Your heart beats for learning experience design. What is that? How would you define it?
Learning experience design for me, is about crafting environments that motivate and engage learners. Instructional design focuses on structuring teaching scientifically, but I found that no single model fits all learners. Everyone learns differently. Learning experience design pulls from active learning, collaborative learning, problem-based learning – but it goes beyond: it’s about designing experiences where people want to learn. Before formal schools, learning was driven by curiosity. For me, this field is about getting back to that.
Why does this topic make your heart beat faster?
At first, it was personal: I struggled in school, so I wanted to help people like me. But after the Egyptian revolution in 2011, I became involved in shaping education policy. I saw how many graduates lacked critical thinking and media literacy. Egypt has 22 million students – imagine the impact if we could help them think differently! Ken Robinson’s TED talk on how schools kill creativity resonated deeply: our education systems were built for the industrial age, but we haven’t updated them since.
How do you apply this approach in your role at the HPI D-School?
Here it’s easy – the whole model is already collaborative, project-based, team-oriented. I think in terms of three elements: people, process, and place. We design learning by considering who is present, how they work together, and where that happens. Even the name “Design Thinking Studio” reflects this: the space itself shapes the experience.
If you put yourself in the shoes of a participant, how would they recognize the elements you’re applying?
I actually look for discomfort at the beginning! Much of what we do challenges people’s expectations of education, so participants might think: “Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” or “Why should I work with someone from IT when I’m an artist?” That resistance is a good signal – it means they’re encountering something new.
Second, we show that this field is evolving. No one “masters” Design Thinking because the field itself isn’t complete, I mean, what field is? I love the story of my old physics professor who was explaining the rationale in British University grading and said: “Do you think Einstein would get 100%? He may score in the 90’s as he’s revolutionized the field, but the work is never complete.” We want students to leave knowing they’ve learned a lot but that there’s always more to explore.
Finally, participants develop critical modern skills – communication, feedback, prototyping – often without realizing it, because we embed these in the experience rather than teach them as isolated content.
What would educational institutions look like if they fully embraced learning experience design?
In my utopia, there would be no fixed curriculum. Foundational knowledge is already accessible – online, via books, even through large language models driven AI. But people struggle to connect that knowledge to the real world.
Universities would become “curiosity hubs” where students find their passion and tailor their learning paths around it. Some might need months, others years – but the key is that students want to be there because it helps them shape their future.
That’s a beautiful vision. What’s a small but effective first step a teacher could take to implement learning experience design?
My main tip: get to know your students as much as possible. For example, I worked with a primary school teacher whose students were divided into ability sets. Some students told me they felt stuck – sometimes they wanted a challenge, sometimes not.
We tried a small experiment: we printed assignments at different difficulty levels on colored paper and let students choose freely. The result? They all did more work than usual, and none complained about their sets. Many top students even chose assignments randomly just for fun.
Another example: in a university course, I gamified participation. Instead of generic rewards like “Teacher of the Week,” I asked students what they truly valued. One student earned a “late entry pass” because childcare made her late. Another could skip final exam questions by completing extra-challenging homework.
The takeaway: even small tweaks, rooted in understanding your learners, can dramatically increase engagement – without needing more resources.
Your “moments of glory” in this work – what stands out for you?
The first was that gamified university course I just mentioned. I was nervous: my youngest student was 45, some had taught longer than I’d been alive! But when I redesigned the course as a game map, they did more work than ever before and enjoyed it. The syllabus, normally ignored, became a cherished game guide they brought to every session. That showed me that workload was never the problem – it was about motivation and engagement.
The second was a project in Dubai where I facilitated the co-creation of a new higher education concept. We brought together students, parents, teachers, and professors. Every night, I’d prototype their ideas so we could iterate the next morning. Within just over a week, we had a concept document ready to go, and stakeholders were excited to invest in it. It was concrete, practical, and collaborative – not just a utopian vision.
Finally, of course the most recent is the redesign of the d-school programs, to be able to construct new formats and approaches to teaching Design Thinking was a crowning achievement for me given how incredible the legacy courses of the Basic and Advanced Tracks were. Reviewing the first set of students’ and coaches’ evaluations of the new programs was a proud moment of glory indeed.
Thank you for the interview!
