How Expert Designers Design

Abstract

Two studies were carried out with expert educational designers at Arthur Andersen and the Open University of the Netherlands to determine the priorities they say that employ when designing competence-based learning environments. Designers in a university context and in a business context agree almost completely on what principles they feel are important, the most important being that one should start a design enterprise from the needs of the learners, instead of the content structure of the learning domain. The main difference between the two groups is that university designers relate that they find it extremely important to consider alternative solutions during the whole design process; something that business designers report as being considerably less important. University designers say that they focus more on project plan and desired characteristics of the instructional blueprint whereas business designers report being more client-oriented, stressing the importance of “buying in” the client early in the process.