Did you ever wonder what it would be like if instructional designers ran the world? Imagine the contributions instructional designers would make to society if they were in charge. In fact, imagine if training in Instructional Design were a prerequisite for any executive, legislative or leadership position.

Ah, what a wonderful world it would be.

IF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNERS RAN THE WORLD…

All highway and road signs would make sense.

Signs would be written and rewritten until they were the epitome of perfection. Road signs would never confuse the reader nor have multiple meanings. Signs like the one below would be immediately removed.

Everyone would know their objectives.



Enough of this silliness. We can’t have people running around not sure of their goals and objectives. If instructional designers ran the world, things would run smoothly because the analysis and identification of personal objectives would be a prerequisite for doing anything. Many people would probably just stay in bed.

Every device would have an instructional diagram on its surface.



You can never have too many opportunities to learn. After writing all those courses, don’t you kind of wonder how everything works? If we had our say, there would be a simple schematic diagram on every device and machine. Then we’d all have a better understanding of the world.

There would be job aids for every life situation.

Who says life doesn’t come with an instruction manual? We can at least try. Wouldn’t you love job aids for parenting, relationships, and all those sticky work situations? I can just imagine all those wonderful decision charts now.

We wouldn’t let statistics lie; it’s not instructionally appropriate.



When your job involves communicating information that is accurate and realistic, stretching the facts just won’t do. We prefer to design learning experiences with creativity, but lying with statistics is not an acceptable treatment. This would be in violation of the ID Code.

We would outlaw multimedia incompatibility issues.

Forget worrying about MOV, FLV, MPEG-4 and A4V video formats. If instructional designers ran the world, all multimedia incompatibilities would be legal violations. There would be only one streamlined video format and one audio format. In addition, when you moved files between the Mac and PC, nothing would shift or change. This would be strongly enforced.

When your kids misbehave, they would be required to get online attitudinal training.

Let’s not forget the importance of attitudinal training. It has the potential for changing minds and behaviors by speaking to the emotions. Why should parents have to repeat themselves until they’re exhausted? Just send your kids to the online attitudinal training center!

We would replace “There’s an app for that.” with, “There’s a course for that.”

There would be so many opportunities for structured, unstructured, formal and informal online learning, that Apple would need to change its slogan.