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Join the Nerds!
Welcome to the funtastic world of the Fabulous Learning Nerds! Scott Schuette and Daniel Coonrod and Zeta Gardner are Learning Executives with over 50 years’ experience between them. Together they share new ideas, learning tools, approaches and technology that increase learner engagement and impact. All while having FUN! To participate in the show and community please contact them at learningnerdscast@gmail.com
The nerds are all about creating a community of learning, innovation and growth amongst educational professionals: Instructors, facilitators, instructional designers, learning and development professionals, trainers, leadership development professionals, learning metric gurus, sales enablement wizards and more. So, if you want to learn, connect, grow and have a good time doing it, The Fabulous Learning Nerds Podcast is for YOU!
Scott (00:02.359)
Hey peeps, welcome back to another fantastic episode of You're a Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm Scott Trudy, and with me, yeah, it's Dan.
Dan the man. Oh yeah.
daniel (00:19.698)
I feel like that was the appropriate level of excitement. I feel like that was it. That's exactly where I'm riding in on. Like, yep, it's Dan. I like it. I'm good. I'm good with it.
Scott (00:19.983)
Dan!
Scott (00:25.915)
Mm-hmm. It's Dan. Well, people know, they probably assumed it was you, so...
daniel (00:31.826)
I mean, I don't know, last week we mixed it up. We did. Had Zeta coming first. You know, I am fair to Midland. Yep, yep, there it is. There it is. Boom. I just want to say for all of our listeners today, Scott is wearing a shirt that I am immensely jealous of. Scott, what's your shirt say?
Scott (00:34.979)
We did, we did. Yeah, and how are you doing today, sir?
Spare too many-
Scott (00:54.999)
This says, back off, man, I'm a scientist, is what it says.
daniel (00:58.03)
Yes, love it. Ghostbusters quote, it's got the little like, ain't afraid to know ghost logo. I love it, love it.
Scott (01:05.407)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, no, Ghostbusters. Darn near perfect movie, but we're not going to argue about perfect movies. Darn near. No, I think Ghostbusters is great. I'm super into it. Yeah, yeah, totally. I think I watched it like 100 times in the theater growing up. So that was great. My my all time favorite scene in that movie is you want to guess?
daniel (01:12.618)
What? We don't want to talk about that? Good Sponsors is great.
Scott (01:31.555)
The scene that made the hairs on my neck stand up in me just cheer with glee.
daniel (01:31.847)
Mmm... Go for it.
daniel (01:41.186)
I know when I introduced it to my daughter years ago, we got as far as the library scene. She was young, probably too young. And when the librarian ghost turns around, shushes and then roars to life, my kiddo was like, I'm done. She was like maybe seven or eight. And I was like, yeah, you don't wanna finish? She's, nope, I'm done. And I was like, oh, okay. And I think it was like.
Scott (01:50.265)
Mm-hmm.
daniel (02:09.182)
I think it was like eight years until we finally got back to it. It was only just a couple of years ago. She was like, I think I should watch Ghostbusters. I'm like, yeah, it's an important touchstone film to be aware of.
Scott (02:18.935)
It is. Nope, that's not the scene. It's a good scene, but it's not the scene. You know what? We should probably get another opinion. So I'm gonna bring in someone's opinion that I really trust, not that yours is bad, Dan. But Zayde is in the house, everybody.
daniel (02:29.08)
We think.
Mediaboard_sounds (02:36.561)
I've got the pa-
Scott (02:45.775)
Azera!
Zeta (02:47.179)
Hey Scott, how you doing?
Scott (02:49.071)
Great, Ghostbusters fan are you? Okay. Or what scene am I thinking of? Or what's your favorite scene?
Zeta (02:51.772)
Oh yes, oh yeah, love it.
Zeta (02:58.414)
Hmm...
The Zool, we're talking Zool, when he looks into the refrigerator, opens up the fridge and Zool.
Scott (03:09.272)
That is great with the terror dog. I have a terror dog, terror dogs are great. That is not the scene I was thinking of. The scene that made me realize that this is one of my favorite movies is when you get the reveal of the Ecto-1 in the fire station and they're playing the boys are back in town. Every time I see that I get giddy. I just, like, and the first time you see that, it was like, holy crap, this is amazing.
Zeta (03:34.444)
Mm-hmm.
Scott (03:35.927)
Oh, I'm getting a look from Dan. Dan is not a fan of this scene.
daniel (03:38.786)
No, no, I love that scene. I love that scene. I was thinking actually about the last Ghostbusters movie that came out and I was trying to think of the name of it. So I was gonna ask, yeah, had you seen, have you, did you see Afterlife? And as quickly as you jumped in, I'm gonna assume you had. Yeah, yeah, obviously, duh. I do, I do like Afterlife.
Scott (03:46.721)
afterlife.
Zeta (03:47.743)
Yeah, after life.
Scott (03:54.303)
Yeah, of course I have. It's a great sequel. And the new one, the... What's the new one? The new one, the...
Zeta (04:00.)
Me too.
daniel (04:02.978)
Kingdom of Ice or...yeah.
Scott (04:04.579)
Something like that. Oh, quick, go to Google. I'm totally embarrassed by this.
Zeta (04:05.667)
I'm gonna have to... You know what...
Zeta (04:12.509)
and empire.
Scott (04:13.315)
Frozen Empire, so we're close. All right, yeah, looks amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So two quick questions and we'll get into our topic of the week, because I don't want to talk ghost pleasures all day, even though I could and I would to be very, very happy. It is part of my man cave display. I got the 12 inch.
daniel (04:13.526)
Frozen Empire.
Zeta (04:15.627)
Hey, you're close, you're close.
Zeta (04:24.619)
We can definitely do an episode on it too.
Scott (04:32.055)
Mattel Ghostbusters collection, all four of them. So that's great. At any rate, what was I gonna say? Have either of you gone through the Ghostbusters show at Universal before they got rid of it? Oh, it's fantastic. You can look, Google that on YouTube. You can watch the whole show. It was basically a Pepper's Ghost, you know, haunted mansion thing on acid. It was great. It was fantastic. The Scuttlebutt.
daniel (04:43.21)
No, no, I'm sad.
Zeta (04:43.296)
No, no.
Scott (05:00.027)
I understand is that Universal has paid for the crafting of a new Ecto-1 for their parks and they will probably bring it back to Halloween Hornets this year and they're adding a parade which is all day one attractions related so back to the future Kong, Jurassic Park and Ghostbusters with day one attractions so yeah.
we're going to get to see the Ghostbusters back in the park. They've asked for permission, so they're going to get the rights for it. I'm totally, totally agree with that. So that's awesome. So now we can talk learning. Now we can totally talk learning everybody. I'm super excited. I don't know how we're going to tie this together. But oh, I will say this, the design of the Ghostbusters is totally iconic. So today I thought we would go ahead and-
Zeta (05:28.343)
So.
daniel (05:31.598)
That's awesome.
Zeta (05:37.539)
Super stoked, yeah.
daniel (05:44.021)
Yes.
Scott (05:55.131)
talk about the power of design. So without further ado everybody, let's go ahead and dive into our topic of the week.
daniel (06:01.253)
Hoot!
Scott (06:08.443)
Alright, we're going to talk about the power of design and we're going to lean heavily on our design goddess of the small G Zeta. Zeta, talk to us about the importance of design. Why is it important? And why are we going to spend some time talking about it today?
Zeta (06:18.048)
Ooh.
Zeta (06:25.579)
Well, design is kind of, I think, one of the unsung heroes of L&D, as well as almost everything. Good design is definitely a human-shaped solution. So if you just take a moment, kind of just look around your room, and you notice like, you know, if you're sitting in a room, if you're sitting in your car or whatever, you know, keep your eyes on the wheel and the road in front of you. But we're surrounded by so many different things, right? From the smartphone that we use,
chair that we're sitting in or your chair in your car. Everything that's surrounded us is crafted with a purpose in mind, right? And that's design. And I think today we wanted to kind of touch on what makes good design, right? So I think one of the first steps is knowing that design is more than just problem solving. It's not like, oh, I have this problem, I need a solution, let's design it, right?
First off, designers are usually kind of trained to solve problems and not find them. But design is better than that, I think. By using observation and guiding questions, we can prototype with new devices, we can uncover new aspects about a situation, and about any kind of questions that we could be answering. We can use design to ask questions.
as well as provide answers.
Scott (07:56.367)
Yeah, I think that's really great. You know, one of the things that I think is going to be important, like, can we level set? Like, we're talking beyond just how something looks, right?
Zeta (08:04.803)
Mm-hmm. Oh yeah, design is more than just what something looks, it's how it functions. Because it can be look good, but it also has to be useful, right?
daniel (08:14.359)
You know?
Scott (08:14.647)
Yeah, sometimes I feel like this is just my experience. So many people that I've reported to in the years past have always, I hate to say it, they're gonna default to how it looks. Is it pretty? Ooh, look at these colors. Ooh, look at this and look at that. And I'm not saying that those things aren't important because they are, but do you hit something right on the head like functionality or how we transfer or whatever it is that...
daniel (08:28.151)
Yeah.
Scott (08:43.255)
we're designing how it transfers what we want to do and gets the behavior or the results we're looking for are more important, which is why if we tie that back to the whole storyboarding thing, it's all about function, right? It's all about, hey, what are we talking about? And then what are we trying to get across? Dan?
Zeta (08:56.995)
Yes.
daniel (09:01.198)
I was going to say, for me, in my career as an instructional designer, I was very, when I was young, I was very focused on the instructional design part and very focused on building learning material, building learning material whose only purpose was the transfer of knowledge. And because of that, so many times I would be like, oh, how it looks isn't important.
Uh, you know, like, uh, it doesn't matter. It just matters that they can get through the course, you know, there's going to be an instructor there, although, or they'll be able to navigate the course. And for almost say years, unfortunately, like that was my attitude, but when I, uh, climbed up off of my high horse and like really started thinking like, well, hey, like this visual design element is important. It holds learner attention. It holds people to the course.
hey, this usability design is important. If people have to spend less cognitive load on navigating my course, they'll be more apt to pay attention to the things I wanna pay attention to. As soon as I accepted the design part of instructional design, I got so much better, so much better at my job. And just so much better at how I get things done and how I communicate the value that building these courses brings.
Zeta (10:28.223)
I think ultimately it is the value we bring more so than the polish that's on it, right? Design is definitely a human-centered solving for people. One of the things that I love about design is the philosophy that's called human-centered design. Have you guys heard of that?
daniel (10:47.05)
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Scott (10:48.939)
No, but why don't you go, why don't you go, I have, why don't you go ahead and explain that to our audience.
Zeta (10:54.417)
Go for it, Dan, because I know you're the one who introduced me to human-centered design and design thinking.
daniel (10:58.178)
So, yeah, so like human centered design, like basically everything we do, all the things we build, all of the courses we work on, all of the trainings, all of it is focused on helping people to grow and develop, to learn new skills, become better at their job, to learn, to just do things better, to be better.
But too often we get very, I think people get very stuck and focused on the technology that drives and delivers those experiences. And because of that, we step away from human centered design. At the end of the day, when you're building something, if you're sitting there and you're thinking to yourself, like, hey, I need to build this course and I need to make sure that it fits, you know, like I can only have like,
you know, these 15 elements on a page, because that's as many elements as like, maybe like the web browser on the backend uses will support or because, you know, like it'll slow the computers down. Like that's good, good thinking, good problem solving, being like forethought and stuff, but how many elements do your users care about? How many elements do people care about?
when you're designing things, when you're focusing on things, human centered design, is basically just putting humans' needs and perspectives first, and then making sure that the trainings, tools, and things you do to support that, keep the person at the center of that design.
Zeta (12:49.155)
If a design is more than just creating solutions or trying to fix something, it's ultimately going to be functional and desirable for your users, right?
Scott (13:00.823)
Yeah. No, I think that's really great. So begs a question, if I may ask the question. I'm thinking about my design. I'm thinking about what I need to produce. Where do I start? Like, where should I start?
Zeta (13:15.075)
Well, design with the first purpose, right? Like, why are you doing this? What's the reason behind it, right? What do you want your learners to come away from the course with? If you're designing a course for someone, what do they need to know? What objectives are you going to give them? What knowledge, what skill should they have had to acquire, right? Design with that purpose in mind, and I think that's your first step.
Scott (13:41.243)
So we're gonna pull a page from Steve and Cubby. We're gonna go ahead and begin with the end in mind, so to speak, right?
daniel (13:42.542)
I was gonna...
Zeta (13:48.407)
All right.
daniel (13:49.63)
I like that, but I would make just a small addendum, maybe even like a small twist. I always try to focus on the minimum viable product, the MVP, because once you've got like the bare minimum, like, hey, here's the basics, this is everything I need to make things go forward, you've built your foundation, like that's it.
Like everything else you're going to add after that, our flourishes, our extras. Once you know what that basement looks like, the freedom you have to add or subtract as a designer, it goes through the roof. And so that's always what I'm aiming for. Like if I need to teach people how am I like, you know, how to drive a car or like, you know, how to like do data processing, you know, whatever skill it is, I'm always like, okay, what are the.
foundations of this skill that they need to learn. What are the foundations that get us to that goal? And once I know that, I can build on that. Like that's my foundation. Then I can add in the roof, the walls, not in that order, windows, doors, et cetera, et cetera.
Zeta (15:04.023)
Mm-hmm. I should definitely start with the roof first, right? But no, I like that. MVP, I'm just going to say it's the most valuable points, right? What the purpose is, or the most value-driven purpose. Would you call it minimal?
daniel (15:08.735)
Yes, definitely.
daniel (15:21.934)
Minimum viable product. And it was taught to me is that, but yeah, like MVP is a powerful acronym. Yeah, I'm gonna run with that. We all know it. We all know that it means something important. And so like just looking at somebody and saying, like, hey, I just need the foundation. I just need the root. And then we can build from there. It's as a designer, go ahead.
Zeta (15:33.067)
Yeah, it's an acronym.
Scott (15:46.799)
Finish your thought as a designer lets.
daniel (15:48.678)
Yeah, as a designer, knowing that also helps me build deadlines. Like if I know, hey, it's going to take me this long to get my minimum viable product, I know like all the extra I can then plan for like, okay, I need at least this much time, nothing happens. If a deadline is before this time. And then after this time, that tells me how much room I have to make it better, to make it pretty, to make it usable, to make it all of these things that are important.
but to a business or to a client or to an end user may seem extra.
Scott (16:26.903)
Yeah, so let me pick back off of that thought, because one of the things that I think people can get hung up on is, you know, they immediately put something together, and then they don't finesse on the design of what we're trying to accomplish. And then they get stuck in the, and I want to make it pretty. Like there's this rush to final product, right? And the finesse around that final product is really, I mean, that's a really great skill, but you've...
got to have that MVP. You've got to have that rough draft, so to speak, that storyboard of here's where we're going, here's what we want to accomplish. I think that's really important. The other thing that I would say is that friend of the show, Lisa Wallace, she was on a long time ago. You got to go check her out. She's fantastic. She said something in the first time we talked that I use all the time. She asked the question, what's going to be new, better, or different when we're done?
Zeta (17:05.814)
you.
Scott (17:23.707)
Because the reality is, my stakeholders often come to me with a request and they haven't thought about the answer to that question. What's gonna be new, better, or different when I'm done? I need a training, Scott and his team are gonna be able to deliver to me, make us a training. What's gonna be new, better, or different when we're done? I don't know, make us a training, right?
daniel (17:48.15)
Yeah, yeah.
Zeta (17:48.896)
Yeah.
Scott (17:51.035)
super important, like, you know, have, begin with the end in mind, what's going to be new, better, or different when we're done? What is it that we want to accomplish? What's my deadline to get the MVP to you? Like, you know, all that good stuff. And then when all that's done and you and you're good as gravy with all of that, then, then you can begin the fun part. I, I recently had the opportunity to go ahead and design a hour long webinar for our APAC team, right? So they're over
Scott (18:20.867)
Thailand, all those places. That was a fun experience. But I remember that I got all the MVP stuff done. Like I knew exactly what I was trying to communicate. It was all about empathy and we're gonna go ahead and communicate this and this and here's our activities. And then in that moment, when you feel solid, that's when creativity can pop in. You get those moments of inspiration. And to kick off the meeting, I showed a video clip for empathy from the movie
Inside Out, where Joy is talking to, not Joy, I'm sorry, Sadness, Joy and Sadness are talking to Bing Bong, and it's a really great demonstration of empathy, because Sadness understands empathy, because she's sad, and Joy just wants everybody to be happy. But in that moment of finding that, it's like, oh, I could totalize all of my design around that film, and that's exactly what happened, and everybody loved it. But if I had started there,
I certainly wouldn't have had an impactful of a training. By the way, you could steal that if you want folks totally OK.
Zeta (19:25.944)
That's awesome.
daniel (19:27.724)
You know, you brought up, you brought up like designing with the end goal in mind and like, just like, you know, just backwards design at its best. And man, I cannot tell you like, whenever I've been part of a team and we've been super stressed with deadlines and like, and a worksheet and a project sheet that's a mile long with a million different projects on it and a million different deadlines.
Being able to look at a team and be like, all right, cool. What's the end goal for this project? What hap, how do, how would we know we're successful? What do we need to do? Great. Make sure that those things get done. What's the end goal for this project? Great. And you know, it's so helpful. So, so, so helpful.
Zeta (20:11.639)
Yeah, and not only that, but when you have that backwards design, you start with the end in mind. If someone tries to like add something onto the project, you can always ask the question, well, does this support the outcome? Is this going to be beneficial at the end? Right? Will this help us, you know, cross that finish line? So it helps kind of add a little bit of clarity too, especially when you have like a mountain of asks. You'd be like, well, is this really going to be worthwhile? It helps you kind of sort through that and prioritize your content.
Scott (20:43.064)
That begs a really good question too. So how do I know if it's good? Like how do I know if my design is good?
Zeta (20:50.539)
Well, I think I know when something's bad, you'll immediately know, oh, hey, this is bad. I don't like it. But when something's good, oh, Dan.
daniel (20:59.926)
I was going to say, I was going to say, I actually think that sometimes people don't immediately know when something's bad. And like, we can definitely circle back to talk on that, but I think there's like, like when I've been reviewing something with a stakeholder or getting feedback from a class, I'll sometimes hear words and I'll be like, Oh, like they'll say stuff like, Oh, it looks kind of scrunched or, Oh, it looks kind of busy or, uh, I don't know.
It just seems like a lot. And those are words that are tough to like do anything with like, well, busy how, what's that mean? Uh, so I don't think it's always easy. Sometimes people will give you feedback. That means there's a design element they're not engaging with or unable to engage with. They won't necessarily go, Oh, I don't like it. It's ugly. Don't get me wrong. There's some real stinkers out there. And when we see them, we all laugh. It happens.
We go, oh, that's way too much. I think there's a famous slide that shows a war plan for the second Gulf War. And it's this crazy spaghetti nest monster thing. And it always gets held up as a bad slide example because there's just so much going on. But I jumped in. So sorry, go.
Scott (22:12.818)
Uh-oh.
Zeta (22:18.975)
No, that's fine. Actually, you brought up a point that's part of that. Feedback is one of the key elements of what makes good design. But before we talk about feedback, I wanna talk about the two other parts of the checklist, form and function. We kinda brought up function prior as well. So imagine this. Imagine you want to buy a chair, right? And this chair is beautiful, it's sleek, it's mahogany, it's very, very nice looking.
It looks like everything else in your house, you're like, oh, this is perfect, this is perfect. But then you go to sit in it, and you're uncomfortable, and you're like, this doesn't work. It doesn't work as a chair. It may look good, like we're talking about, something that looks pretty, but it's not giving its function. It's not actually performing the function that it was bought for initially, right? It's supposed to be a chair. So,
Function, if something functions, it's gonna definitely solve that real problem that you had, right? It's gonna meet that need. It's not gonna fall flat. Make sure that it's something that's well designed and makes the whole experience effortless, right? I know your content can't be a chair, but it has to serve its function. So the other one is form. Make sure that whatever you make can have
proper form and that it can capture and hold attention. If there's a desire to interact with it, if it's well designed, it's easy to use. Imagine a website that you're wanting to design and it has all the relevant information. It has all the functionality that you need, but the user interfaces is really difficult to navigate. It's not laid out in a way that's kind of logical.
That's where we talk about form. And when then there's really no desire to interact, even though you have all the pertinent information, you've dropped the ball on form. And the last point is feedback, which is what Dan kind of brought up. You need to have feedback. Feedback is essential. It's essential for improvement. It's essential to know what's landing, what's not landing. And I'll use the...
Zeta (24:44.389)
the situation of like you go into an elevator, right? And you press the button, and you press it many, many times.
because you don't know if it's actually clicking or not. But if there's a light that turns on, you usually just press it once because there's feedback. So form, function, and feedback. I would say you would need all three of those to be the basis of good design.
Scott (25:16.533)
Mm.
daniel (25:17.486)
I like that. I like that. Now I was going to say like you bring up feedback and I think a lot of people immediately think to like audience feedback, stakeholder feedback, but you're bringing up feedback as a the design lets you know it's doing something. I
Zeta (25:17.995)
What do you guys think?
Zeta (25:31.859)
Yeah, that your actions have results. Yes.
daniel (25:34.998)
I read something just the other day that was talking about Google's first page was literally just the search bar. And when they were doing user testing, people got very confused. They would sit there and the user experience designs would sit there and watch as people would just wait, just sit in the computer chair and wait. And finally they'd be like, Hey, what are you doing? Oh, it looks like the page never finished loading. Because
This is the early days of the web. So they're expecting flashing logos and like a bunch of texts and all this other stuff. And so Google had to add like the bright colorful logo and they had to add some texts at the bottom because that was the only way that people would understand that, oh, the page is done. I could interact with it. And I, that as like feedback, like, Hey, the design gives you feedback. When you interact with it, it's super vital. You bring up an elevator. I love that example. I cannot tell you.
how many times I've been in an elevator and been like, pop, or at a crosswalk and like press, because I'm in a hurry. And the machine gives me one blip, blorp, beep, light of feedback, and that's it.
Zeta (26:46.783)
all you need is that one blip and you know that your actions actually have results. And I think that's something to consider whenever we decide trading.
daniel (26:48.449)
Yep.
daniel (26:52.236)
Yeah.
Scott (26:55.556)
Hmm.
Scott (26:58.731)
So what do you do if I'm not getting that feedback? What do you do? Like if I'm at the light and I hit the button and nothing happens, I keep hitting the button, nothing happens, then what?
Zeta (27:07.295)
you improve the design to where there's something that's either visible or tactile to where you know that whatever you're doing, like pressing that button, either like will beep or light up, like I said, the elevator. You have some kind of feedback. I know whenever I design a course and articulate, I like to have to when you hover over your buttons, it changes color to kind of like give you that visual feedback of where your mouse is and that, yes, it's responsive and that you can click there.
You know.
Scott (27:40.132)
So it's more than just finding another place to cross the street.
Zeta (27:43.883)
Definitely. Yeah, if you don't want to, I don't think that's a viable option of crossing the street in a different place. You can be probably charged with jaywalking. I know you don't have to worry about that when it comes to the user interface. But yeah. But yeah, when it comes to good design, you also want to be clear. I know form, function, and feedback are kind of like the major checklists for content.
daniel (27:44.758)
Yeah.
Zeta (28:12.375)
But when you're making your design, don't clutter it. Try to be clear, try to be consistent, and keep the user's experience in mind. And I think you'll do fine. At least that's what I do.
Scott (28:27.759)
So this is really great. No, no, I think this is really awesome. So we've talked about why design is important, and we've talked about beginning with the end in mind. We've talked about what makes good design. So take us home. There's power when you do it right. Really good things can happen. Can we talk a little bit of what's the power of really good design?
Zeta (28:27.923)
Oh, and use a grid.
Zeta (28:53.807)
Well, power of good design is you find the right questions as well as finding the right answer when you're doing your problem solving. It is going to be purposeful and relevant for your audience. It's gonna be easy to use, it's gonna be effective, it's gonna give your audience what they need and ultimately it will be there to empower the people that it serves. That's the power of good design.
Scott (29:21.591)
Fantastic. Any other thoughts around design?
daniel (29:28.402)
You know, go ahead. I was going to say, you know, it's, it's one of those things where there's so many job titles, so many things now that have the word design in them, instructional design, user experience design. And we often separate those out. We often go, well, this person builds training experiences. This person builds user interfaces. This person builds softwares.
Zeta (29:28.48)
Um, go for it, Dan.
Scott (29:29.935)
Go ahead, Dan.
daniel (29:57.066)
software, this person builds whatever. But all of these things are designed. I think too often people get focused that design is a strictly visual medium, but it's not. And Zeta, you brought it up as like the feedback. It is an engagement medium. It is how people engage with your material. It's how they connect with it. It's what they do with it.
And when we forget the design part of our roles, of our titles, of our jobs, we forget the human part of our jobs.
Zeta (30:34.499)
Very true, very true.
Scott (30:37.955)
Yeah, and one thing that I might add is, you know, if you get to that point of finesse, there's a lot of tools that can help you, right? So if we've got that MVP down and you're, I hate to even say it, but I'm just finding that the design choices that I get, even through Microsoft PowerPoint, if I'm gonna start there, they're not too bad. Like they're really good. I mean, before it was like.
Yeah, this sucks. I'm never going to use that. But I mean, today, if it's not a bad place to start, if I just drop images and whatnot and then those, here's some recommended designs, like take a look at that. It's really, really a good place to start. And I think you're right too, Dan. I've had experience in my career where there was a lot of confusion around what we do, right? So we're instruction designers. So, oh, you're here to make things look pretty. We're going to put you with the people that make things look.
Zeta (31:20.023)
Yeah.
Scott (31:35.087)
pretty. And, and they're really good at that. So let's I'm gonna if you're a designer, you're fantastic. That's, that's great. But our, our power in our secret sauce isn't necessarily how pretty it looks. It's really how effective it is at transferring of the knowledge. And I gotta tell you, you put two people together, you put a design pro along with an instruction instructional designer together, you know, put the peanut butter and the chocolate together. You got a magical thing. If you don't have your chocolate.
Plenty of great places to go look for inspiration from a design perspective. It's Microsoft PowerPoint, Canva, another great place. Anybody else have any other suggestions where they could look?
daniel (32:15.126)
I love... stole it right out of my mouth. Stole it right out of my mouth.
Zeta (32:15.175)
and photo elements is really good. Yeah, I know. I know there's also Dribbble, which has a lot of cool graphic designs if you're looking for a visual design. Really good visual hierarchy where you have the landing place where, hey, this is the flow of information. Definitely some good stuff, Dan. You were saying?
Scott (32:16.935)
Oh, Envato Elements. Oh my God.
Scott (32:23.579)
Mm-hmm.
daniel (32:35.81)
I've been using, I'll use mid journey and I'll type in the concept that I need to design for to see what colors it gives me. So I can start to like pick those when I build like my like, oh, hey, I'm gonna use these colors in this presentation. I'm gonna use these colors in this experience. If I see like consistent like imagery and iconography, like I'll start using that. Speaking of icons, Noun Project is awesome. Like super amazing awesome. Yeah.
Scott (33:02.328)
Yes.
Zeta (33:02.403)
Shout out.
daniel (33:04.954)
Oh yeah, another shout out, that's right.
Zeta (33:06.58)
Yeah.
Scott (33:08.471)
Yeah, if you want to sponsor us, any of these folks, that's great. I will say.
daniel (33:12.075)
Hahaha!
Scott (33:14.719)
Envato Elements is worth every penny. Every penny. I mean, it is the instructional designers design toolbox. You name it, they got it. You can look wicked smart at what you do by spending a good 10 minutes on Envato Elements and getting stuff. I've amazed my friends. Oh wow, that's a great PowerPoint design. Yeah, I made it myself.
daniel (33:17.77)
Every penny. Every penny.
Zeta (33:18.912)
Oh yeah.
Scott (33:43.723)
No I didn't, I stole it, I totally stole it.
daniel (33:46.968)
Ha ha
Scott (33:49.203)
Oh, I swear, I had somebody that was really struggling on my team with design. And I'm like, go to Envato Elements, start there. Find something that speaks to you and start there. And people are like, wow, that's really great. Where did you get that? Oh, I made it myself from Envato Elements. So that's really great. Any other thoughts before we wrap this up?
Zeta (33:59.607)
Yeah.
Scott (34:12.171)
Okay, fantastic everybody. Listen, begin with the end in mind. What's gonna be new, better, or different? Getting that feedback in the form and the function, really, really important stuff when it comes to design. If you wanna learn more, please, Dan's gonna tell us right now how you can contact us, ask those kinds of questions. We'll be happy to help you out.
daniel (34:36.426)
No pressure. Alright, party people, if you haven't already, you know the drill. Email us at nerds at TheL Email us any questions you may have, join in on the discussion. This week, if you've got a place where you're getting good, consistent design inspiration from, whether it's for instructional material, visual material, whatever, we'd love to know about it. Send it in to us. If you're on Facebook, you can find us at Learning Nerds. For all of our Instagram peeps, Fab Learning Nerds.
And lastly, for more information about us, what we do and updates, www. Scott, right back at you.
Scott (35:14.415)
Thanks, Dan. Hey, everybody, do me a favor. Could you go ahead and hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, share this episode. I'm not kidding. Share this episode, everybody, with your friends. It's a really great way to get some cool, groovy stuff from a design perspective out to the people that may need it, so it's really great. Also, if you do me a favor, could you go ahead and please leave a review, either iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you're getting your podcasts. Leave us a review. Really help us make the show better for everybody, and.
It helps us get our information out to more people. With that, I'm Scott.
daniel (35:46.008)
Damn.
Zeta (35:47.395)
I'm Zeta.
Scott (35:48.619)
And we're your Fabulous Learning Nerds, and we are out.