Key skills for instructional designers

How to become an outstanding instructional designer?

Definitely not by copying other outstanding instructional designers!
Working on your design skills will definitely help you produce better and more attractive learning content. No wonder many instructional designers follow that route.

However, there is another set of skills that is often neglected.

The job of an instructional designer often requires a lot of discussions with SMEs, coordination with stakeholders, managing project requirements, and combining available resources.

All these skills are crucial for the success of any learning projects, yet they are often overlooked.

Even more importantly, new technology with AI will soon help instructional designers to create better and more attractive learning materials—with less designing skill and less effort. (If you don’t believe this, just look at what Canva did to the masters of Photoshop.)

On the other hand, there are some human-specific skills that AI is not likely to replace anytime soon: communication, problem-solving, project management. These are the skills that truly enable us to generate relevant learning content, and these are the skills we should really focus on in the future.

P.S. If you’re still in doubt, try the new JollyDeck Copilot and see how it helps you generate and design learning content. You’ll suddenly find more time and motivation to focus on the important things 🙂