Instructional Design Document

For my 601 Instructional Design class, over the course of the semester we created an Instructional Design Document. An instructional design document (sometimes abbreviated as IDD), is a document that describes what is needed to create a learning intervention. An IDD is a blueprint for a learning intervention such as a class, eLearning module, webinar, etc. An IDD is the product of the instructional design process.

For my IDD, I chose a learning objective based on a challenge at work. Using this document’s process, I broke down the cause of the issue, and an implementation plan to resolve the objective.

Organizational Need:

Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform that automates SMS and email marketing to help businesses acquire, retain and grow their customers. Klaviyo needs customers to learn how to complete tasks via the knowledge base/help doc, rather than asking Klaviyo Support for most questions, as this causes customer frustration if there is a delay in getting an answer and the zendesk question queue is in backlog. In order to obtain this goal, Klaviyo learning designers will create ‘better’ help docs that answer specific questions, show videos of how to do this in the software, and advertise the help doc to their customers more. 


The learners here are the Customer Education team - so tech writers and their designers. The customer education team will find what customer questions they should make trainings on, how to make them in the most effective manner so customers really learn from the training or document, and then advertise the resources to customers so they will be found and utilized. The customer education team will utilize zendesk and our Community Forum to find out what questions the customers are asking. The customer education team will do this in their home offices. 



Instructional Goal:

The Customer Education team needs to be able to find common questions in the zendesk database and write useful resource documents for the customer knowledge base.


Performance Environment:

This goal will be performed in the customer education teams’ respective home offices. 


Project Constraints:

The resolution is dependent on the customer utilizing the revamped knowledge base, which we cannot control. We can only make the resource easier to find with more helpful instructions to help aid this. 


Goal Analysis: 

1. In Zendesk, find the most tagged questions

2. Read through these tickets and in a spreadsheet, log the most common questions/friction points.

3. Research how to resolve these questions.

4. Research how to answer these the most helpful way

5. Using the research, write more help docs on most commonly asked questions.

6. Advertise the help docs more




Learner Analysis:

Learner Personas:

Tech Writer Tessy: Tessy has been at Klaviyo for 3 years and is 28 years old. She started in customer support and then advanced to become a tech writer. She majored in English in college, she’s a great writer. She writes how-to help docs on how to achieve different goals within Klaviyo. She is noticing her articles are not getting high engagement, while the Support Queue has a backlog of over 1000 tickets. She is swamped throughout the day as she is the only tech writer for 3 different parts of the tool. After work, she is completing a certificate at General Assembly in html/css in order to better understand the technical side of the tool. Her motivation is to have high preforming help docs, so her resources are utilized and some questions are taken off of the support team. She’s hoping this will land her a senior position. 


Communication Designer Cullen: Cullen has been at Klaviyo for only 6 months and is 26 years old. Previously, he was a graphic designer at an agency but included some product design/research in his portfolio, hence landing the communication designer role. He creates aesthetically pleasing and easy to read graphics for the help docs, but isn’t sure his designs are actually teaching people. He is the only designer on the customer education team so he has to work fast and can’t devote enough time to researching. Cullen is hoping to eventually become the lead designer of the customer education team, and have some junior designers below him so he can focus more on the research of the designs and gain some managerial experience. 


Task analysis:

1. In Zendesk, find the most tagged questions
a. Login to Zendesk
b. Search for the most tagged questions
i. Know what makes a question tagged (or how the tags are created)
Ii.  Know the procedure for searching for tagged questions 

2. Read through these tickets and in a spreadsheet, log the most common questions/friction points. <no additional steps needed> 

3. Research how to resolve these questions.
a. Research in external help docs for answers
b. Ask internal subject matter experts on the specific part of the tool, via Slack or email
C. Research internal wiki guides for answers
 

4. Research how to answer these the most helpful way
a. Know which types of questions are best answered by:
i. Screencast/loom videos
ii. Step-by-step procedure
iii. Answers in plain English 

5. Using the research, write more help docs on most commonly asked questions.
A. Take research and research method (videos, step by step, plain english etc) and add the content into the help doc wordpress website
I. Peer review - have other customer education specialists read the unpublished doc in order to critique and spell check
B. Publish the doc to be public facing

6.  Advertise the help docs more
A. Write about the docs in the monthly newsletter sent to customers
B. Post about on Klaviyo’s social medias
C. Post about the new Help Docs on Klaviyo’s Community Threads (public forum site for questions) 



Prerequisite knowledge and skills:

Klaviyo Customer Education team needs to be able to find common questions in the zendesk database and write useful resource documents for the customer knowledge base. Zendesk is how customers submit customer support questions. Zendesk is a ticketing database.

Customers email Klaviyo Support and Zendesk tags their emails based on what part of the tool the question is on (ie: email design, SMS, CRM, etc). 



Performance objectives:

  1. The Customer Education team will be able to find the most tagged customer questions in Zendesk through searching in Zendesk under the Analytics portion, evaluating the graph chart for which similar tagged questions are most frequently asked (20+ times). 

  2. Given a tool category and evaluation purpose, the Customer Education team will be able to use a search engine such as Google or an internal search engine such as The Wiki, to find answers to the commonly asked questions.

  3. Given evaluation criteria, the Customer Education team will be able to write help docs with answers to these questions with the same format as previously posted help docs but improved, by including videos and plain english.

  4. Learners will research where to properly advertise the newly published help docs


Learning objectives:

  1. The Customer Education team will be able to find the most tagged customer questions in Zendesk through searching in Zendesk under the Analytics portion, evaluating the graph chart for which similar tagged questions are most frequently asked (20+ times).
    A. Learners will be able to find the Zendesk Analytics section
    B. Learners will be able to evaluate the bar graph representing the most tagged questions and determine what the top questions are

  2. Given a tool category and evaluation purpose, the Customer Education team will be able to use a search engine such as Google or an internal search engine such as The Wiki, to find answers to the commonly asked questions.
    A. Learners will be able to navigate Search engines - know where to find them, and how to search in them
    B. Learners will be able to discern what information is valuable for the new help docs and what information is not

  3. Given evaluation criteria, the Customer Education team will be able to write help docs with answers to these questions with the same format as previously posted help docs but improved, by including videos and plain english.
    A. Learners will be able to locate previously posted help docs
    B. Learners will be able to Associate and Characterize the repeated format of the previous docs (headings, vernacular, etc).
    C. Learners will be able to cultivate and organize more impactful help docs by including content the previous help docs are missing - videos and easy to understand language 

  4. Learners will research where to properly advertise the newly published help docs
    A. Learners will be able to find which advertising channel gets more engagement - monthly newsletters, social media, or community posts
    B. Learners will be able to view channel’s engagement metrics
    C.  Learners will be able to choose which advertising strategy will be most effective based on the target audience and content
     



Learner assessment:

Objective

Assessment Strategy

The Customer Education team will be able to find the most tagged customer questions in Zendesk through searching in Zendesk under the Analytics portion, evaluating the graph chart for which similar tagged questions are most frequently asked (20+ times). 

Assignment - learners will submit a formal report to their managers including the most tagged customer questions within Zendesk. 

Given a tool category and evaluation purpose, the Customer Education team will be able to use a search engine such as Google or an internal search engine such as The Wiki, to find answers to the commonly asked questions.


Assignment - learners will create and submit a document outlining the questions and their technical answers/directions. 

Given evaluation criteria, the Customer Education team will be able to write help docs with answers to these questions with the same format as previously posted help docs but improved, by including videos and plain english.

Formative Assessment -  learners will submit the newly improved help documents to the customer education publishing team. If the documents meet the best practice measure, they will be posted.

Learners will research where to properly advertise the newly published help docs

Quiz - ​​ learners will be given several different tool categories and

evaluate purpose options and will be expected to determine which advertising method will be the most successful. 



Delivery strategy:

Since learners are remotely working in different areas of the country, the course will be offered online with both synchronous and asynchronous portions. Learners are not homogenous, they are from different places. This course will use social constructivism since the learning objectives rely heavily on the context of the situation - the specificity of the Customer Education team for the specific software. The context is giving meaning. In addition, the course will use some problem-based learning activities. 


In order to give students an opportunity to converse with one another about the evaluation

criteria, students will work in small groups, dividing different portions of the tool to research questions and answers for, for each group.


Maximum class size is 20 students, with minimum class size of 4 students.

Learners have access to a computer (laptop or desktop) and their own smart mobile device – smart phone or tablet, if they need to mobile test anything. Learners will also have high speed internet, since the company pays employees a wifi stipend per month to ensure internet connection is good. 


The course instructor will have experience teaching learning technologies and coaching adult

learners through learning new technologies.

Content outline:

Module 1: EFFECTIVE ANALYZING
After completing this module, learners will be able to:


  • Identify the Zendesk Analytics section

  • Find the bar graph representing the most tagged questions

  • Evaluate the bar graph representing the most tagged questions

  • Tally which are the most tagged questions 

  • Determine what the top questions are

  • Search tagged questions results by date to determine relevance 


Module 2: EFFECTIVE ANSWER SEARCHING
After completing this module, learners will be able to:


  • Use a search engine such as Google or an internal search engine such as The Wiki, to find answers to the commonly asked questions

  • Identify good search terms

  • Search using the AND operator

  • Search using the OR operator

  •  Broaden the terms to find additional results

  • Evaluate search results

  • Follow the evaluation criteria in a systematic way.


Module 3: CONTENT WRITING
After completing this module, learners will be able to:


  • Identify information that is and is not required in the help doc

  • Create screen sharing instructional videos of the question at hand, in the help doc

  • Identify and use plain english (non technical) verbiage for the help docs 

  • Identify strategies to keep the help doc short and easy to create


Course materials:

As part of the course development, the following course materials will be created:


  •  Google Slides Presentation, demonstrating finding Zendesk Analytics, and the graph showing most tagged

  • Asynchronous learner activity for each module, researching.

  • Synchronous learner activity for each module, comparing research.

  • One assignment to prepare for the quiz on advertising methods

  • A rubric with examples of high grades for the quiz

  •  Instructors guide of how to prepare and show the information



Implementation plan:

First, the trainer of the program will be trained by giving them the presentation and materials, as if they were a student. Any questions they may have will be answered. Once they feel they understand the materials and all questions have been answered, they will be sent all the materials. 

Then the trainer will conduct the training over Zoom in synchronous meetings followed by the learners asynchronous work done. 


Evaluation plan:

I am looking to see if this course applies to and improves their everyday role and responsibilities. During the course, formative evaluation survey questions (google forms) will be emailed with materials, asking the learners if the content they are learning is relevant to their everyday duties. There will be open ended sections where learners can short answer any suggestions or comments. 


One month after the completion of the course, the learners will  receive a summative evaluation via a google form, asking for feedback on the instructor, and how the course content applied to help revamp the help docs, now in the performance environment. 


Evaluation Tools: 


Link to survey sent in email, formative (figurative for the paper, not an actual survey link). 


Link to survey sent one month after course completion, summative (figurative for the paper, not an actual survey link).