Instructional Design Services in India for eLearning
High on Tales provides instructional design services in India for corporate, PSU and government training teams: needs analysis, action mapping, learning objectives, storyboards, scenario and assessment design, and review management, delivered standalone or together with the build. We design courses around what people must do at work, not what the subject matter expert knows. Then we cut hard. The result is a course that is shorter, gets finished and changes something on the job.
On this page
What instructional design services actually cover
Ask five vendors what instructional design means and you will get five answers. Some mean turning a PowerPoint into a Storyline file. Some mean writing a script. Let us be clear about what we mean, because it decides what you are paying for.
For us, instructional design is everything that happens before a screen is built and everything that keeps the screen honest afterwards. It starts with a performance problem, not a topic. It ends with a storyboard your subject matter experts have approved and a pilot that tells us whether the design worked.
In practice that breaks into six pieces of work. First, a needs analysis: who the learners are, what they currently do, what they should do instead and why they are not doing it. Second, objectives written as observable behaviour. Third, a course structure and an activity plan. Fourth, the storyboard or script itself. Fifth, assessment design, which means questions that test decisions rather than recall. Sixth, review management, because most delays in eLearning are review delays, not production delays.
Here is the thing though. A good design often recommends less eLearning than the client asked for. Sometimes the right answer is a one-page job aid. Sometimes it is a manager conversation. We will say so. If you want a deeper read on the discipline itself, our blog covers what instructional design actually does for eLearning. This page is about hiring us to do it.
The problem we fix: the content dump
Most courses we are asked to rescue share one flaw. They were built by taking everything the expert knows and arranging it into modules. Forty slides on a policy. A quiz at the end. A certificate.
The expert is not wrong about any of it. The problem is that knowing a policy and following it at 4 pm on a busy Thursday are different skills, and the course only trains the first. This is where action mapping earns its place in our process. It starts from a measurable business goal, asks what people must do to reach it, and only then asks what information they need to do those things. Information that supports no action gets cut or moved into a reference.
Take a scenario from a typical engagement. A PSU sends us a 120-slide deck on procurement rules for new officers. The deck covers every clause. When we interview officers who handle purchases, they name six situations where people go wrong: splitting a purchase to dodge a threshold, accepting a single quotation, skipping documentation, and three more. So the course becomes six short scenarios, each with a decision and a consequence, plus a searchable reference for the rest. One hundred and twenty slides become six decisions. The officers practise the ones that cause audit objections. This is an illustration of how we work, not a named client result.
Presentation design matters too, but it comes second. Research on Mayer's multimedia principles gives sensible rules for combining words, images and narration without overloading the learner. We apply them at storyboard stage, so a screen is designed to carry one idea before an animator touches it.
Our method: analysis, action mapping, storyboard
1. Analysis that includes the people who do the job
We do not start from the deck. We start with a conversation with your L&D lead about the business problem, then short interviews with five to eight people who do the work well and a few who struggle. We ask what a good day looks like and what they wish someone had told them. Those interviews become the scenario bank. Two days of interviews routinely change the whole outline.
2. Action mapping and the cut
We then map the business goal to the behaviours behind it and decide, for each behaviour, whether training is the right fix at all. Some gaps are caused by a broken process or missing tool, and a course will not repair those. We tell you early. It is an awkward conversation and a cheap one. Later is much more expensive.
3. Practice design
For each behaviour that training can fix, we design a practice activity before any content. A decision scenario, a sort, a branching conversation, a short simulation. Our gamification and simulations team builds the more demanding ones. Content is then written to support the practice, not the other way round.
4. Storyboard, review and sign-off
The storyboard comes next, in a format your reviewers can actually read: screen by screen, with on-screen text, narration, visual direction and interaction notes side by side. Two consolidated review rounds are included. We ask your SMEs to review in one batch, with one named approver, because feedback arriving in six email chains is how a three-week storyboard becomes a three-month one.
5. Pilot and revision
Where timelines allow, we run the design with a small group before full build. The pilot answers one question: did people do the thing afterwards? If you evaluate at the Kirkpatrick levels, our guide to measuring training ROI with the Kirkpatrick model explains how the pieces fit.
Our opinionated take: the best instructional designers are measured by what they remove. Most vendors quote by the finished minute or by the slide, which rewards length. A design team paid per screen has every reason to add screens. We price design by project stage and we are happy to present a storyboard that is shorter than the brief. If a vendor has never told you the course should be smaller, they have not designed it, they have only built it.
ADDIE, SAM or action mapping: how we choose
You will see every agency claim ADDIE. It is a fine skeleton, and our production process follows its stages. But ADDIE is a sequence, not a method for deciding what to teach. We combine three approaches and pick the weight of each by project.
ADDIE suits large or regulated programmes where each stage needs a formal sign-off, such as a compliance course for a bank or a government department. It is slower and it leaves a clear audit trail.
SAM-style iteration suits fast projects where the stakeholder needs to see a working prototype early. We build a thin slice, a single scenario in Rise 360 or Storyline 360, review it, then repeat. It pairs well with our guide to rapid eLearning development.
Action mapping opens every project. It is a short exercise, usually one workshop, and it prevents the content dump.
The tool shapes the design as well. Storyline 360 handles branching, variables and detailed feedback. Rise 360 is quicker for linear, mobile-friendly content. Adobe Captivate suits software simulations. We choose after the analysis, not before, and we check the LMS first, whether that is Moodle, TalentLMS or SAP SuccessFactors, because suspend data and tracking limits can break a design that looked fine on paper. Our SCORM and xAPI development page covers the packaging side.
What a storyboard from us looks like
A storyboard is the contract between design and production, so it has to be specific. Ours includes the screen purpose in one sentence, the on-screen text, the narration script, the visual direction, the interaction and its feedback, the tracking behaviour and the source of every fact. That last field matters. When a reviewer asks where a number came from, the answer is on the page.
For video-led modules the storyboard also carries scene timings and animation notes, since our in-house team produces 2D, 3D, whiteboard and motion graphics work. High on Tales is the only firm in our benchmarked competitive set offering 2D, 3D, whiteboard animation and motion graphics alongside eLearning, at Indian rates. For design, that means the person writing the scene can talk to the person animating it the same afternoon.
We also design for translation from the first draft. Text sits in editable blocks, sentences stay short, and cultural references are flagged. Our multilingual localisation team reviews scenarios with native speakers, so a Hindi or Tamil version is adapted rather than merely translated.
Ways to engage us, timeline and cost
There are three ways clients buy this.
Design only. You have a build team or an authoring tool licence and need the thinking done. We deliver the analysis, action map, objectives and approved storyboards. Your team builds.
Design plus development. The usual choice. One team designs and builds, which removes the hand-off where intent gets lost. See our custom eLearning development practice.
Redesign of an existing course. You have a long, low-completion course. We audit it, cut it and rebuild the weak parts. This often costs less than starting over, and it pairs with our ILT to eLearning conversion work when the source is classroom material.
On timeline, in our experience analysis and a storyboard for a 20 to 30 minute course take three to five weeks. Most of that is waiting on SME reviews, which is why we ask for a named approver on day one. Cost depends on the number of courses, the depth of analysis and how much practice design is involved. Our eLearning development cost guide explains what moves the price. Send us the course and the problem it is meant to solve, and we will tell you what we would cut.
Have a long course nobody finishes, or a deck that needs to become one? Send us the deck and one sentence on what people should do differently afterwards. We will return a short design note on what to keep, what to cut and which format fits, before any pricing conversation. Book a consultation.
Frequently asked questions
What do instructional design services include?
Needs analysis, learning objectives tied to on-the-job behaviour, a course structure, storyboards or scripts, assessment design and review rounds with your subject matter experts. We also advise on tool, packaging and language choices so the design survives production. The deliverable is an approved storyboard, not a pile of slides.
How is instructional design different from eLearning development?
Instructional design decides what the learner must do differently and how the course gets them there. Development builds it in Storyline 360, Rise 360 or Captivate, then packages and tests it. Buying design alone works when you have your own build team. Buying both from one team removes the hand-off where intent gets lost.
Do you use ADDIE, SAM or action mapping?
We use whichever fits the project. ADDIE suits large, regulated programmes with formal sign-offs. SAM-style iteration suits tight timelines where stakeholders need to see something early. Action mapping starts every project, because it asks what people must do before it asks what they must know.
How long does instructional design take for one course?
In our experience, analysis and a storyboard for a 20 to 30 minute course take three to five weeks, and most of that time is waiting on subject matter expert reviews. Two review rounds are included. A third usually signals that the objectives were never agreed.
Can you work from our existing PowerPoints and manuals?
Yes, and most clients start there. We treat the slides as raw material, interview the people who do the job, and cut anything that does not support a decision or action. Expect the finished course to be much shorter than the deck it came from.
Do you offer instructional design in Indian languages?
Yes. We design the source course so text and audio can be swapped without rebuilding screens, and native reviewers check scenarios for tone and hierarchy. Settle the language list before the first storyboard, not after it.
Sources
- Action Mapping FAQs, Cathy Moore, verified 6 November 2026
- Mayer's Principles of Multimedia Learning, Digital Learning Institute, verified 6 November 2026
High on Tales builds custom eLearning, SCORM and xAPI courses, and 2D, 3D, whiteboard and motion graphics video for corporate, PSU and government clients from India. Our instructional designers work from the performance problem backwards. Read more from the blog.
instructional design services india instructional design company action mapping storyboard development custom elearning development elearning company in india scorm course development