Flip it and Reverse It

This week I took on the task of reverse engineering a branched scenario high level design document. There are a lot of instances where you might want to work backwards in order to explore how something was built or designed, and a branched scenario e-learning is one of them. Courses can be very complex, but reverse engineering them allows you the opportunity to break the process down and understand it. 

In a nutshell, reverse engineering is starting with a finished product, and recreating that product through detailed construction of each aspect of it. You're working backward, but it is a useful learning tool to understand how and why something was constructed the way it was. It also allows you to pay attention to small details in the design. Instructional designers can learn a lot from others work. Not only does it potentially give you new ideas, it can also introduce you to new concepts, patterns, and quality of work. Not everything is created from scratch, and there is something to be said about being able to analyze something and enhance what is already there. 

High-level design document

Key Takeaways

Though I previously had no experience critiquing a design document, or reverse engineering, I think I gained a lot from this experience. 

1. It helped put design in a different perspective, and it was incredibly beneficial for my understanding of the structure of a good e-learning to walk through it like this.

2. Learning from another instructional designer's work is an important way of using the resources available to me as a new member of the ID scene. It can also be an indicator of where the field itself is and what kinds of things others are doing, which can be good for continually expanding the field. I think this will be one of the keys to keeping up in the field.

3. This gave me the opportunity to gain insightful knowledge of one way a branching scenario can be structured. There were many creative elements to learn from, and the quality of video was inspiring.