Instructional design / eLearning / Learning video

Instructional Designer & Learning Experience Designer

I design learning and build it: Storyline, Rise, video and job aids.

At Carvana I ran a 9-person learning studio, 6 instructional designers and 3 media producers, shipping a complete course every two weeks: 150+ in all.

Most of my courses were for leaders and managers at a 30,000+ person company.

  • Storyline 360
  • Rise 360
  • After Effects
  • Illustrator
  • Photoshop
  • Word
See the flagship Contact me
Discover Carvana: a Storyline game board of Carvana buildings joined by a path of spaces, with a game token at Start and a coin bank.
Discover Carvana, course 4 of the onboarding program. Built in Storyline. Try it
Flagship program · Carvana · 2021–22

Onboarding New Hire Program

Five courses, one narrator, every new hire.

Audience
Every new hire, company-wide.
My role
Led the program as project manager and instructional designer. Built the Storyline courses and animated the narrator in After Effects.
Format
Self-paced eLearning: 3 Rise courses, 2 Storyline courses
Tools
  • Storyline 360
  • Rise 360
  • After Effects
  • Illustrator
  • Photoshop
  • Word
  1. Rise

    Welcome to Carvana

    The company and the customer experience

  2. Rise + Storyline

    Who We Are and What We Believe

    Leaders, values and Leadership Principles

  3. Storyline

    The Carvana Story

    Company history as a ten-stop timeline

    Try it
  4. Storyline

    Discover Carvana

    The business, team by team, as a board game

    Try it
  5. Rise

    Getting Involved

    Groups and ways to connect

The problem

Replace the first version of new-hire training with one journey through Carvana’s story, values and teams, built to scale with hiring.

Design decisions

  1. One guide, Charlie, narrates all five courses, so they play as one journey rather than five modules.
  2. Rise for read-and-watch content that works on any device. Storyline only where a game earned its build time.
  3. History as a road trip: ten timeline stops, each adding a level to a car vending machine that doubles as the progress meter.
  4. The business as a game board: each space is a Carvana fact, coins go in a coin bank, and a short knowledge check closes it out.
  5. Shared isometric art across courses 3 and 4, so the two Storyline builds look like one world.
  6. Closed captions on both Storyline courses.

Result

Rolled out company-wide to new hires.

Walkthrough: The Carvana Story and Discover Carvana0:49 · silent, with on-screen descriptions
What the clip shows
  1. Course 3, The Carvana Story. Ten stops on a timeline, from 2012 to 2021.
  2. The learner opens the first stop: 2012, Carvana beginnings.
  3. Each stop adds a level to the car vending machine on the left.
  4. Closing the card returns to the timeline, with three stops visited.
  5. Course 4, Discover Carvana. A game board of Carvana locations and teams.
  6. The learner moves the game token one space at a time. Each space shows a Carvana fact.
  7. Facts can earn coins for the coin bank, used in the knowledge check at the end.

Live demos: the real course, running in your browser.

Try The Carvana Story Try Discover Carvana
Leaders and managers · Carvana · 2021

Coaching 101

Diagnose a development moment before you have one for real.

Audience
Leaders and managers.
My role
Designed and built it in Storyline; animated the five scenarios.
Format
Self-paced eLearning, Storyline
Tools
  • Storyline 360
  • After Effects
  • Illustrator

The problem

Leaders mixed up feedback and coaching, and rarely practised spotting which one a moment called for.

Design decisions

  1. Five animated scenarios from across departments, 32 to 41 seconds each, instead of live action: no crew, a consistent cast, easy to update.
  2. After each scenario the learner names the development need, feedback or coaching, a hard skill or a soft skill, and gets the reasoning back at once.
  3. The learner picks the order of the scenarios; all five must be done before moving on.
  4. Flip cards contrast leading with feedback and leading with coaching; a drag-and-drop sort practises hard and soft skills.

Result

Rolled out company-wide.

Walkthrough: a Coaching 101 scenario0:55 · silent, with on-screen descriptions
What the clip shows
  1. Coaching 101. Five animated scenarios from across departments.
  2. The learner picks scenario 1.
  3. The scenario plays: a team member at work. (Its sound is in the live demo.)
  4. Then the learner names the development need: feedback or coaching, a hard skill or a soft skill.
  5. Feedback explains the answer: a soft skill, communication.

Live demo: the real course, running in your browser.

Try Coaching 101
All employees · Carvana · 2020, revised 2021

Feedback Culture Series

Four short episodes and a one-page guide.

Audience
All employees, company-wide.
My role
Produced the four video episodes and presented them on camera; built the Rise course and the Quick Reference Guide.
Format
Video series in Rise, with a printable job aid
Tools
  • Rise 360
  • Storyline 360
  • After Effects
  • Illustrator

The problem

Make feedback a habit at every level, with one shared way to give it and receive it.

Design decisions

  1. Four short episodes, 2 to 5½ minutes, instead of one long module.
  2. Practice after each episode: a branching scenario and flashcards to rehearse the tips.
  3. A one-page Quick Reference Guide to keep at hand after the course.
  4. Caption files for every episode.
  5. Next steps for leaders: related courses in the Workday Learning LMS.

Result

Rolled out company-wide; revised in February 2021.

Episode excerpt: the series introduction, presented by me1:19 · with sound and captions
Transcript

Welcome to our series on feedback! In this series, we're going to be sharing some tips for productive and effective feedback delivery, as well as tips for receiving and being open to feedback. Before we dive in, let's talk about why we believe feedback is an incredibly important part of our work environment and company culture at Carvana. Just to show you how important feedback is.

A Gallup survey showed that 43% of highly engaged employees received feedback at least once a week, compared to only 18% of employees with low engagement. In fact, four out of ten workers are actively disengaged when they get little to no feedback. Oftentimes, when we hear the word feedback, we think about negative or constructive feedback. We may even think back to previous annual performance reviews and the sinking feeling of finding out you have room for improvement or you've made a mistake.

Feedback can be positive, too, and should always encourage us to grow, improve and develop personally and professionally. Without feedback none of us would be where we are today. When we talk about feedback, we're not just talking about manager to employee feedback or a formal review process. We believe in anyone, to anyone feedback that is ongoing.

We're all in this together.

Market Ops team leads · Carvana · 2021

Building Trust with Your Team

A blended module for TLIT (Team Lead in Training), the program I built from the ground up.

Audience
Market Ops team leads in training.
My role
Designed the blended flow; built the course, the pre-work and the worksheet.
Format
Blended: pre-work, Rise course, worksheet
Tools
  • Rise 360
  • Storyline 360
  • Illustrator
  • Photoshop
  • Word
  • SurveyMonkey

  1. Pre-work

    A private 15-question trust self-assessment, scored into four bands

  2. Rise course

    Eight short lessons, with Storyline blocks for the interactions

  3. Worksheet

    Reflection, SMART goals and activities to run with the team

The problem

New team leads in a fast-growing operation had to earn trust quickly, and repair it when it broke.

Design decisions

  1. A private self-assessment first (“you won’t be sharing your scores with anyone else”), so answers stay honest.
  2. One repair model to remember, the 4 A’s: Acknowledge, Accept accountability, Adapt, Adhere.
  3. Storyline blocks inside Rise for a scenario knowledge check on the 4 A’s.
  4. A worksheet to finish with: turn the course into goals and activities with their own team.

Result

Part of TLIT, the team-lead program I built from the ground up.

Walkthrough: Building Trust with Your Team0:39 · silent, with on-screen descriptions
What the clip shows
  1. Building Trust With Your Team: eight short lessons in Rise, after a private self-assessment as pre-work.
  2. Lessons pair short reading with interactions built as Storyline blocks inside Rise.
  3. Rebuilding trust follows the 4 A's: Acknowledge, Accept accountability, Adapt, Adhere.
  4. A scenario knowledge check applies the 4 A's.
  5. It closes with a worksheet: reflection, SMART goals and activities to run with the team.
Range

What I build

Built for every learner: captions on video and Storyline courses, and plain language for people whose first language isn’t English.

Track record

Where I did it

  1. Project Manager, Learning Experience

    Carvana · Jan 2021 – Jan 2022

    Trained a 13-person cross-functional team on Agile and ran its sprints: 234 learning projects in a 12-month year, for 30,000+ employees.

  2. Team Leader, Onboarding

    Carvana · Jan – Aug 2022

    Led 6 direct reports in building the Onboarding Portal that guides new hires through their first 90 days, and two company-wide knowledge bases.

  3. Multimedia Producer to Senior Multimedia Producer

    Carvana · Aug 2018 – Jan 2021

    First hire on the Leadership Development team. Built TLIT (Team Lead in Training) from the ground up and supported the Workday Learning LMS rollout to 5,000+ employees. Learned 2D animation in two months to keep company communications shipping through COVID-19 lockdowns.

Get in touch

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