One study found that Canadians perform at least two informal learning projects each year. That’s not surprising; the theory of andragogy (adult learning) suggests that adults are self-motivated learners and are willing to learn things on their own if needed. Informal learning, therefore, is a powerful tool that organizations can harness to their benefit. But what are the specific principles that instructional designers should follow to ensure that their informal learning programs address these needs? The following sections explore these guiding principles:

• Reconsider your value system

• Reconsider the role of the instructional objective

• Reconsider your approach to assessment when designing informal learning materials

• Design for the short attention spans of informal learners

• Design informal learning as an interpersonal experience

• Design content that builds skills, not merely informs

Reconsider Your Value System

One of the challenges of designing informal learning is that each learner comes to it with his or her own goals and decides for himself or herself when the goals have been successfully achieved. In other words, learners set the instructional objectives, not you, the instructional designer. This runs counter to the teaching of most instructional design texts, which prescribe that designers prepare instructional objectives before preparing the content, because these objectives indicate what the content should be.

In addition to setting their own learning objectives, learners also determine for themselves when they have successfully completed the material. As a result, some learners might only read a paragraph and feel that they’ve learned enough. That means that formal evaluations like tests on which instructional designers typically invest a considerable amount of effort—and that we believe to be the only way to assess learning—are also inappropriate for informal learning. This does not mean that you do not set objectives or write assessments. It just means that both you and your learners need to approach them from a different frame of mind. The next two sections specifically explore the different ways of considering objectives and evaluations for informal learning programs.

Reconsider the Role of the Instructional Objective

Although instructional designers must always remember that learners set the objectives in informal learning programs, the practical reality is that most learners come to the content with similar or identical needs. One of the jobs of the instructional designer is to anticipate those needs and design for them.

The traditional instructional objective serves as a tool for doing so. While objectives for formal learning programs serve as a yardstick against which to measure the success of their efforts and define what designers intend to teach and become the instrument for writing assessments, in informal learning, these learning objectives serve a substantially different role. Certainly objectives describe what designers intend to cover in the material. But the objectives also serve as a tool for setting expectations on the part of learners. By defining up-front what learners can expect to achieve as a result of using the content, designers can help learners determine whether the material will help them achieve their personal goals. In informal learning, instructional objectives also provide these additional benefits:

• Focus content under development. The objectives state what the content covers— implying that material not mentioned in the objectives is not covered. By sticking to the material stated in the objectives, instructional designers ensure that extraneous material is left out and does not confuse learners. For example, when preparing a procedure for end users on diagnosing computer problems, a subject-matter expert might try to add material about how the computer processes information. Although interesting, such material is distracting to the task at hand—figuring out what’s wrong with the computer. Admittedly, a curious user might be interested in how the computer processes information, but not when the computer is broken and the user is unable to finish important work.

• Manage projects. In addition to setting the expectations of learners, objectives set the expectations of sponsors. Material stated in the objectives is covered; other material is not. If, during the development of a learning program, a subject-matter expert chooses to add content not covered by the objectives, the instructional designer has some leverage to gain additional time or funding because the additional content is outside of the agreed-on scope of the project. For example, suppose that, in the middle of developing material on setting performance plans, someone from Human Resources asks to add material on interim coaching of employees. Although the material is useful, developing that content would take an additional two weeks and, more significantly, the course objectives do not cover that material. The instructional designer could go back to the sponsor and ask for an additional two weeks for the assignment and funding to cover the additional labor because the additional material represents a change in scope and was not estimated into the original plans for the project. The objective would then be changed.

• Provide entry points to the content for learners. Because designers use them to divide up content and place it in a hierarchy of main (terminal) and supporting (enabling) objectives, learning objectives also provide entry points to the content. Learners can look at the hierarchy of content and determine where they would like to begin their informal learning.

• Provide criteria for assessing learning. In formal learning, the criterion-referenced assessments (that is, ones in which each test question directly emerges from an objective) provide a means for learners to determine whether or not they have achieved the objectives. Instructional designers can provide such assessments in informal learning programs, too. The difference in informal learning is that the assessments are optional—learners do not need to take them if they choose not to. The next section explores assessment in more depth.

Reconsider Your Approach to Assessment When Designing Informal Learning Materials

Informal learning presents a variety of problems for assessment. Because learners set their own objectives and decide for themselves when they have completed an informal learning program, the philosophy of formal testing conflicts with informal learning. Not surprisingly, hardly any informal learning has tests associated with it. At best, some informal learning opportunities provide self-assessments to learners, but the scores are not recorded or transmitted to others.

As a result, learning that must certify knowledge—such as technical training, training on policies and procedures, and certification training—makes bad candidates for informal learning.

But assessment problems are not limited to learning. Assessing a learning program at all of the other levels of the Kirkpatrick (1998) model also poses a problem. Because learners usually have limited interaction with informal learning content, they often do not feel the need to complete a satisfaction survey if one is offered. Furthermore, because learners do not formally register to take the content (they might register to use a site, but their use of the site often extends beyond the topic of their informal learning), identifying who is learning what and assessing transfer of that learning is nearly impossible. When you cannot assess transfer of the learning, assessing impact is similarly difficult. In corporate environments that thrive on accountability, these issues pose serious problems. Although you cannot formally assess learning nor conduct a traditional four-level evaluation, as suggested by the Kirkpatrick model, you can still evaluate some aspects of informal learning programs:

• The number of people who use it. This can be counted by tracking the statistics of usage on individual web pages. Although this number is not a perfect measure (for example, it also includes all of the people in your organization who visit the page), it does provide some indication of whether people are using the content.

• Satisfaction. Although you should not expect response rates that approach those of the classroom, it is possible to survey users of informal learning programs about their satisfaction with it. But recognize that most people who complete the survey do so because they have strong positive or negative feelings about the learning program, which may not represent the average learner’s response.

• Learning and behavior. Although you cannot test learners formally, some designers have found ingenious ways of informally assessing knowledge. For example, consider the assessments of prior learning about topics like dengue fever at the Hong Kong Health Department’s Men’s Health site (http://www.hkmenshealth.com/eng/calculator/index.asp). In addition to informal assessments, you can conduct interviews and observations with learners and their supervisors and co-workers to find out how they have made use of the content in the informal learning programs. Although this approach may not provide statistical evidence of learning, the overwhelming quantity of content that interviews and observations provide should yield convincing evidence.

Design for the Short Attention Spans of Informal Learners

One of the significant limitations of informal learning is that attention spans are short and dropout rates are high. Some of this has to do with the general behavior of adult learners. According to Knowles (1980), while adult learners are generally goal-oriented and self-directed, they also have other things in their lives that interrupt learning. This is especially true when the learning happens in the workplace or at home, both of which are fraught with interruptions. Some of this has to do with the behavior of users online. They tend to have short attention spans and “surf” around when connected to the Internet. As a result, learners start topics and don’t finish, not because they reached a point of completion but because they were distracted by something else. For example, suppose a person heard someone mention derivative investments at a business lunch. Not wanting to look foolish, the person did not ask the speaker to define the term, so when he returned to his office he immediately searched for information. He found a brief tutorial on the topic at a financial services website, and as soon as he finished with the definition he went back to work. He achieved his personal learning objective, defining the term derivative investment, and did not need to continue studying.

Design Informal Learning as an Interpersonal Experience

Contrary to the opinions of many, informal learning is not solitary learning. To be effective, many informal learning programs should be approached as social activities. For learners using informal learning as part of a career planning strategy, access to more experienced advisors is essential. Although learners might have an idea of how they would like for their careers to develop, they do not have the ability to assess the likelihood of succeeding on their chosen path, nor should they expect to find all of the resources needed to determine how to most effectively develop their careers.

Design Content That Builds Skills, not Merely Informs

When designing materials for informal learning, instructional designers can easily confuse informational materials with ones intended for learning. In many instances, informal learning materials double as informational materials, such as online help and online guided tours (also called demonstrations).

The primary difference is that informational materials familiarize readers with a topic, but there is not necessarily an expectation for them to act on the material presented. Learning materials are intended to help users develop psychomotor, cognitive, or affective skills—that is, do something with the content and continue doing it long after the learning session.

As a result, preparing an online demonstration alone rarely serves as training because it does not build skills. But used in combination with a user’s guide and either on-the-job work or informal practice, this demonstration can become part of an informal learning program. For example, to learn how to take a high-quality photograph a learner might first look through the guided tour of the top ten tips for great pictures at the Kodak website (http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pqpath= 317&pq-locale=en_US), then read the in-depth material on the site and purchase photography books to develop these techniques.