Will Your Instructional Designer Be AI?

cyborgRecently, I read an article about using artificial intelligence (AI) for the instructional design of courses. Initially, that frightened me. First of all, it might mean less work for instructional designers – which I have both been and run a department working with them. Second, it’s hard for me to imagine AI making decisions on pedagogy better than a designer and faculty member.

Of course, using AI for that kind of design is probably limited (at least at first) to automating some tasks like uploading documents and updating calendars rather than creating lessons. Then again, I know that AI is being used to write articles for online and print publications, so it is certainly possible.

I read another article asking “Is Artificial Intelligence the Next Stepping Stone for Web Designers?” and, of course, my concerns are the same – lost jobs and bad design.

Certainly, we are already using AI in websites, particularly in e-commerce applications. But using AI to actually design a website is very different.

Some companies have started to use AI for web design. A user answers some questions to start a design: pick an industry or category (portfolio, restaurant, etc.), enter a business name, add a subtitle/slogan/brand, upload a logo, enter an address, hours of operation, and so on. The AI may offer you a choice of templates and then in a few clicks, the basics of the site are created.

This is an extension of the shift 20 years to template-driven web design. Now, it is based on machine learning techniques with human intervention at the initial stage by providing their desired information and probably again after the site is created to fine-tune.

In my own instructional design work over the years, we have used templates for course shells. Standardizing the way courses look is a good thing in many ways. It makes it easier to do rapid development. That was certainly the situation in spring 2020 as school scrambled to move all their face to face courses online. A standard look also makes it easier for students to move from course to course. 

Though every course should not be the same, the structure and components can generally be the same. This is also useful if you are trying to have courses comply with standards such as Quality Matters or ADA accessibility standards

I do a lot of web design these days and many popular companies, such as Squarespace, are using AI and machine learning to get ordinary users started. Does design still require some human intervention? Absolutely. Does the human need to be a “designer”?  Clearly, the goal is to allow anyone to do a good job of creating a website without a designer.

I think there is an overlap between web design and course design. Add AI to either and the process can be made more efficient. I also think that you need people involved. For web design, it's a client and designer. For course design, it's a faculty member(s) and an ID. In my own work, I still find many people need someone with experience and training to create the website, but they can oftentimes maintain it on their own if the updates are simple. For courses, most faculty need help to create but generally not only can "maintain" the course but have to because the IDs can't always be there during a semester.

AI will change many industries and web and instructional design are certainly on the list of those industries. 

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