Let’s be honest; we’re already awash with models, frameworks, pyramids, and quadrants in L&D. Some may be okay, but most are not particularly useful in the real world. With this in mind, I offer the UUD framework not as a replacement for your existing process but as a way of prioritising questions you might ask during the research ideation and early design phases.

The framework challenges us to consider three key factors when creating any product, be that the course, an e-learning module, or anything else we might create. The framework works on the basis that the three factors are not of equal importance and that there is a hierarchy that we can use to prioritise where we spend our time and effort. This can help ensure that our time and effort, and in turn, our energy use, is directed to where it makes the most impact.

Useful

The first factor is Usefulness. Our primary consideration during the research ideation and initial design and development of any solution should be, “Is this useful?” Prioritising questions around usefulness ensures that whatever solution you create focuses on improving performance. This is arguably one of the most significant challenges in the L&D world, where we can often get lost in the ideas of behavioural change and understanding the why, forgetting the importance of just being useful. This is a call to always remember that the purpose of the content that we create is to help someone do their job better.

Within this phase of consideration, we can utilise a range of user experience research techniques, from journey mapping to service blueprinting. Perhaps more familiar to the L&D world, processes like action mapping would also fit into this section. Without focusing too much on any one approach, the important thing is that this stage is all about finding out what will actually help end-users do their job more effectively or efficiently or adapt to a change in how they need to do their job.

Usable

The second factor is Usability. Now you know what will be useful to your user base; the next thing is to make that content as easy to use as possible. This is often where you may get into the specifics of the chosen delivery modality. For example, during the useful phase of consideration, you may have discovered that people would like a short e-learning module. Still, it’s not until the usability phase of consideration that you’re going to start thinking about which authoring tool you might use and what the relevant accessibility considerations might be.

Within the usability phase of consideration, it’s advisable to prototype and user-test your ideas. This can start much earlier in the process than many people think. Using paper prototypes, wireframes, and perhaps medium and high-fidelity prototypes, you can regularly and consistently test the usability of your solution with real users. Conducting a usability study is not a small job, and this short piece won’t go into the detail of how to do it, but some key considerations would include:

• Using real-world users
• Testing with users who use assistive technologies
• Ensuring the usability study avoids biasing the reviewers
• Remaining open to the idea that your solution might not work

The most important thing to remember during the usability phase is that you’re never wasting time. Especially when conducting extended user testing such as AB testing, remind yourself that no matter how useful your solution is, if it’s not usable, then it’s useless.

Desirable

The third and final factor is Desirability. And this might not mean what you think it means. With increasingly exciting development tools available to us, there is a danger of creating exciting, highly desirable experiences rather than useful and highly usable experiences. We see this regularly in the L&D world, where we focus almost exclusively on engaging the learner to the point where we forget to improve their performance.

Within the desirability phase of consideration, you should focus on what your users actually want to see and not what you think they want to see. It’s all too easy to think that because people like Netflix, Netflix is what they want to see in workplace learning. Or that the latest social media trend is popular and, therefore, an excellent modality to deliver training. These kinds of assumptions can lead to massive wastes of time and energy within your team, as well as in end users. Rather than making assumptions and trying to extrapolate from popular culture what people want to see, the best and most efficient solution is to ask them. You can start by conducting open surveys and focus groups and, over time, seek regular feedback from your users.

The UUD framework is nothing new and has been used in the product management and design world for decades. Consider some of your favourite non-learning-related products, be it your mobile phone, personal computer, your camera, or just about anything else. During its design and development, these three considerations were almost certainly considered. Primarily, the manufacturer wanted to create something useful, and for something to be useful it must be usable, and for something to be a viable product, it must be desirable. This framework is a fantastic gateway into thinking about your learning and development offerings in more of a product-minded way.