ADDIE
A flexible course creation framework for guiding learning projects from initial analysis through design, development, implementation, and evaluation.
ADDIE
A framework for making thoughtful learning decisions.
ADDIE gives instructional designers a way to move from understanding a performance need to designing, building, launching, and improving a learning solution.
The value isn't simply completing five phases. It's using each phase to ask better questions and make better decisions.
See ADDIE as a Connected Process
Each phase answers a different question, but the phases work together rather than operating as isolated steps.
Analyze Before You Decide What to Build
Analysis creates the foundation for the project. Start by understanding the performance need rather than jumping immediately to content.
Identify the business, performance, or learning problem the project is intended to address.
Understand learners, their experience, work context, existing knowledge, and support needs.
Determine whether the issue involves knowledge, skill, practice, process, tools, motivation, or another barrier.
Define the observable performance or outcome the solution should help improve.
Turn the Need Into a Learning Strategy
Design connects the performance goal to the experience learners will actually have.
What should learners know, decide, or do differently?
Decide where explanation, demonstration, practice, scenarios, feedback, or support will help.
Decide how learners will demonstrate understanding or performance.
Build, Test, and Refine the Experience
Development turns the design into something learners can actually use — but building is only part of the work.
Build the experience
Develop content, interactions, practice, assessments, visuals, and resources.
Keep the experience aligned with the decisions made during analysis and design.
Test what you build
Review accuracy, usability, functionality, accessibility, and consistency.
Use prototypes and feedback to catch issues before the final release.
Plan for What Happens When the Learning Goes Live
Implementation is more than publishing a course to the LMS. Consider the entire learner experience surrounding launch.
Test systems, links, devices, access, and enrollment.
Help learners understand why the learning matters and what to expect.
Equip managers, facilitators, or support teams to reinforce learning.
Watch for access problems, questions, friction, and early feedback.
Look Beyond Completion to See What Changed
Evaluation helps determine whether the experience worked and what should happen next.
Reviews, prototypes, learner feedback, QA, and pilot testing provide useful evaluation data throughout the project.
ADDIE Doesn't Have to Be a Waterfall
Real projects rarely move neatly from one finished phase to the next. New information should influence earlier decisions.
Improve
Repeat
Test ideas before investing heavily in development.
New SME, learner, or performance information may change the original design.
Use evaluation data to revise the experience rather than treating launch as the finish line.