A carefully curated collection of toolkits, card decks, frameworks, and guides to spark creativity and sharpen your practice. Hover any card to explore the resource.
Frameworks and Thinking Tools
Laws of UX
Psychological principles that help you design and justify your user interfaces
Laws of UX is a collection of best practices rooted in psychology that designers can consider when building user interfaces.
Explore →Untools
Tools for better thinking
Thinking tools and frameworks to help you solve problems, make decisions, and understand complex systems.
Explore →ID Myths
Design your training based on research, not false beliefs
ID Myths collects common instructional design misconceptions and debunks them with research-backed, evidence-based alternatives.
Explore →Design with Intent
101 patterns for influencing behaviour through design
A concept generation tool with 101 design patterns for influencing behaviour, provoking design ideas by asking questions and giving examples.
Download PDF →Learner Motivation and Engagement
LXDLab
Motivation matters
A handbook of case studies and practical tools to enhance and sustain learner motivation in your programmes.
Explore →Joy Cards
Tiny ways to infuse delight into teaching and learning
A deck of small, practical ideas to bring playfulness into teaching. We do our best work when we're having fun — and the world needs our best work.
Explore →The Shape of Play
A study by Mattel
Research examining how play shapes people's lives today and how it may evolve in the future — valuable context for learning designers.
Download report →Facilitation and Workshop Resources
Workshopper
Bring people together and inspire change
Tried-and-tested workshop formats, guides, and interviews to help you design transformative group experiences.
Explore →The Debriefing Cube
Maximize learning from exercises and simulations
A framework that gives groups opportunities to learn, improve, and commit to change by expanding debriefing skills after simulations and exercises.
Download PDF →Facilitation for All
Bring facilitation to the forefront
A curated toolkit by the Butter Community featuring free facilitation resources, templates, and guides for educators and facilitators.
Explore →Participatory Methods
Library of participatory activities
Hundreds of participatory methods and action-research approaches for educational workshops and community projects.
Explore →Inclusive Design and Social Impact
Workplace Belonging
Transform your workplace culture
An actionable guide to create a culture of belonging and human connection in the future of work, with practical tools and case studies.
Explore →The Safe Zone Project
Powerful, effective LGBTQ+ awareness toolkit
A free online resource for creating powerful, effective LGBTQ+ awareness and ally training workshops in educational and workplace settings.
Explore →The Micropedia
Learn about microaggressions and their impact
An educational resource exploring everyday microaggressions — the subtle snubs and insults rooted in implicit bias that affect marginalized groups.
Explore →Strategy and Professional Development
WTF Bootcamp
Build your winning L&D strategy
Skills, confidence, and tools to build an impact-focused learning and development strategy that gets results and earns buy-in.
Explore →The Field Guide to LXD
The future of learning is designed
The future of learning isn't something we wait for — it's something we design together. A comprehensive guide to the field of LXD.
Explore →Key Questions Answered
The most commonly asked questions about this topic, concisely answered.
- Some of the most useful sources include Laws of UX (psychology-based design principles), Untools (thinking frameworks), LXDLab (learner motivation research), and curated card decks like Joy Cards and Design with Intent. This post collects the best of these in one place.
- Laws of UX (lawsofux.com) is a collection of psychological principles — such as Hick's Law and the Von Restorff Effect — that explain how people perceive and interact with interfaces. Instructional designers use these principles to justify layout decisions and improve the usability of eLearning courses and digital materials.
- Design card decks are physical or downloadable sets of cards, each presenting a design principle, prompt, or method. LXD professionals use them in ideation workshops and brainstorming sessions to generate creative solutions, challenge assumptions, and explore new design directions. Examples include Joy Cards and Design with Intent.
- Strong facilitation resources include Workshopper (workshop formats and guides), The Debriefing Cube (structured debrief after simulations), Facilitation for All by the Butter community (free templates), and Participatory Methods (a library of hundreds of participatory activities).
- The Debriefing Cube is a free PDF framework designed to guide structured reflection after simulations, role-plays, or group exercises. It helps facilitators expand debriefing beyond 'what happened' into analysis, meaning-making, and commitment to change — making it especially useful after scenario-based training.
- Yes. This collection includes the Workplace Belonging Toolkit (culture of belonging), The Safe Zone Project (LGBTQ+ awareness training), and The Micropedia (microaggressions education). These are valuable for designing psychologically safe and inclusive learning environments.
- Untools (untools.co) is a free collection of thinking frameworks for problem-solving, decision-making, and understanding complex systems — such as First Principles Thinking, the Cynefin framework, and Systems Thinking. LXD professionals use these to structure needs analysis, scope projects, and make design decisions.
- ID Myths (idmyths.com) collects common misconceptions in instructional design — such as learning styles theory or the 10% retention myth — and debunks them with evidence-based research. It helps practitioners move away from ineffective practices and design with a stronger scientific foundation.
- WTF Bootcamp by Get How Now provides practical tools for building impact-focused L&D strategies that earn buy-in from organizational leaders. The Field Guide to LXD by By the Field offers a comprehensive overview of the LXD field for those positioning learning design strategically.
- Resources like LXDLab (learner motivation handbook with case studies), Joy Cards (small ideas for playful teaching), and The Shape of Play report by Mattel provide evidence-based insights into how play and motivation affect learning — helping you design experiences that are genuinely engaging rather than superficially gamified.
- Beyond LXD-specific resources, designers draw inspiration from Dribbble and Behance (UI/UX design portfolios), Muzli (design news and trends), Pinterest (mood boards and visual references), Awwwards (innovative web design), and game design communities for interaction patterns. The best LXD work often borrows from adjacent design disciplines and adapts those ideas to learning contexts.
- AI tools can generate scenario ideas, character backstories, metaphor suggestions, visual concepts, and alternative approaches to design challenges. Use AI as a brainstorming partner by describing your learning objective and asking for multiple creative approaches. The value is in expanding your ideation beyond habitual patterns — then applying your design judgment to select and refine the most promising ideas.
