Driven to Abstraction: A Design Case

This design case documents the development of a new online training program to teach circuit court interns in Wise County, Virginia, how to createsmart land records, or land record abstracts stored on a blockchain. The authors f irst describe the instructional context behind land record abstraction and the clients’ original specifications for the curriculum. The authors then detail their empathic design approach, design decisions based on clients’ feedback, and reflections-in-action at key points in the course’s development. Major design decisions included the composition of a frame narrative to link the course modules, the reordering of the curriculum to mitigate the significant cognitive load in the training’s content, and the use of both vertical and horizontal development to maintain aesthetic consistency. This paper concludes with the rationale for the evaluation plan and the establishment of a “multigenerational” partnership between the clients and new graduate students in the Instructional Design & Technology program at Old Dominion University.