Starting a Career in Learning Experience Design
You don’t need an instructional design degree to become a learning experience designer. You need these five ways of being in the world.
After 25+ years in this field, I’ve seen brilliant designers come from teaching, project management, UX, content strategy, even the arts. What they share isn’t a credential — it’s how they think and work.
1. Sincere Curiosity
If you light up asking questions about other people’s work, you’re golden. Learning design means talking to subject matter experts, stakeholders, and audiences, constantly. People respond to genuine “wow, you’re cool – tell me more” energy. This isn’t interrogation. It’s real interest in how people think and what they care about.
2. Hierarchical Thinking
Can you see how pieces fit into an integrated whole? What’s the big idea vs. the supporting detail? What’s foundational vs. advanced? This shows up everywhere: scoping projects, structuring content, helping teams see their own knowledge architecture.
3. Arms-Length Perspective on Feedback
Can you hear “this doesn’t work” as information about the design, not a personal attack? You’ll get critique from SMEs, stakeholders, and learners. If you can hold your work at arms length and see feedback as a way to improve, you’ll iterate faster and create better solutions.
4. Facility with Metaphor
If you naturally think “this is like that” – if you can make abstract concepts concrete through everyday parallels – you’ll meet learners where they are. Good metaphors build bridges from what people already understand to new territory.
5. Seeing Constraints as Creative Fuel
Limited budget, busy SMEs, platform limitations, learners with 10 minutes max – you’ll always get handed a weird basket of ingredients. Think Top Chef: beets, eggs, and Nutella. Can you make something delicious from it? If you get energized by design puzzles rather than defeated by “not ideal,” you’ll actually enjoy this work.
Notice: these aren’t skills you learn in a program. They’re capacities you might already have from parenting, organizing events, managing projects, making art, or solving problems in any domain.
Curious about the field? DM me. I’d love to give you an hour to talk about what the work is really like and whether it might be a fit for you.