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SALIHUYAHAYA

Framework / mental model

Learning Experience Design Gap Framework

How to avoid letting familiar tools and formats drive learning design, by starting with the performance learners need.

  • Salihu Yahaya
  • 5 October 2026
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The “Don’t Start With the Format” Principle is a framework I came up with during the process of reflecting on Episode 52.

I came to the realisation that, in learning experience design, performance determines knowledge → knowledge determines practice → practice determines instruction. Because if I choose the format first, I risk designing an experience around the medium rather than around the performance.

And so, a central idea for me would be: “Design backwards from what learners must actually do, rather than forward from the instructional format I happen to know how to create.”

Hence, before opening Canva, Storyline, PowerPoint, or my video editor, I will ask these four questions.

Slide titled "Learning Experience Design Gap Framework". A banner reads: "Performance determines knowledge, knowledge determines practice, practice determines instruction." Below it, two linked headings, Knowledge Gap and Practice Gap, each branch into two numbered steps. Under Knowledge Gap: Performance requirement: what must they be able to do? Knowledge requirement: what kind of knowledge supports that performance? Under Practice Gap: Practice requirement: what kind of practice will develop that capability? Instructional approach: what instructional approach best supports that practice? At the bottom, beside a warning icon, a callout reads: "If I choose the format first, I risk designing an experience around the medium rather than around the performance."


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