What does an instructional designer do when he or she is at work? He hobnobs with clients who may be life coaches, entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, owners of production units, real estate magnates, or banking professionals. He gets to read on and learn about a mindboggling array of subjects—self-development tactics, new software systems, fire safety, managing diseases and medical emergencies, flying an airplane, food packaging, and everything else under the sun. He shares office with creative graphic designers and illustrators who make scenes and people come alive with their images, wordsmiths who paint pictures with their words, and maverick programmers who bring together the words and the pictures to create exciting courses. He looks for inspiration in movies, video games, books, and toys. There's never a dull moment at work for the instructional designer. And he gets paid to have the fun!

Let's make a memory exercise and remember biology class. What is a cell? The cell is the basic unit of every living being whether human, animal or plant. We could say that the cell is the beginning of life.

The brain is a complicated machine, capable of creating extraordinary works of art, solving complex problems, and feeling the deepest of emotions. At the same time, our brains function on a daily basis taking on more mundane and routine tasks that are just as important as building bridges or writing books.

The current era is often referred to as the Age of Information; however, it could just as easily be called the Age of Distraction or the Age of Interruption as, although humanity has never in its history been entirely distraction free, distractions have never been more rampant as they are today. Different forms of information are constantly battling for attention causing continuous partial attention to become commonplace. Thomas Friedman stated in 2006 “All we do now is interrupt each other or ourselves with instant messages, e-mail, spam or cellphone rings.”

Instructional design is not a one-person assignment limited to a single task. There are multiple disciplines involved in it, with the instructional designer assuming a series of roles to complete the job. This idea was presented in the paper, The roles of design: a new method of instructional design. In this document, authors provide designers with a series of viewpoints to consider throughout the development process.

As eLearning professionals, we are constantly trying to figure out different ways to engage learners and challenge their understanding. We create attractive images, include games, quizzes, and develop different types of interactive activities in the hopes that most learners become interested in the material, but our job doesn’t stop there.

Any professional eLearning designer would agree that users are always at the heart of what they do. The bulk of our articles last year focused on users. But what about designers themselves? Who are they? What impressive feats do they perform? What skills do they possess? How crucial is their role in developing educational materials for a new generation of learners? Let’s not forget about these oft-overlooked professionals who help make eLearning possible, personal, effective and immediately applicable.

Effective eLearning, or learning itself, is a process. It’s made of stages and a set of interrelated principles, all of which completes the learning process. This means you can’t skip a stage or miss a principle if you want learners to make the most out of your content. When they're properly applied in a course, student learning increases.