5 Best Books for Instructional Designers
If you’re an instructional designer, eLearning developer or interactive video designer, you need to constantly learn to stay ahead of the curve. And there’s no better way to do that than reading books.
Here are 5 must-read books to help you boost your career. These books aren’t about learning theory, ADDIE, SAM, or traditional methodologies. Instead, these books explore the underlying principles of performance, design, visual art forms, project management, and the power of story.
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List of Best Books for eLearning and Interactive Video Designers
Each of these books has a unique perspective as described below. Read on to find out which books best fit your current career needs:
Map It (By Cathy Moore)
The Non-Designers Design Book (by Robin Williams)
Understanding Comics (by Scott McCloud)
The eLearning Designer’s Handbook (by Tim Slade)
Resonate (by Nancy Duarte)
Best Book for eLearning and Instructional Design
Map It by Cathy Moore is one of the best books for eLearning and instructional design. This book will help you ensure your work has a meaningful business impact, which is really critical in today’s economy. This book is extremely important for eLearning developers and instructional designers for the following reasons:
When I first read Map It, it totally blew my mind. This book had a huge impact on me as a freelance eLearning developer and later as an interactive video designer.
This book will help you make sure your work has a meaningful business impact. Instructional designers and eLearning developers need to be able to show how their work contributes to the bottom line.
This is especially important for eLearning developers - because you know that eLearning often gets a bad reputation for being a click-next information dump followed by a quiz.
What I love about Cathy Moore’s book is that she came up with a fundamentally different approach that actually works. This book shows you how to use a process called Action Mapping to meet true business needs. You identify what people need to do, why they aren’t doing it, and then you develop activities to specifically target problem areas.
When I first read Map It, it totally blew my mind. This book had a huge impact on my career as a freelance eLearning developer and later as an Interactive Video designer. It showed me a new way to work with clients, stakeholders, and SMEs, that was less like an order-taker and more like a performance consultant. If you’re feeling frustrated with your job as an elearning developer or interactive video designer, I’d highly recommend Map It.
Best Book for eLearning Design and Visual Communication
One of the best books for eLearning design and visual communication is The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams. This is another book that had a huge impact on me when I started my career. If you’re looking for a quick way to get up to speed on design, this is the book for you. Here’s why:
The problem with eLearning is no one warns you that in addition to mastering tools like Articulate Storyline, you also need to gain expertise in graphic design and visual communication. This book is perfect because it teaches you basic visual design principles like proximity, alignment, repetition, and contrast through real-life examples.
Robin packed a lot of illustrations into this book so you can see for yourself what does and doesn’t work. She also shows you how to work with color and fonts, and how to think like a designer, which is extremely important when creating online media. If you’re looking for a quick way to get up to speed on design, check out the Non-Designer’s Design Book.
Best Book for Creativity and the Visual Art of Storytelling
One of my favorite books on creativity and the visual art of storytelling is Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Scott is a New York Times best selling author, and since he’s also a comic book artist, he wrote and illustrated this book in comic book format. It’s a very entertaining read and here’s why it applies to eLearning and instructional designers:
This book actually covers a huge range of topics that are applicable to eLearning and interactive video development, like story, sequence, timing, and style. He talks about how to use white space, or the space between panels to imply action, which stimulates the reader’s imagination. And he explores the relationship between text and graphics, which is so important when creating eLearning and interactive videos.
So if you’re looking for a book that will stretch your creativity, while giving you a deeper appreciation of storytelling and visual communication, definitely check out Understanding Comics.
Best Book for eLearning Project Management
One of the best books for eLearning Project Management is The eLearning Designer’s Handbook by Tim Slade. I was introduced to this book early in my career and it really helped me understand the eLearning development process. Tim just released a second edition that has even more tools and templates. Here are some of the valuable insights you’ll get from this book:
What I love about this book is that it’s a handbook, not a textbook. Tim answers frequently asked questions, provides real-world examples, and explains some of those acronyms that commonly get thrown around. The book guides you through the whole development process, from kickoff meeting and needs analysis, through storyboarding and development, and then to testing and rollout.
Strong project management skills are critical for your success no matter what product you’re creating. Whether you’re designing eLearning or interactive videos, this book will give you a framework for the development process.
I’d especially recommend The eLearning Designer’s Handbook for those of you who are new to the industry.
Best Book for Digital Storytelling
Resonate by Nancy Duarte is one of the best ways to explore digital storytelling. Resonate is about the power of story and how it can be used to engage the audience. Nancy researched the story structure found in literature, film, and famous speeches like Martin Luther King Junior’s I have a Dream speech as she wrote this book. This book is revolutionary for several reasons:
As you go through Resonate, you’ll learn about the Hero’s Journey, and the importance of casting your audience as the hero, and yourself as the mentor. You’ll learn about a new tool called Sparkline which can be used to analyze presentations. The insights from this book will build your storytelling skills, which is so important for effective eLearning and interactive video design.
As a best selling author, Nancy could easily have sold this book through traditional channels, just like all of her other books. However, she decided to give the online version away for free so it could have maximum impact. The online version is available at https://www.duarte.com/presentation-skills-resources/free-multimedia-version-of-resonate/
Now it’s Your Turn!
What are some of your favorite books for eLearning and Instructional Design?
Let me know in the comments below!