🙏Thank you to Kim for the opportunity to share this work with the learning design community.
In my conversation with Kim Tuohy from Belvista Studios, I walked through how I created “Echoes of Debate” (originally Healthy Debate Culture at Work), a portfolio piece on giving and receiving feedback. What we ended up discussing wasn’t just the learning module itself, but the thinking that shaped it.
1. Learning Is Emotional Before It Is Instructional
I anchor every learning experience in the participant’s real situation: what they feel, what creates tension, what they’re trying to resolve. When you start from emotional reality instead of a content list, the learning becomes meaningful and the behavior change becomes achievable.
2. Storytelling Is the Structure Behind Behavioral Change
Stories give people something to recognize, something to care about, and a reason to act differently. Especially in communication training, storytelling ist the learning design.
3. Visual Systems Are Cognitive Systems
Spacing, density, color, rhythm, navigation shape how people read, process, and make meaning. When visuals do instructional work, participants don’t waste cognitive energy on the interface. They stay focused on what matters. This is where LXD blends into UX and visual narrative.
What you’ve shown and demonstrated in your work so far is you are storytelling and you’re supporting your storytelling through visuals you are using. You to put the person in that first person decision making perspective and kind of giving or creating accountability for them in what they’re learning.
Kim Tuohy, belvista studios
I specialize in communication training and professional development, working with organizations that know learning experience design is more than nice slides, it’s about thoughtful, strategic design that supports real behavior change.
If you’re building communication capability in your organization and this approach resonates, let’s talk about what we could create together.
