How to Choose the Right Training Materials from an Instructional Design Studio

So, you think you want to hire an external studio to help build some training at your organization.

You go to their website and see a robust portfolio and a great brand story. You feel like you can really trust this studio.

But then, you get to their packages and see all kinds of offerings. eLearnings, guides, videos, documents, presentations, rebuilds, x number of pages for this price, x number of courses for that price.

Maybe you have experience in training yourself, so this list isn’t so daunting.

Or perhaps you’re in a functional group, have suddenly been tasked with building training, and have never built training in your life.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry! Let’s break down the criteria to consider when deciding what training materials to buy from an instructional design studio like Phoenix Learning Solutions:

• Your Organization's Goals

• The Learner Constraints

• The Modality Options

• Your Budget

• The Benefits of Blended Learning

• Putting It All Together: Making The Decision

Let's dive in!

YOUR ORGANIZATION'S GOALS

The first thing you want to consider when purchasing training from a studio is what you want to accomplish and why. Basically, why are you buying training? What are you looking to train employees on?

This is arguably the easiest place to start because if you’re looking for advice on what to buy, you likely already know why you want to buy it! But in case you don’t know, let’s break it down.

What you need is typically answered by why you need it. For example, let’s say your organization performs an internal audit and finds a number of safety risks. This is your why for needing training - safety risks have been identified. The what, then, is the organization’s goal: They want to build safety training. Putting it all together, it would sound something like this: They want to build safety training because they identified safety risks from internal audits and want their employees to work in a safe environment free from unnecessary accidents.

Let’s look at some other common examples. In each example, the what is bolded and the why is italicized.

• We want to effectively onboard new team members because we want to lower our high turnover.

• We want to arm employees against cyber attacks because there has been an upswing in the number of phishing attempts identified by IT.

• We want to explain our company’s new mission, vision, and values because we want employees to be aligned to what we do and how we do it and to feel empowered to do their best work.

• We want to train employees on our new product because we want everyone to know and be able to reiterate its benefits, especially our sales teams.

This is critical for you to understand going into the buying process. If you don’t know what purpose the training will solve, it will be nearly impossible for you to choose what to buy. Any course or program a studio puts together for you is going to be based around the organization’s needs first and foremost.

THE LEARNER CONSTRAINTS

Unless you’re an L&D professional, you probably haven’t considered much beyond the company’s needs. And that’s okay! The next couple sections will uncover some additional, deeply critical considerations before choosing what training materials to purchase.

Learner constraints are things that will potentially inhibit the learner from having a positive experience while taking training.

Here are some common learner constraints to be aware of:

• Older technology, which affects how online training is built and how robust it can be

• No or limited internet access, which affects any type of online learning or virtual instructor-led sessions

• Small screens, which affects text size and can hamper learning for those with vision impairments

• Environment, which affects whether learners are distracted or in a challenging space like in the field

• Knowledge of a subject, which affects how much basic training might be needed before more in-depth topics can be covered

For how big a deal learner constraints are - in some cases, they literally affect whether the employee can even take the training - you’d be surprised how often organizations don’t consider them at all!

I’ve even made this mistake myself early in my career. Let me paint you a picture:

Several years ago, I was asked to develop a robbery prevention and safety course for gas station employees. At this company, training was typically deployed on their internal learning management system (LMS in L&D terms). I chose to create an eLearning.

It was a standard course: narration playing in time with animations on screen, some light interactions, and so on. I finished the course and sent them the final version. They were extremely happy with it and asked for a version they could give to their franchise teammates. They explained that franchise employees didn’t have access to the LMS. While they wouldn’t be able to track franchise completions, they still wanted to provide the training for employees to take as desired.

Unfortunately, the course hadn’t been designed with this use case in mind, and this was before the days of tools like Articulate Review 360 where you could send a link to the fully interactive course. Had I known ahead of time that some of the audience had this constraint, I still might have chosen an eLearning, but I would have developed it in such a way that it could’ve been sent as a slide presentation or a PDF with all the necessary information showing on screen. Because of my negligence to understand the audience’s constraints, I had to fully rework the course to create a franchise version.

THE MODALITY OPTIONS

Part of choosing what to purchase from a studio is understanding what your options are in the first place, or the available modalities.

Modality is the format of a training module.

If you aren’t an L&D professional, it might be confusing to know when you might choose one option or another. Here are a list of common modalities and when you might use them:

• eLearning: an online training module, typically including narration, animations, light clickable activities, and sometimes video

  Best for creating excitement, explaining conceptual information, or giving information on topics that never or rarely change

  • Microlearning: a very short eLearning, typically less than 5 minutes

• eBriefing: a cross between an eLearning and a guide - static on-screen information and no narration but with the properties of an eLearning like quizzing and LMS tracking capabilities

  Best for compliance training, awareness modules, and refreshers

• Guide: a static document, usually including images, graphics, and diagrams

  Best for step-by-step processes, SOPs, or things that need to be referenced during the time of need, such as while using software or performing specific tasks

  • Process Guide: a document detailing an end-to-end process or program, thus including multiple items in one guide and often containing screenshots or images

  • Job Aid: a document detailing the steps of a task or process, typically shorter than a process guide and covering only one item

  • ILT Facilitator Guide: a guide used to deliver live training that includes the content to be covered, questions to ask, answers to expect, steps for activities, and more

  • ILT Participant Guide: a guide used by learners during a live training that matches the facilitator guide so learners can easily follow along; learners can refer back to this guide after training completes to refresh themselves on what they learned

  • Quick Reference Guide (QRG): a very short document that lists high-level steps or information, often used to remind the learner of key points after a larger training

• Visual Learning Assets: things like banners and virtual trophies that announce or gamify training; typically paired with other learning materials, as these don’t always impart much information on their own

If you're reading this list and still feeling unsure what to choose, don’t worry! Studios like Phoenix Learning Solutions can look at your needs and situation and give you a recommendation. Check out our Packages page for more information on each modality type and our Portfolio page to see several examples.

YOUR BUDGET

This is one you likely have considered already: how much money you can spend.

As a general statement, training is priced based on how time-intensive it is to create, how long it will be, and how complex the topic is.

It’s understandably tempting to find the cheapest prices you can for the most amount of training! But as with all things, you get what you pay for. Well designed training is worth its weight in gold: according to Accenture, $1 of training is worth $4.53 in return, which is a 353% ROI!

But we all know that sometimes, the budget is what it is. So, how can you maximize the amount you get while still receiving quality training?

You can’t typically skimp on the length or complexity of a training - the content you need to cover is as long as it needs to be. The answer instead is to go with the least time-intensive modules you can. Presentations and guides are the quickest for an instructional designer to create, as opposed to eLearnings. Keep in mind, though, that you may need someone internal at your company to deliver training if you go this route.

A good in between option is an eBriefing - you can deliver it through your LMS, but it’s less time-intensive to create since there’s no narration and little to no interactive pieces.

But that doesn’t mean you should dismiss more engaging options! Sometimes, eLearning or video is truly the best modality for the content. According to CIPD, retention of learning increases 25-60% with digital learning compared to classroom training. It’s more interactive and engaging than any of the other modalities, and with its LMS capabilities, it can be deployed to thousands of employees without needing to be facilitated (also true of eBriefings and some types of guides).

THE BENEFITS OF BLENDED LEARNING

Keep in mind that you don’t have to choose just one modality!

If you really want learning to stick, it’s best to go with a blended approach - that is, combining more than one type of modality into a single program.

Research from the U.S. Department of Education found that blended learning approaches produced stronger learning outcomes than purely single-modality instruction.

So, what does this look like? Let’s say your organization is implementing new project management software. Here's what a multi-modality approach might look like:

• A video at the start showing an executive sponsor explaining the importance of the program to the company (video is great for building excitement and showing senior leadership rallying behind the program)

• An eLearning course to explain the benefits of the new software and how the employees’ work will become more efficient (eLearnings are great for generating excitement and buy-in)

• A guide to show the steps of the software (guides are best for showing processes and can be referenced at the time of need; could alternatively do short videos here)

• A live townhall to answer learner questions and explain nuanced or complex information (live calls give learners a place to ask questions and have their concerns addressed)

All in all, this blended approach will serve the content much better than trying to fit everything into a single module and expect it to work just as well.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: MAKING THE DECISION

Let’s go back to our original scenario: you know you need to purchase training, and you go to the studio’s website to see their offerings, modalities, and prices.

Now, we can consider the formula:

The business needs + learner constraints + available modality options + budget = choice

Here’s an example:

• Business need: safety training due to audit findings

• Learner constraints: limited internet bandwidth, limited time, distributed field teams

• Modality options: eLearning, eBriefing, guide, ILT/VILT, video, QRG

• Budget: $12,000

Our learner constraints help us immediately narrow down our options: anything requiring internet access is out, such as eLearnings, eBriefings, and videos.

With that budget, you can likely get two or three guides depending on length.

You could go with an ILT facilitator guide and learner guide for managers to deliver training to their teams in the field.

You could also go with a more comprehensive, self-paced process guide to explain all the safety requirements with images and diagrams. You could pair this with a one-pager QRG that teams can keep in their trucks or binders with key reminders of the most important information.

At this point, making the choice will be up to your knowledge of what will be best received at your company.

LET'S WRAP IT UP

As you can see, we instructional designers consider a number of things when we decide what type of training will be best for any given project. It’s good for you to be armed with this information before going into conversations with any studio so you know what your options and preferences are.

At the end of it all, remember that your studio is there to give advice! If you’re feeling stuck, let Phoenix Learning Solutions help you out!