CELab - Ep 125 - Julie Dirksen - Designing Learning for Behavior Change

Ever wonder how the minds behind world-class customer education programs construct the experiences that not only stick but also spur action? That's exactly what we’re talking about in this episode with instructional design virtuoso Julie Dirksen. Julie, David, and Adam navigate the transformative power of digital customer training - with Julie's insights, gleaned from her years of experience, and books including "Design for How People Learn" and "Talk to the Elephant." The episode peels back the layers on why industry giants like Walmart and Freshworks are betting big on modern, engaging learning platforms to foster customer retention and engagement.

Julie provides a treasure trove of strategies for fostering behavior change within customer education. We delve into the COM-B model and how it dissects behavior into capability, opportunity, and motivation, shaping the design of customer education programs. We also highlight the significance of collaboration between UX and customer education in system efficiency, sharing firsthand experiences from financial applications to healthcare environments.

Gear up for an episode that promises to enrich your understanding of instructional design and arm you with techniques to enhance learning experiences across the board.

About the Show

CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.

Listen in as we discuss:

Intro and background - Julie Dirksen
Julie's new book "Talk to the Elephant"
Balancing compliance and autonomy in education
Overcoming assumptions, understanding user barriers - long pants in the gym
Long pants in the gym story
COM-B model for customer education program design
UX design's critical role in system efficiency
Integrating UX and customer education for success
Making behaviors easy within environments
Defining behaviors, selecting appropriate granularity
Kathy Sierra's influence, using examples, user testing
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