Understand what someone's day feels like. Then earn the interruption.

Hi, I'm Mags. If there is one thing I have learned in this field, it is that technology never sits still. Blink, and there is a new tool, a new trend, or, let's be honest, another system update nobody asked for.

When I first started in eLearning it was all slide decks wrapped in SCORM which, if you have not met it, is basically PowerPoint with a fancier name. Nearly two decades on, we have AI, interactive content and gamification. One thing has not changed at all: if the learning is not engaging and memorable, people still click Next, Next, Next until it is over. We have all done it.

My journey began in the NHS, where I brought in a new learning management system and designed mandatory training that fit around a clinical day, so staff spent less time in a training room in front of PowerPoint and more time with patients. The lesson that has shaped everything since came from watching training fail: people completing a module and forgetting it by the following Monday. It really clicked when I sat with a consultant who had fifteen minutes between patients and a forty-minute module in front of him. That is not a learning design problem. It is an empathy problem. You have to understand what someone's day actually feels like before you design something worth interrupting it for.

Then life threw me a plot twist. I became a mum. Suddenly I had a completely new kind of learner in front of me, one who was not afraid to challenge the teacher and would absolutely not sit through anything boring. That led to a career change as a childminder, where I learned very quickly that real learning runs on play, curiosity and engagement. And snacks. A lot of snacks.

Four children and about ten years later, I knew it was time to come back to digital learning, where my learners sit a little more still but switch off just as fast when something is dull.

Now I combine LMS management, instructional design and learning UX to build training people actually want to take, not just click through to reach the certificate. At CIPS I design for more than 90,000 procurement professionals, I build to WCAG 2.2 AA as standard so nobody is shut out, and I treat AI as a genuine force multiplier while I stay accountable for whether the learning works.

If you care about making learning better, and a little less painful, I would love to talk. Just do not ask me to sit through another dull compliance course. Learning that changes behaviour, not just tick boxes, is still the only measure that matters.