A Claude skill for instructional designers and L&D practitioners.
This skill gives Claude working knowledge of the full ID process — from deciding whether training is the right solution to publishing a SCORM package to your LMS. It covers real practice, not just theory: the kind of work a solo ID is expected to own end-to-end.
Articulate Storyline 360 and Rise 360 guidance is integrated throughout, not isolated in a separate tools section.
instructional-design/
├── SKILL.md # The skill — add this to Claude
├── README.md
└── LICENSE
Custom instructions or system prompt:
- Open
SKILL.mdand copy the contents - Paste into your LLM's custom instructions or system prompt field
- Claude will apply it automatically when you ask ID-related questions
Works with Claude (web, desktop, API), and any LLM that accepts system prompts.
Ten sections, each grounded in how ID work actually runs:
- Problem framing — Is training the right solution? Do this before writing a single objective.
- Course design methodology — ADDIE, SAM, Learning Experience Design (LXD)
- Learning objectives — Bloom's Taxonomy with verb table, ABCD format, alignment rules
- Learner engagement — Branching scenarios, hotspots, lightboxes, design for low-motivation audiences
- Assessment design — Formative vs. summative, distractors, scenario-based questions
- Content sequencing — Cognitive load, chunking, scenario-first structuring, storyboarding
- SME and stakeholder workflow — Interview guides, feedback management, sign-off checkpoints
- LMS and SCORM/xAPI publishing — SCORM 1.2 vs. 2004 vs. xAPI vs. cmi5, Articulate publishing, SCORM Cloud testing
- Measurement and evaluation — Kirkpatrick four levels, evaluation plan structure
- Rapid development realities — Fidelity tradeoffs, scope decisions under pressure, minimum viable course checklist
Prompt:
I need to build a compliance training course on data privacy for new employees. About 200 new hires a year, spread across departments, and most of them are going to treat this as a checkbox. Our LMS is Docebo. Where do I start?
Response (with skill):
Before opening any authoring tool, you need to answer three questions:
- What specifically do employees need to be able to do? Not "understand data privacy" — think in terms of decisions they will actually face on the job.
- What does getting it wrong look like? Ask your compliance team what mistakes actually happen. Those are your scenarios.
- What is the risk if someone gets it wrong? This determines how much fidelity the course needs.
Here is a starter needs analysis based on what you described:
Project: Data Privacy Compliance — New Employee Onboarding
Performance gap: New employees are not consistently applying data privacy
practices from day one.
Root cause: Knowledge gap. Employees do not yet know what the policy requires
or how it applies to their role.
Training recommended: Yes — but training alone will not prevent all incidents.
Clear policies, accessible job aids, and manager reinforcement matter too.
Motivation level: Low. Engagement must be designed in.
Success looks like: Employees can identify personal data, make correct handling
decisions, and know how to report a suspected breach. At 90 days, fewer
privacy-related incidents from new hires than baseline.
LMS: Docebo — supports SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, and xAPI with a built-in LRS.
From here, the skill walks through scope decisions, learning objectives at the Apply and Analyze levels of Bloom's, design strategies for checkbox audiences (open with a scenario, not objectives), authoring tool selection for Docebo, SCORM vs. xAPI tradeoffs, and a pre-launch SCORM Cloud testing step.
MIT. Use freely, share widely.
Joel Kohlman — instructional designer and e-learning developer.