Why create a High Level Design?

Hearing that you’ve got something wrong can be a horrible feeling. If you’re anything like me, your stomach sinks, your hands go clammy and you immediately start to do a mental audit trying to figure out just when and how you could possibly have made the mistake!

It would be great to avoid that feeling forever – but if you’re a designer, it’s going to happen at some point. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

So, what can you do to make it easier on everyone?

The most important piece of advice we can offer is to pick the timing.

It can be tempting to assume that the priority in the early stages of a project is to look like you’re perfect. Particularly if this is the first time you’re working with someone. It can be easy to think, They won’t trust me if I don’t get this right.

It’s not easy, but the best time to find out you’re wrong is before you start the detailed design (or worse, start building the learning solution).

This is why we begin all of our complex projects with a High Level Design, where we document our understanding of the project at a high level and lay all of our assumptions out on the table. For more on that document, go here.

The High Level Design will often reveal that we’ve misunderstood something – sometimes it’s something small, like the location of certain resources we’ll need to send the learner to during their training, but sometimes it’s big! During one project, the High Level Design revealed that the client request for a ‘video’ was actually a request for an eLearning module! From their perspective, an eLearn built in Articulate Storyline was simply a long, interactive video. We were really glad we figured that one out before starting!

• Some other ways we pick the timing include:
• We use Style Guides to make sure we’re on the same page about how the learning will look and feel
• We use prototypes for complicated projects to check in about the learner experience
• We share demo videos and showcases of our work, so that our clients can make sure it matches what they’re looking for

How do you pick the timing? Do you lay everything out on the table at the beginning or do you do something else as you go?