvas course on your portfolio? Do you do a screencast/walkthrough? A silent video with third lower? Screenshots? Blog-type entry about it?

Looking forward to your suggestions!

Would you consider asking for a higher salary if you were expected to travel in a metropolitan area with your automobile? We know how high gasoline prices are, but this area has many tolls.

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Share your portfolio, a project, whatever! Let people know if you are seeking feedback or not.

A friend of mine is a photographer and has done lots of product and marketing photography and asked me today if IDs ever need to hire a photographer. I never have! Have you hired a photographer or done DIY? If so, what kinds of subjects? Would this be something for an experienced photographer to consider to consider adding to their services?

Scipress.io is a Markdown based writing platform where you can write and (optionally) sell access to content. It boasts a number of features like

Features

• VS Code editor in your browser
• Write your posts in Markdown with a realtime preview pane
• Style your content with Tailwind CSS
• Gate ANYTHING in a post to put it behind a paywall
• Flexible tools for selling access to content
• Free to use. Only pay when & if you earn $$
• Restrict access to a post (e.g. private knowledge base)
• Organize multiple posts into a book-like format
• Posts are automatically backed up on every save
• Every post gets a pretty social share card automatically
• Post comments (coming)
• Post likes & dislikes (coming)

I would love to get feedback on the platform. It hasn't generated a single dollar of revenue yet, but I'm hoping it's just because the product is relatively immature and I haven't done much marketing (yet).

I am trying to find an appropriate platform for client onboarding and training with a pricing model that won't screw us over.

We have essentially two types of user personas. One is an "administrator" type that involves more in depth learning and ongoing education. However, the other one of those personas really only requires a one time training. Quick in and out. We have hundreds of them coming in each month.

The platforms i've looked at so far charge on a per user basis. Are there any LMS platforms that work better for a learner that may only visit once?

Definitely please let me know if there’s something I’m overestimating or anything else. I recently started with a company that is an instructional design consultancy firm. We work with clients in every industry to fulfill their instructional design needs.

We recently took on a new client and want to make sure we make a good impression right off the bat. Their need is a development of a process-driven training. At this stage, we’re looking at 5 modules to be developed in Storyline. I am about to begin storyboard development.

The timeline written by my project manager states I will complete a first draft of all 5 modules within 5 days. Once I get feedback, I have another 5 days to finalize the mods.

I’ve been working as an ID for a little over 7 years and have never had a timeline this crunched, and it doesn’t seem feasible. Obviously, I also want to make a good impression with my company as I’m new, and already feel like if I say anything, it will be meant with an irked eyebrow.

Am I crazy, or is 5 days for 5 modules just… impossible? Right now, each of them is looking to be ~15 minutes long. The style template is mostly fleshed out, but I’ll have to customize for this topic. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks!

Has anybody done the program or knows someone who did it? Would love to hear someone's experiences :)