Your first instructional design project
A four-week practice plan that takes you from a real problem to a small, testable portfolio project.
Week 1 · Find a bounded problem
Choose one audience and one task: onboarding a volunteer, handling a customer return, or reviewing a brief. Talk to people who actually do it. Ask them to describe a recent difficult example, what they tried, and what got in the way. Capture exact observations separately from your interpretation.
Write a one-page brief with the performance gap, audience, constraints, target behavior and evidence of success. Check whether the root cause is knowledge, skill, incentives, access or process. Training is not the answer to every gap.
Week 2 · Design practice before slides
Write one observable objective. Draft a realistic scenario, plausible choices, consequences and corrective feedback. Sketch a short sequence: attempt the task, see a useful example, try again with feedback. Use paper or a simple prototype before investing in an authoring tool.
Ask a subject-matter expert to verify the facts and decision logic. Ask someone from your audience whether the situation feels recognizable. These are different checks; both matter.
Week 3 · Build and test a small experience
Choose a format that fits the task and environment. A printable decision guide or a Figma prototype may be enough for a first project. If you need tracking in a learning management system, investigate an authoring tool and test its output in that system.
Observe three to five representative people attempting the task as an initial formative round. This is a practical starting point, not proof that you have found every issue or demonstrated effectiveness. Record where they hesitate, misunderstand or need help. Revise the largest barriers.
Week 4 · Show your decisions
Write a case study with the problem, research, design choices, rejected alternatives, prototype, test observations and changes. Show the assessment and explain what it measures. If this is a hypothetical project, label it clearly; never invent client outcomes.
Seek feedback on the reasoning and usability. A small project with honest evidence is more persuasive than a polished course with no explanation of what it solves. Repeat the cycle with a new task before buying more software.
These guides combine original editorial recommendations with the resources below. Tools and features can change.
ATD: Instructional designFigma: Prototyping