Designing effective learning today means navigating a landscape that’s always shifting. Learners bring different goals, experiences, and expectations—and they engage across devices, settings, and stages of life. With that complexity, the way we design for learning has had to evolve.
Two terms often come up in that conversation: Instructional Design (ID) and Learning Experience Design (LXD). People naturally assume they’re the same thing. Is LXD just Instructional Design with a facelift?
Not exactly.
LXD builds on the foundation that ID (originally Instructional Systems Design or ISD) established, but it pushes further into emotion, engagement, and the full experience of learning. It reflects a shift in how we think about what learning is and how it feels.
This article explores how the two approaches connect, where they differ, and why that distinction matters, especially for those designing learning that’s meant to make an impact.
What is Instructional Design?
The formal origins of instructional design trace back to the high-stakes environments of World War II. The U.S. military faced an enormous challenge: training thousands of individuals quickly, with consistent results, and little room for error. Psychologists and educators were called in to develop systematic methods of instruction that would yield predictable performance.
Laying the Foundations: Task Analysis and Learning Objectives
This need led to the development of task analysis, learning objectives, and step-by-step instructional methods. These early efforts laid the groundwork for a more formalized design process that would continue to evolve in the decades following the war.
Among those who helped shape the field was Robert Gagné, whose Nine Events of Instruction, developed later, provided a structured framework for supporting attention, retention, and learner performance. His work aligned with behaviorist thinking, particularly the belief that learning could be measured through observable outcomes and shaped by reinforcement.
Expanding the Field: Bloom, Glaser, and Mager
Post-war and into the 1950s and 1960s, other influential figures included Benjamin Bloom, whose Taxonomy of Educational Objectives offered a way to classify learning outcomes by cognitive complexity, and Robert Glaser, who advanced early thinking around learning and instruction, as well as individualized learning.
An additional figure, Robert Mager, played a key role in shaping how instructional goals were defined, introducing a systematic approach to writing clear, measurable learning objectives that linked directly to assessment and performance.
The Rise of Models: ADDIE and Scalable Instruction
By the 1960s and 1970s, instructional design had expanded into corporate training, government initiatives, and academic programs. The ADDIE model—Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate—emerged during this period, credited to work by the Florida State University Center for Educational Technology under a U.S. Army contract.
ADDIE offered a repeatable, systems-based process for building instructional materials and quickly became a dominant framework. Its structure allowed organizations to scale learning programs across regions and roles, particularly in sectors like healthcare, aviation, and education, where procedural knowledge and compliance mattered.
A Cognitive Shift: The 1980s and Beyond
The cognitive revolution of the 1980s brought refinements to instructional design. As cognitive psychology gained influence, designers began to consider how learners processed and organized information, not just how they behaved. This added depth to ID models without abandoning the structured approach. The goal remained the same: help learners reach defined outcomes as efficiently and reliably as possible.
Learning Experience Design: Digital Opportunity
While instructional design continued to serve traditional learning needs, cracks began to show, especially with the rise of eLearning in the 1990s and 2000s. Organizations started moving training online, often by simply uploading slide decks or turning lectures into videos. The results were underwhelming. Learners disengaged, and completion rates dropped. Despite investing in digital tools, many organizations found their training didn’t stick.
It became clear that something was missing: a deeper understanding of how people engage with digital content, and why they choose to continue learning in environments where no one is watching.
The Rise of UX Design in Learning
Enter the influence of user experience (UX) design, which had been reshaping technology, websites, and apps for years. UX professionals prioritized empathy, iteration, and simplicity. They researched users’ behaviors and pain points, tested prototypes, and designed with the end-user in mind from the very beginning.
Around this time, design thinking also began gaining ground, especially in Silicon Valley and innovation-focused education settings like Stanford’s d.school. This approach emphasized creativity, problem framing, prototyping, and—most importantly—starting with empathy for the user.
The Birth of Learning Experience Design (LXD)
Educators and instructional designers began borrowing these ideas, and Learning Experience Design (LXD) began to emerge as a distinct practice. It expanded beyond organization of content, but transitioned into crafting meaningful stories to help convey learning outcomes in a way that motivated people to reflect and apply what they’d learned.
Learning experience design emerged from within the broader evolution of instructional design, as digital learning environments began to expose the limitations of traditional, one-directional instruction. Rather than growing from centralized mandates, LXD took shape through practice, designers and educators applying principles from UX, design thinking, and learning theory to create more engaging, human-centered learning. It wasn’t a rejection of instructional design, but an expansion shaped by the demands of modern learners and the affordances of new technology.
What These Models Assume About Learners
Instructional design begins with goals. It defines what learners should know or do by the end of a course, and then builds backward to support that outcome. This approach works best when you can measure performance clearly. Systems support the learner by helping to guide, test, and reinforce behavior in a structured way.
LXD takes a different route. It begins not with outcomes, but with the people themselves—their backgrounds, emotions, motivations, and needs. The learning environment grows beyond a simple task, but becomes a complete experience to move through. Designers look for ways to create relevance and agency, using storytelling, interactivity, and reflection to keep learners engaged and emotionally present.
Instructional designers often define success by what the learner can demonstrate immediately after the learning. In learning experience design, success includes how they connect to the material, how they feel about their progress, and whether the experience stays with them long after it’s over.
The Theoretical Backbone
Instructional design has long relied on models grounded in behaviorist and cognitive psychology. Gagné’s Nine Events, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and the ADDIE model all support structured, measurable, and repeatable systems. They’re incredibly effective when you need order, like when you’re teaching someone how to follow safety protocols or use a new software tool.
LXD, by contrast, is shaped by theories that emphasize exploration, meaning-making, and motivation. Kolb’s experiential learning cycle encourages active experimentation. Design thinking brings in iterative testing and empathy-driven research. Self-Determination Theory, formulated by psychologists Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, suggests that learners thrive when they feel autonomous, competent, and connected. These frameworks align more naturally with environments where learners have choices and where their emotional investment makes all the difference.
The Right Approach
Instructional design gave the field of learning a strong foundation. It brought intentionality to the design of instruction, helping educators and organizations structure content around clear goals and measure whether those goals were achieved. That foundation continues to support much of the work being done today, especially in settings where consistency, efficiency, and accountability are essential.
Learning experience design extends that foundation. It grows from the same principles, but pushes further into how learning actually feels, what draws someone in, what makes something memorable, what inspires change. It reflects a broader view of what it means to learn, and a deeper understanding of the emotional and cognitive dimensions that shape that process.
Instructional Design and LXD: A Seamless Evolution
Rather than representing two different approaches, LXD builds on what instructional design began. The tools, models, and structures remain relevant, but they’re now being used in ways that better reflect the complexity of the modern learner. Where instructional design asks, what do we need to teach, learning experience design adds, how can we make this matter?
In practice, that shift allows learning designers to bring intention to both the structure and the experience. It’s no longer just about delivering information effectively, but about designing experiences that connect with learners and stay with them beyond the course of training. That kind of learning creates real possibilities for growth.
Bring Learning to Life with Apti LXD
In the world of learning, it’s no longer just about delivering information; it’s about crafting experiences that truly connect, inspire action, and stay with people long after the session ends. That’s the heart of Learning Experience Design.
If you’re ready to move beyond simply teaching and start designing learning that deeply matters and genuinely transforms performance, we’re here to help. Let’s talk about how Apti’s unique approach to LXD can bring your vision to life and create exceptional results, every time.
Reach out to us anytime to start a conversation about what’s next for your learning initiatives.