Hi! I’m Sommer Riley.

In a perfect world, we’d have all the time we need for a deep, thorough project analysis. But let’s be honest, time is often our rarest commodity. With over 14 years of experience, I’ve learned to navigate projects moving at the speed of light by focusing on the most important part of the project: the learner.

The outline, the storyboard, the learning experience magic - these always begin with knowing the learner’s needs and designing a learning experience that feels tailor-made just for them.

As much as I am an instructional designer, I’m also a learning experience developer. I do (almost!) everything myself.

I’ve been using Articulate 360 for years, mastering the advanced features of Storyline and the quick, microlearning capabilities of Rise. I incorporate videos from Camtasia or animations from Vyond. And when I want to include custom graphics or infographics, I use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to get exactly what I need.

Online training has a lot of great applications, but it struggles with a vital ingredient that is hard to recreate in a digital environment – practice.

Most projects can't splurge on fancy AR or VR setups (though that'd be rad!). So, we get creative with storytelling, tricky scenarios where mistakes have consequences, speedy gamified challenges, and injecting humor when appropriate.

But here's the thing: these interactions aren't just for show. They're the heart of engaging learning. They make learners think, play, sweat a bit, laugh (or cry), and makes them feel like the training was put together with their pleasure and experience in mind.

All of the graphics and animations you see on my website and in any projects in my portfolio were created by me. I’ve been playing with digital art for longer than I’ve been an instructional designer, and it was actually this hobby that got me to (accidentally) fall into instructional design work! Though I’m never going to be as good or as fast as a professional artist or animator, being able to create what I need for a learning experience allows me to maintain a cohesive design and make tweaks and adjustments as I go without slowing down development.

Right now I primarily use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Vyond, and VideoScribe, I’m currently exploring some new software that utilizes the power of AI in an ethical and cost-effective way.

When there's always something new to create, going back and updating older, but important training can be overwhelming for any team.

I am often hired by companies to come in and take old training and turn it into something interactive, 508 compliant, and applicable to current challenges.

This often includes transferring in-person or virtual classes and molding them into asynchronous online modules.