The 2025 iSpring Instructional Design Contest drew over 1,000 participants worldwide, producing a rare public showcase of real eLearning work built from scratch in under one week.
Why this matters
One of the biggest challenges in our field is that most instructional design work is proprietary — built for internal use and covered by confidentiality agreements. This contest changed that: every participant started from the same conditions, using **iSpring Suite**, with results made publicly viewable.
2025 iSpring Instructional Design Contest Winners
Start Category Winners
- 1st place: Julian Brunke — History of Customer Support
- 2nd place: Michelle Wang — Digital Well-Being in a Connected World
- 3rd place: Jhon Velasquez Perez — Email Writing: Tips for Professional Communication
- 4th place: Andrea Varga — How to Recycle Household Waste
- 5th place: Sarah Denison — Pack Up. Learn How to Pack for Your Overseas Move.
Pro Category Winners
- 1st place: Diana Păun — Assertive Communication: Use Your Voice With Confidence
- 2nd place: Sana Sediri — Rescue Mission: Endangered Species
- 3rd place: Charlotte Eva Strohmeier — Diversity and Equal Opportunities With Inclusion
- 4th place: Fotini Sofouri — Get Discovered Online: SEO Basics for Beginners
- 5th place: Yann BONIZEC — Create Accessible eLearning Modules With AI
Explore hundreds of other eLearning modules
iSpring invited participants to include links to their modules in the contest’s official Miro board — a space for participant designers to introduce themselves, showcase their work, and exchange feedback with the community.
My own contest experience
I also started building a submission for the contest but didn’t make the final deadline. I have included it in a recent Toolkit article exploring iSpring’s new Character Builder tool — combining my two favourite iSpring features, the character builder and the interactive scenario builder. You can explore it in the iSpring Cartoon Maker article.
Takeaway
Even without finishing, the time-boxed challenge is a worthwhile practice. Testing yourself under constraints is one of the most honest ways to discover your actual design instincts.
Key Questions Answered
The most commonly asked questions about this topic, concisely answered.
- The iSpring Instructional Design Contest is an annual global competition organized by iSpring in which participants build a complete eLearning module from scratch within a set timeframe (typically under one week) using iSpring Suite. The contest is notable for making all submissions publicly viewable — creating a rare, open showcase of real instructional design work built under identical conditions.
- The 2025 contest had two categories. Start Category winners: 1st place Julian Brunke (History of Customer Support), 2nd Michelle Wang (Digital Well-Being), 3rd Jhon Velasquez Perez (Email Writing), 4th Andrea Varga (Recycling), 5th Sarah Denison (Packing for an overseas move). Pro Category winners: 1st place Diana Păun (Assertive Communication), 2nd Sana Sediri (Rescue Mission — Endangered Species), 3rd Charlotte Eva Strohmeier (Diversity and Inclusion), 4th Fotini Sofouri (SEO Basics), 5th Yann Bonizec (Accessible eLearning with AI).
- iSpring Suite is a PowerPoint-based eLearning authoring tool that enables designers to create interactive courses, scenario-based learning, quizzes, video lectures, and simulations. Its Character Builder creates custom illustrated characters, and its interactive scenario builder supports branching dialogue trees. iSpring courses are exported as SCORM-compatible packages for LMS deployment.
- Most instructional design work is proprietary and covered by confidentiality agreements — practitioners rarely get to see how peers approach similar design challenges. A public contest changes this: all participants start from the same conditions, using the same tool, with results openly viewable. This creates a genuine benchmark for quality, a source of creative inspiration, and a rare window into diverse design approaches and aesthetic choices across skill levels.
- The 2025 contest attracted over 1,000 participants worldwide, producing a large collection of publicly viewable eLearning modules. Participants also shared their work on an official Miro board — a space for designers to introduce themselves, showcase modules, and exchange feedback with the community.
- Studying award-winning eLearning work reveals patterns in what distinguishes high-quality design — choices about visual hierarchy, interaction design, narrative structure, scenario complexity, and learner engagement. Seeing multiple strong submissions on different topics also helps practitioners develop aesthetic judgment and design vocabulary. Public contest galleries are among the best free professional development resources available.
- The 2025 contest had separate Start and Pro categories, making it accessible to practitioners at different experience levels. The Start category is designed for newer or less experienced designers, while the Pro category is for experienced instructional designers. This structure allows beginners to compete on a level playing field and receive recognition appropriate to their development stage.
- Winning topics ranged widely across both practical and social themes: customer support history, digital well-being, professional email writing, household recycling, international relocation, assertive communication, endangered species conservation, diversity and inclusion, SEO basics, and creating accessible eLearning with AI. The variety of topics demonstrates that strong instructional design principles apply across virtually any subject matter.
- Contest participation builds:
- Portfolio pieces — public submissions serve as portfolio samples
- Tool fluency — time-constrained production accelerates mastery of authoring tools
- Design instinct — constraints force prioritization and reveal your genuine design judgment
- Community connection — participants interact with peers through the Miro board and community feedback channels
- Professional visibility — winning or placing in a recognized contest is a resume-worthy achievement
- The winning submissions are publicly viewable through direct links shared in the official contest results. The broader participant gallery is hosted on the iSpring contest platform and a community Miro board where participants introduced themselves and linked their modules. Exploring these galleries provides a comprehensive view of the range of approaches taken by designers worldwide using iSpring Suite.
- Design contests offer several career benefits: they force you to complete a project under time pressure (building production speed), provide portfolio-ready samples you fully own, expose you to how other designers approach the same brief, and create networking opportunities with judges, sponsors, and fellow participants. Contest wins or placements also serve as third-party validation of your skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
- Winning entries typically demonstrate: strong visual design and consistent branding, clear learning objectives tied to meaningful assessments, interactive elements that go beyond click-and-reveal (branching scenarios, drag-and-drop, simulations), attention to accessibility, and polished audio and navigation. Judges look for both pedagogical soundness and production quality — a beautiful module with poor learning design will not win, nor will a sound design wrapped in poor visuals.
