Consistently Designing

Instructional designers (IDs) are, by necessity, a creative breed. As a result, like many other folks of an artistic nature--we often have our idiosyncrasies. My personal curse is an obsession with consistency.

My background is in school district public relations, and the district I worked for was a leader in the field. One major factor of our success was very strict adherence to the department's style guide. Documents were checked and double-checked before publication and distribution, to ensure that they conformed to the guide; a veritable tome containing the carious rules and regulations that governed the creation of district communications.

Evidently, old habits really do die hard.

I've found it difficult, but critical, to accept that in the field of instructional design, it is often necessary to modify my stringency regarding consistency. Oh, don't get me wrong--the organization I work for has a style guide, and we do follow it. We use standardized templates for our courses; there are required formats for the various components that go into a course, and we use established color schemes and so on.

For me the challenge comes not so much from those mechanical issues, but from the fact that I'm creating material for a global audience, and no longer for a local one. The subject matter experts who write our courses come from all corners of the Earth--from Holland to England to the Middle East. As such, it is the practice of our organization to preserve the geographical flavor of each writer's background. This means that, one week, I'm spelling "organization" with an "s", and the next week with a "z". It means that one day "financials" is visually represented with a dollar sign, and the next day with the euro. In some cases we even mix these in a single course. Occasionally, regarding topics such as sustainability, I find myself touting the merits of a socialistic United Nations program; where the day before I was waving Old Glory for American industrial achievements and trusty capitalism.

Variety, though, is the spice of life. So, instead of choking myself on the cayenne pepper of inconsistency in my courses; I relish the saffron goodness that is the freedom I have to creatively help people learn to succeed in their chosen professions.

One idiosyncrasy down...10,000 to go...