The Real Role of Instructional Designers After AI

In a world where you can generate anything in an instant, what becomes more important is that you're generating the right thing to solve the right problems. Otherwise, it's all just noise. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are, wherever you're watching from, welcome to Visual Lounge. Today we're going to be talking about the Instructional Designers Handbook from Tim Slade.

We got Tim with us. Today we're going to be talking about, you know, these foundational things that you. You need to know and why you need to know them. And Tim's got so much great advice.

He's been a guest on the show many times before. So let's go ahead and dive in with Tim. Tim Slade, welcome to the Visual Lounge. Yeah, thanks for having me, Matt.

I'm so happy to be back. You know what? I always enjoy just talking with you. In fact, we had a.

We had to stop all of our conversation so we could record this. But. So, Tim, of course you've been on the show before. We're always glad to have you here.

But you've got exciting news. A new book that is coming out. So Handbook. Tell us a little bit about the impetus.

What is this book that you are getting ready to release? Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. I, as I was getting ready to launch the book this past week, and I was trying to figure out how I wanted to market it. I was, I was scripting out my launch video, which I only scripted and filmed like this time last week.

And in that video I was talking about my first book, the Elearning Designer's Handbook. And one of the things that dawned on me is the timing in which that book came out, which was in 2020, was the second edition of that book when it came out. And that book is all about elearning design and development. One of the things I realized retrospectively was that book came out at the right time.

It was the right message at the right moment. Because at that time, if everyone remembers in 2020, it was the pandemic, everyone was going virtual. Everything was about elearning. And, and that sounds like really intentional on my part.

It was not intentional that I released an E learning book during that time. And then I realized in that contrast between where we were in 2020 and where we are now, again, I would love to say that it was intentional, but it's not this book. I feel like we're in another one of these moments in our industry where we need a book that, or a message that kind of can help ground people and, and remind them what the core and the spirit and the soul of what instructional design is about.

Because right now, like, AI has muddied the waters in so many different ways. And I think a lot of people are wondering, like, what is instructional design anymore? And what is the role of an instructional designer? And where is the human part of the work versus the automated part of the work versus the agent part of the work?

And so the impetus for the book and my goal in it is to remind people where the human still fits into instructional design. Well, we are fans and I do happen to have a copy of that. Oh, that's my really old one. Oh, my gosh.

That's like. That's the. Before the 2021. That was like.

That was like the beta version of the book. Yeah, well, the elearning design, it's been. It sits on my shelf because I do, I do think it's a valuable piece of work. So.

But I. But I love this that you're thinking about this, because you're right, the world keeps, like the industry of learning, if we can call it that, keeps evolving and changing and there's. There's new challenges. And do you find that people are still coming into the industry who are not necessarily.

Well, I don't say prepared because I think that's unfair, but it's more like they're just not. Like, I'm not a learner or not a learning designer. That's not like, that's me. I went to grad school first and then I became this.

In this learning role. Do you find that most people are still kind of like, I was doing engineering work or I was doing marketing or I was doing something, and now I'm here in this world of learning and development. That's interesting. I think for a hot minute it was.

We had moved from an industry of a bunch of accidental instructional designers to people who are now becoming more intentional instructional designers. I mean, there's all sorts of university programs for instructional design that didn't exist 10 years ago. And. But now I think.

I think what's going to happen is now that AI is making it easier to generate things, I'm going to be really thoughtful of my words here. It's making it easier to generate things, whether they're good things or bad things or effective or ineffective things. I think we're going to see a swing back to, well, you're the expert HR person, so why aren't you the one creating and generating this training? Why do we need this person generating?

You know what I mean? I think it's going to result in a, a lot of people having instructional design tagged on to their work, which existed before 2020 and before instructional design became a more recognized thing. So that's what I think about it. I think the, the, the challenge for a lot of new people coming into the industry is it's not so much.

So, hey, I'm all of a sudden an instructional designer and I don't know how I really fell here and I don't know what I'm doing. I think the issue is, is that there's such a disparity between what people hear and see online about our industry and then what they experience when they get into a regular job. I mean, the disparity between LinkedIn and the real world, as one example, is so incredibly kind of beyond further different ends of the spectrum, in my opinion. And so I think that is the big challenge for a lot of new folks is they're like, wait, where are all the AI human hybrid performance agents that we're deploying to do our needs analysis for us and launch adaptive learning experiences?

I thought I was going to get that and then they really just got stuck with copilot. You know what I mean? Do you see what I'm saying? So I think figuring that out is the challenge.

Yeah. It feels a little bit like the difference between watching a reality TV show and real life. Right. Like it's.

Right. It's like hgtv. I thought this, I thought my house makeover was going to be $10,000. I was going to get a first day all cash offer and it's like, yeah, it wasn't that simple.

Right. Yeah. So from your perspective as an author and looking at this kind of need that we have within the industry and I don't want to give away all the things in the book. That's why you got a book.

Right. But I am curious, from a foundational standpoint, what's the kind of the architecture that we need to look at here? What do we need people to know to be successful, kind of current day, current circumstances that we're in? Yeah, well, my, my premise, my thought and my theory about instructional design in today's day and age with AI and how it's affecting everything.

What I've come to realize is that as content generation becomes increasingly easier, like you can click and generate content like the pole of a slot machine and just keep churning out. Sorry, I shouldn't say that. Churning crap out meme. As you keep churning that stuff out and that becomes easier and easier and easier, then the, the Result of that is that it becomes increasingly more important that what we're churning out is the right thing to solve the right problem.

And so what I really believe is happening is that while AI is empowering people to develop things quicker or edit video quicker or whatever it is that they're developing the work of building the thing, as that gets easier, then the shift gets put on. The parts that aren't, can't be automated. The judgment part, the human part. Should we be creating this video?

Should we be creating that elearning course? Is that solving the right issue? That's the part that I think is more important nowadays and will become increasingly important is the human judgment piece. Because the humans come with the context, the understanding of the culture, the collaborative skills.

And there are people out there who believe that that's going to be automated maybe one day, but not in 2026 or 2027 or 2028, I don't think so. I think the work that we do is still very human and that's what the book tries to capture. So, because I think you're right. And if anyone's watching any of the content from TechSmith, we've got our human framework we've talked about on this show.

We just released a YouTube video and I think it fits here. But it does feel like teaching someone to understand context is really hard. Right? Because my context of the world that I live in, in say the organization of TechSmith is probably very different than the organization that Tim Slade sits in.

That is different than, you know, in your elearning academy, you have all these folks who are also in a thousand different type of roles, situations. So, so for someone who's watching this and saying, okay, I'm curious, I want to get better at that human piece of this because I see, I see the challenges, but I see the benefits of AI. What advice would you give them to help them improve in that capacity? Yeah, I was just speaking to somebody else about this this morning and the thing that I said to them is that, you know, if I were new to the industry and I was taking on an instructional design role in the private sector as one example, I would prioritize a lot of time learning business acumen and how does my business operate and what's important to my business, and that's.

That sounds ridiculous because I think we all would agree that that should have always been the case. But I think for a lot of people existed in this industry where they were just taking slides that their stakeholders and SMEs gave them and added next buttons and put it in the lms, and that still exists. But again, if that becomes increasingly easier and that stakeholder who once relied on you to do that, if they can do that themselves, not that they should be doing that, then, then what problem do you solve for the business?

And I think then that's where you have to become more intimately knowledgeable with your organization and understand that. You know, I, I once when I used to work at a clothing department store, I always had a VP that always reminded us, like, no matter what cool project you're working on that you're kind of sucked down into and you feel so far removed from the core of the business, you have to remember like, that at the end of the day, that business was about selling socks and underwear.

Everything we had to do had to go back to how do we sell socks and underwear? Does that mean we need to help people ring up customers quicker or pitch the credit card better, or get product off the dock and onto the sales floor quicker? Like, everything has to come back to that. Just like at TechSmith, at the end of the day, everything you do is about like, how do we renew licenses, how do we do customer retention, how do we expand our market base, that is it to get people using your tools.

And I think that's the same is true no matter what your, what context you're working as. An instructional designer is having that deeper understanding of the business. And I think that's going to require some people to get in the weeds of the business with their stakeholders and their subject matter experts and their learners more than they had to previously. So I appreciate that perspective and I agree.

And I think we just heard something very similar from Tracy Cantu. She's got a new book as well that we just did an episode on, very similar. She's talking to these kind of like your director, maybe you're a VP or whatever, learning. And so that resonates with me.

I do feel like, again, looking at just our industry and we've been in this situation where I think a lot of people have been maybe isolated from that, maybe, maybe you have advice or is there something in the book that you talk about that kind of process? Does that help? Yeah. One of the things I include in the book that was really important to me was that, you know, in the world of instructional design, I think we do a really poor job of connecting theory to practical application.

And, you know, you always find people in two groups in this industry. The people who are the theorists and they're the instructional design purists and Everything comes back to theory. And then the people who are the pragmatist, practical people who are just like, how do we get this project done and get it out? And, and my belief is that those two things are, have to be closely tied because, like, the theory is only as good as your ability to operationalize it, and how you operationalize it is only as good as it's grounded in theory.

And I think the third piece of that equation is like, the theory, the process, and then the business part of it. And so one of the things that I included throughout the book, as we go through each chapter and we explore the instructional design process, I have a whole case study that walks through the whole book where you follow along this instructional designer, and it goes from how do they approach a training request that maybe isn't training, or it's not exactly what they thought it was going to be?

How do you do that analysis? And then how do you present that back to your stakeholder and how do you gain agreement? And then how do we create an experience that's grounded in good learning theory and then, and also appeases what your stakeholders want? And then how do we do an evaluation at the end to prove the value of our work at the end of the day?

So it has this case study. And then the other thing that I have in the book is I have these, I have these little segments called examples in action. And there's just dozens and dozens of them throughout the book where it's, it walks. It's like a mini case study that explains how what we're doing connects to the business or, or, or the goal that we're trying to achieve.

So I, I want to, I've got another question I want to get to eventually, but I want to ask about the book before we, we get to this other piece is, let's say I'm someone who, I've been in an industry for a while. It's not like I'm based, I'm new to this whole thing. What, what would you tell me for, like, if I'm considering, like, oh, that looks kind of interesting, but I kind of feel like maybe I know this stuff. Like, what's the value for the people who maybe, you know, they're five years in, 10 years into the career, what are, what are they getting out of your book?

Yeah, that's a great question. What I hope they get out of the book is, if anything, like a little bit of validation. Because I think a lot of instructional designers who've been around for a hot minute they, they sometimes exist in a world of isolation where they think, oh my crazy stakeholders is all I deal with. When in real.

These are, these are universal problems that we deal with and, and, and really practical strategies for how you can overcome those. Right. So the, the book is good whether you're completely brand new or you're somebody who has a little bit of experience or maybe you're an L and D team trying to operationalize a standardized process for how, how does instructional design work in your organization? Yeah, perfect.

Well, this other question I want to ask about is you said something, you reminded me of it at, before we got onto the recording. I've seen your LinkedIn post. It's about this IDE over content and I, I want you to talk a little bit about that because that does feel like it aligns with this idea of human. So tell us a little bit about like what does that mean for you to have connection over content?

Yeah. What I'm about to say is going to sound very anti AI and it's not, it's not anti AI. What I'm about to say it's more pro human and acknowledging that AI doesn't fit into everything that we do. I suppose.

So I, I'm of the belief that collectively we as an industry, we as people are, are experiencing content fatigue, digital media fatigue to a certain extent, especially following, you know, I go back to the pandemic and how everything went virtual and everything went remote and everything was an elearning course, everything was a micro learning course, everything was online. And I feel like again, as there's more and more content, some of which is, you know, could be misleading.

It could be. Is that real? What I'm reading or seeing is is there expertise behind it or not expertise behind it. I think what happens as a result of that is then people start prioritizing human connections and you're seeing this.

There's, there's been an increasing demand in in person experiences and conferences. There's companies who are now prioritizing in person training experiences again because I think they're experiencing that contact fatigue. I also think, and this might sound a little bit more AI, but I think it's an accurate read. There's a really interesting phenomenon that I think exists where it's AI for the, but not for me.

So we all can recognize the business benefit of AI. We can churn out things quicker and faster. But then when you start speaking to people individually, like I don't want to be the. On the receiving end of certain AI things or commercials or Certain AI generated content, and I think most people don't want to be, but it's good enough for everyone else.

Like we're going to create it for everyone else. And I, and so I. The idea of connection over content is prioritizing, learning from one another, having an honest conversation where AI fits and doesn't fit. And AI is not a replacement for your expertise or my expertise.

And maybe the way that we start sharing that now is more interpersonally than putting out a video, because again, we're getting to a point where anyone could put out a video about anything and look like an expert and it can be totally just bogus information. Right? Yeah, well, no, I think it feels like it's that cognitive load of trying to always discern, is this accurate, is this real, is this authentic? Right.

And I do think when you're, when you're with people, you still have to do discernment, you have to decide. But I, but I do appreciate, I appreciate that perspective because I do think there is something to be said about having real moments. Right. And, and look, I love video.

I've been teaching video for 20 years. I work for a company that makes the video tool. Of course, we love video. But I also can recognize inside of TechSmith, one of the things that we do is we share a lot of video with each other.

Like, here's an update, here's the status. And, and I know it can become overwhelming. Like, I, like, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can't watch one more video. I wish someone would just tell me that.

So I definitely can appreciate that. And it does feel like, in particular, if you're involved in certain platforms where it's kind of publicly, it becomes even more of a challenge. Right? Because it's like just thrown at you.

And then I think there's also, I'll add to what you're saying is there's this, oh, you must be behind or you're probably behind, but the reality is maybe we're not behind, but it's that people are so far ahead. Right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

And I also think that most of the people who probably feel like they're behind, they're not at all behind. They're just, they're, they're, they're, they're using AI in practical ways that probably most people are using in practical ways. And they've conflated the hype that they see online with reality. And not to go down a rabbit hole, but I also think there's, you know, I'm always Fascinated by the examples that we see out there that are presented as evidence for these amazing things that AI are might be able to do someday.

And then they seem to fade into the, you know, the ether, and you never hear about it again. I mean, we saw that with the. The action figures, and then, you know, right now, like. And it's already started to fade.

The infographics, you know, I mean, the infographics had a whole thing this first quarter of the year. And then when you actually, like, zoomed in on the infographics, a lot of it's gibberish because you realize not only is the person who's creating it or generating it, they're not even reading it. And I'm like, nobody else is reading it, because if anyone was reading it, you would be like, these words, these aren't. There's not even letters in there.

It looks like letters, but there's not letters. You know what I mean? So it's just. It's just a really interesting thing.

And we're. I described this to a person earlier today. I said, you know, AI is like, we're. It's like we got handed replicators from Star Trek for the first time.

And you're like, I can replicate anything. And so I'm going to replicate a sundae. No, I'm going to replicate a sundae with chocolate and 10 cherries on it. And then.

Nope, I'm going to replicate a sundae with chocolate and 10 cherries, and there's going to be a unicorn coming out of it, and then the unicorn is going to turn into a birthday cake, and I'm going to consume the whole birthday cake, and it goes back to, like, when. When you can generate sundae with chocolate and sprinkles and 10 cherries and a unicorn that comes out of it and comes. Becomes a birthday cake that you can eat. Like, eventually you have to go, wait, should I be eating that?

Like, maybe I need to generate. Like, maybe I need to replicate a vegetable. You know what I mean? A vegetable's boring.

Like, I think the same thing is true with AI Right now. Like, it's like a replicator, and, like, maybe we need some nutrition in what we're replicating. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Like, so many tiny little things that I do throughout my day. So, like, I have a whole process. Like, if I'm.

If I'm going to be putting out a new video on YouTube, I will. I'll record the video, I'll edit the video, and then I upload it. To when I'm working in Camtasia. Then I'll put it in audiate and I get my transcript out of it and I copy the transcript and then I figure out the timestamps and I have it automate my timestamps and then I have it SEO optimize my timestamps.

I'll do stuff like that. Or I'll have it take my script and I'll be like, okay, you know, edit out what would be good for a YouTube short. Like, there's all these little practical things that I use it for that that are. Save me a ton of time.

They're not sexy and beautiful cool things that you can put on LinkedIn that anyone could see. I mean, it would take a little bit more to explain that, but I use it for those sorts of things all the time. I use it all the. Like, if there's one.

Probably the. My. My most common use case for an AI is like removing the background from an image. It does such a great job.

I used to do it in Photoshop by literally tracing myself with the thing. It would take me an hour to do a really good job with it. And now I just do that. Little things like that are the practical use cases.

I did a survey a couple months back and I gave the data to AI and it helped me figure out insights because if I have to open up Excel, then I don't know if I want to work in this industry anymore. It did that for me and it was great and it did an awesome job. So again, it's not being anti AI, it's just being about honest about the practical stuff. And the practical stuff isn't always the cool, exciting stuff.

Yeah, I'll just say similar use cases. Right? I love. Like, even today we were working on a script and we're trying to rephrase because we'd use like the same word and we're like, can't use the same word twice within that same kind of proximity.

And like, just like, okay, how do you give me some options? How else could I say this? Right? Just to get it going.

And. And that's super helpful because even though that I was working with someone else, like, we were both feeling like just stumped and on that. So I do love those little practical things. I love using it as a writing partner to say like, okay, help me to.

I. Trying to come up with a better illustration or not imagery but like words to make, you know, to describe things or. Or even. Even getting.

I know you just talked about the infographic. I actually Just did have create one that actually turned out really great. Did you read it? You read the infographic?

I did read it, but I also gave it so much information. Right. It wasn't like I just said make this thing. It's like here, here's the concept, here's the ideas of things I'm trying to do.

And so I do think there's this amazing opportunity. Would I use it for everything? No. In this case, did it help me visualize the thing that I was trying to kind of understand?

Yes. Right. So I'm with you and I love those examples. Well, I think the thing, the thing that's important, the lesson in what you're describing and my experience with it is that it's AI, just like anything else is garbage in, garbage out.

So you still have to have a vision at the end of the day of what you want it to do. You know, I think the mistake is people who think it's just going to be like one click video creation, one click course creation and it's going to output something amazing. It, it can't. It, you really gotta, you really need to have a vision and be able to explain it.

And, and I guess I'll say on that too, like, this is the other epiphany I had when people talk about like AI skills, like you have to be AI literate. I'm just like, I don't know, like what does that really mean? Because there's most AI tools are just like typing things and copying and pasting text and hitting a button. And I've realized that AI skill, being AI skilled is really the human skill of describing what you want to something somebody else.

Like having a clear vision. And if you can do that and then you can use just about any AI tool to get what you need out of it. Yeah, I love that, that you got to be good at describing things. I also think being able to have the other inputs right, like I find more success when I'm like, hey, here's this document that is like, that gives all the context for this thing and that makes all the difference in the world or training the GPT to like, hey, here's, here's our brand voice.

This is what you need to use. So. Absolutely. Well, Tim, as we get, as we get close to wrapping up here, we've talked about a lot of things.

Thank you for going down this rabbit hole on the connection over content. I think it's important. Is there anything else we haven't talked about with the book that's coming out that you'd like to tell us about that you think would be helpful for the audience? Yeah, I mean, the only thing I'll say is that, you know, it's, it's.

If I'm, if I'm gonna plug it, I'm gonna plug it. It's currently available for pre order through the end of the month. So May 29th. And for those who pre order, I'm getting a limited run edition of the book.

It's, it's a hardcover with a dust jacket and I'll be signing it and so I know you guys will be including the link down below. And then for anyone who pre orders, I'm giving 10% off when you enter TechSmith as the coupon code. So it's a great book. It's, it's truly the.

The other night I've been just so in the muck with trying to get it done. The other night I had the first opportunity to just like sit down and look at it as a thing that I created. And you know, like, it's like when you get a chance to like finally watch the video you edited because you're not editing it anymore and you get to be in awe of what you created. That's what I got to do.

And it's, it really is just the culmination of a decade and a half of really practical, no fluff practitioner information. So I can't wait for people to get their hands on it. Yeah, if it's me, I have to wait. I would be like, okay, I'm going to put that aside and I'll come back to it when I can have some space.

Yeah. But I'm sure what a great feeling and congratulations to you on the book. Thank you. Beyond the links to pre order again, the promo code was TechSmith for 10% off.

Tim, if people want to connect with you, learn more from you, you've got obviously lots of great place beyond the book. Where would you point them to? Yeah, you can check me out on LinkedIn, check me out on YouTube, search Tim Slade or the Elearning Designers Academy or my website at elearningacademy IO where we have our free community as well. Awesome.

Appreciate it. Well, Tim, we like to wrap up our shows always the same way we give people their final take. So, Tim Slade. I'm awful at the final take.

That's okay. No one's good at it, but we make you do it anyway. So, Tim Slade, what is your final take for us today? I can vamp for a little bit, give you a little bit of Time.

We like to ask the final take because it's a chance to recap and to rethink and summarize what we've talked about. Oh, my gosh. There are some questions that are too open ended. You do realize that, right?

So my final take is. There are some questions that are too open ended. That's my thought. Final take.

There you go. That's great. We're gonna wait. Thanks for having me.

That's gonna be the opening of the show. People are gonna be like, what? What? No, Tim.

Okay, wait. Okay, okay, I'll give. I'll give a. There's gonna be an opening to the show.

Yeah. My final take is that in a world where you can generate anything in an instant, what becomes more important is that you're generating the right thing to solve the right problems. Otherwise, it's all just noise. See, that was perfect.

There we go. See? Okay. I feel good.

Well, Tim, it is always. I mean, I just always enjoy our conversations on the podcast off, so it's always great to be with you guys. Go check out Tim stuff. Thank you for joining me.

Yeah, thanks for having me. You bet. All right, everybody, you heard it. Tim's book is coming out.

If it's after May 20, check out the stuff before down below. Still, you can go get his book. He's got his other book in the Elearning Designer Guide Handbook as well that you can check out. But, you know, look, we had a great conversation.

Look, keep the human inside of what you're doing. Keep focusing on learning and growing and developing your skills because those are still valuable. Your time, your thinking is all really helpful. And part of the process that you need to do is consider, how do you keep getting better?

Kim's book's a great way to do that. We hope you check out some of the other resources that are out there. A lot of great people out there that have been guests of the show and some that have not been the guests of the show yet. Always providing great insights.

If you want to become a better learning designer, focus in the learning development space. You want to be a better workplace communicator, whatever it might be. But whatever it is, we hope you take some time to level up every single day. Thanks, everyone.