Time is one of the most powerful tools in learning design. Adding even a few extra minutes at the design stage helps balance the learner journey, avoids costly revisions, and ensures every activity adds value. For professional, time-poor learners, clear durations make it easier to plan study and stay engaged. For employers, it demonstrates that training time is being invested wisely. By setting and agreeing durations early, you improve stakeholder confidence, prevent overproduction and protect learner motivation. The result is a more efficient process and a stronger, more impactful learning experience.

The ASSURE model remains a valuable framework for instructional and learning designers. When combined with Coursensu’s structured, visual approach to storyboarding, it provides a clear, collaborative path to better course design. By analysing learners, setting clear objectives, selecting and utilising media effectively, designing for participation and building evaluation into your workflow, you can deliver learner-focused courses that meet outcomes and exceed expectations. Most importantly, treating this as a cycle allows you to improve continuously, get stakeholder input earlier, and avoid waiting for learners to discover issues that could have been addressed at the design stage.

Prompting is a core skill for modern learning designers. The clearer your request, the better the AI will perform. Define your outcome, specify the output format, add detail and context, provide examples and iterate if needed. AI tools work best when we treat them as collaborators. Everyone’s use of AI will vary, and there is no one perfect way to prompt. What matters is that you refine your approach over time, keep learning and focus on making the output genuinely useful for your work and your learners.