LMS 101 for Instructional Designers
Most instructional designers can talk for days about how people learn, since their core focus is designing meaningful learning experiences. But learning doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens within systems, and the most common is the LMS.
You don’t need to know how to configure permissions or migrate user data, but you do need to understand how your course functions within a learning management system. It directly affects the learner experience, the data your stakeholders care about, and the success of your project.
This article covers what instructional designers need to know about LMSs: what to consider when building courses and how to handle LMS-related questions in job interviews.
The Role of an LMS in the Learning Process
In corporate settings, a learning management system (LMS) is the backbone of training. It serves as a central hub where learning is delivered, tracked, and measured across the organization.
An LMS typically helps organizations:
- Deliver consistent learning programs in a structured, accessible way
- Assign or reassign training automatically based on roles, schedules, or performance
- Ensure compliance, especially in regulated industries
- Track learner progress and see how it supports business or performance goals
- Generate reports to help stakeholders evaluate learning ROI and make data-driven decisions
Common LMS use cases include onboarding, compliance training, and employee development. If you work with corporate clients or internal L&D teams, you’ll likely encounter LMS processes, whether you manage them directly or just integrate content into the system.
5 Reasons the LMS Matters to Instructional Designers
Although instructional designers don’t usually manage user accounts or build complex learning paths in an LMS (that’s typically the LMS admin’s job), in many teams, especially smaller ones, one person often wears multiple hats. So if you don’t understand the system, it can lead to misaligned content, poor learner experiences, and hours of extra work.
Your content lives in the LMS
No matter how well-designed your course is, once it’s uploaded, the LMS dictates how learners interact with it. This includes navigation, tracking, completion status, and reporting. If you don’t understand the platform, it’s easy to create something that looks polished but performs poorly.
The LMS affects learning flow
If your course isn’t structured with LMS logic in mind (like how modules unlock or progress is tracked), learners may get stuck, confused, or skip important content. Knowing how learning flows through the LMS helps you design better transitions, clearer instructions, and smoother interactions.
You’re expected to collaborate across teams
Whether it’s with LMS admins, project managers, or compliance officers, you’ll be asked to explain how your content functions and what tracking is needed. Basic LMS knowledge helps you communicate clearly and avoid confusion over file formats, completion settings, or missing quizzes in reports.
Reporting starts with design decisions
What’s considered “complete”? What’s being measured: quiz scores, time spent, slide views? These questions connect to the learning outcomes you define. When you understand how the LMS collects and reports data, you can make smarter choices early in the design process.
LMS constraints shape your creative options
Some LMSs handle SCORM beautifully. Others strip out interactive elements or behave unpredictably with video. If you’re not aware of the platform’s limitations or strengths, you might design content that looks promising but doesn’t work as intended.
LMS Essentials That Impact Course Design
Broken tracking, missing completion data, confusing navigation, or endless back-and-forth with admins often stem from not fully understanding how the course works in the system.
To avoid these costly surprises, you’ll need a basic understanding of how your content works in the LMS. Here are the key LMS-specific concepts to know:
Publishing formats
At a minimum, understand what SCORM is and why most LMSs rely on it. SCORM authoring tools like iSpring Suite, Articulate Storyline, or Adobe Captivate, allow you to export content in formats most LMSs can track and report on.
Learn the difference between SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004, when to use xAPI, and when HTML5 might work better. These choices affect everything from learner progress tracking to compatibility across platforms.
Completion criteria and tracking logic
Whether it’s viewing all slides, passing a quiz, or spending a minimum amount of time, the LMS needs a clear trigger to mark a course as complete. As an ID, you’re often the one defining that logic — and it needs to align with both learning outcomes and LMS capabilities.
Reporting capabilities and limitations
You may not run reports yourself, but knowing what data is available — like quiz scores, time spent, or attempts — helps you design with reporting in mind. If stakeholders need to prove ROI or compliance, your course should include the data they’ll use to do that.
Responsive design and mobile behavior
Make sure you know how your content works on mobile devices in the LMS. Some platforms, like iSpring Learn LMS, handle mobile delivery smoothly. It’s your responsibility to make sure the experience works across formats — especially if your audience is remote or deskless.
Versioning and updating a course
What happens when you update a live course? Does the LMS overwrite the old version? Are learners automatically re-enrolled? These are important questions to ask when planning updates, especially for compliance training or multi-module programs.
The 5 Common LMS Questions in Job Interviews
Even if LMS management isn’t officially part of the role, hiring managers often expect instructional designers to understand how their content fits into the broader learning ecosystem. They want to know that you’re not just creating slides and quizzes, but also understand how your design choices affect delivery, tracking, and reporting in an LMS.
Here are some common LMS-related ID interview questions you might hear during an instructional design interview — and ones that experienced IDs strongly recommend preparing for in advance:
- What LMSs have you worked with? Name the platforms and briefly describe how you used them.
- What formats have you used to publish your courses? Mention SCORM 1.2, 2004, xAPI, or HTML5 — and why you chose each one based on project or LMS requirements.
- How do you make sure a course tracks correctly in the LMS? Talk about testing completion triggers, quiz scores, and learner flow before launch.
- How do you collaborate with LMS administrators? Highlight how you package files clearly, provide metadata, and stay available for testing or troubleshooting.
- What kind of LMS data do you use to measure course effectiveness? Include things like completion rates, quiz scores, time spent, and how this connects to learning goals or stakeholder KPIs.
The more you understand the limitations, capabilities, and data flow behind the scenes, the more strategic your design choices can be. When learning teams are expected to show clear results, that kind of thinking is what sets great instructional designers apart.
Christine Quinn
Christine Quinn is a marketing copywriter at iSpring Solutions. She regularly reviews the latest strategies in effective eLearning design and shares her insights on the iSpring eLearning blog.
