Learning Experience, LX or LXD – you have surely heard one of these terms before. But what does it actually mean? We will answer that question now and explain what is important when creating Learning Experience Designs:
Where does the term Learning Experience come from?
Learning Experience can be translated as learner experience and describes all aspects that your learners experience during their continuing education. The term comes from the term User Experience, which encompasses all things a user perceives when interacting with a product or service. It is therefore about the experience during use or, as in our case, during learning. In the learning context, Experience specifically means: How can those responsible for continuing education optimize the learning process and the touchpoints with learners so that the best possible learning experience is created? Therefore, Learning Experience is about creating an optimal learning environment, so that continuing education achieves even greater learning success. The learning itself is understood as a journey or Learning Journey, with the learners at the center.
What characterizes a successful Learning Experience
A good Learning Experience starts with appropriate preparation: What do the learners actually need to learn? And what prior knowledge do they have?
An important factor for Learning Experience is the personal motivation: Learners only retain what they really need and can apply in their everyday work!
The Learning Experience itself should be well thought out, as what has been learned is harder to "unlearn". Therefore, invest enough time in your planning and in formulating your content.
A successful Learning Experience also includes timely feedback. Without your feedback as a responsible party for continuing education, learners find it harder to assess their learning process.
Not every learning method is suitable for each of your learners. The appropriate selection of methodological and content elements also influences your Learning Experience!
Learning Experience thus enables the creation of personalized learning formats for all learners. Both the learning content and the methods used determine the success of your continuing education. The well-known learning methods primarily include e-learning, blended learning, and microlearning. The combination of different methods helps those responsible for personnel to find individual learning solutions that also work in the long term. After all, continuing education is no longer a one-day event. The learning culture of a company is crucial. After all, it influences whether a sustainable learning experience can be created and whether the learning content is optimally tailored to the employees and their needs.
Learning Experience (LX) vs. Learning Experience Design (LXD)
While Learning Experience describes the learning experience itself, Learning Experience Design is the method behind it. As someone responsible for continuing education, you want to create positive learning experiences, which is why you should think person-centered and goal-oriented when conceptualizing.
Learning Experience Design is the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human-centered and goal-oriented manner. – Niels Floor, Learning Experience Design Pioneer
In Learning Experience Design, learners are the focus, which is why preparation is crucial. Ask yourself: Who is my course aimed at? What do my participants want to learn? What is their knowledge level before continuing education? Moreover, in LXD, learning content such as videos, quizzes, or texts are individual elements that are perfectly assembled in the design. The goal behind it is to create individual learning solutions for each individual learner. The Learning Experience Design must therefore optimally fit the needs of the targeted learners and should be well thought out.
Creating experience with the right software
Learning and continued education must fit into everyday life and requires appropriate infrastructure. For the optimal learning experience, many responsible parties for continuing education therefore rely on Learning Experience Platforms (LXP). We have already described how these differ from traditional Learning Management Systems in another article: These are the differences between LMS, LCMS, and LXP.
