01
Project Overview & Needs Analysis
Business Problem
Foothills Cannabis Co. is onboarding 8–12 new budtenders per quarter as it expands to a second location. New hires currently shadow experienced staff for 2–3 weeks before going solo on the floor, with no standardized knowledge baseline. Mystery shopper scores for new hires average 61% in the first 30 days — 14 points below the 75% target. Management attributes this primarily to inconsistent product knowledge and weak consultation skills, not attitude or effort.
Root Cause
Needs analysis (manager interviews + mystery shopper review) surfaced three causes: (1) No structured pre-floor training — new hires enter the floor with only informal peer guidance. (2) Product knowledge is inconsistently transmitted through shadowing. (3) No consultation framework — budtenders improvise conversations with no shared approach.
Training Appropriate?
Yes. The gap is a knowledge and skill deficit, not a motivation or process issue. New hires want to perform well — they lack structured exposure to product knowledge and a framework for customer conversations. Training is the right intervention.
Proposed Solution
One self-paced eLearning module (45–60 min) covering cannabinoid basics, product format guidance, and a branching consultation scenario. Paired with a printed job aid for floor use (separate deliverable). This module is Phase 1 of a larger 90-day onboarding curriculum.
Success Metrics
- Knowledge check score of 80%+ before floor clearance
- Mystery shopper scores for trained cohort average 75%+ at 30 days
- Manager observation checklist "satisfactory" rating at Week 4
- Reduction in "I don't know" responses during consultation (tracked via manager observation)
02
Audience Analysis
Primary Audience
New budtender hires, Days 1–14. Mix of experienced cannabis consumers with no formal product training, and people new to cannabis entirely. Age range 21–35. Comfortable with technology and self-paced digital content.
Prior Knowledge
Variable. Some bring substantial personal cannabis knowledge; others are starting from scratch. The module must accommodate both — expert-familiar learners should not feel patronized, while novice learners should not feel lost. Decision: use a "check your knowledge" intro activity to let learners self-assess, then frame content as professional/customer-facing knowledge rather than personal consumer knowledge.
Motivation
High intrinsic motivation — most people entering this industry are genuinely interested in cannabis. Risk: overconfidence in personal knowledge creating resistance to formal training. Mitigation: frame training explicitly around customer consultation contexts ("here's how to explain this to a customer"), not factual recall ("here's what THC does").
Learning Environment
Completed at home or in a break room on personal devices before first floor shift. No facilitation. Must work on both desktop and mobile. Cannot assume quiet environment — design for headphone-free use with text-based narration, not audio dependency.
Key Constraints
No LMS initially — link-based delivery
Mobile-first design required
No audio dependency
45–60 min max runtime
Single-developer build
03
Learning Objectives
Terminal objective: Given a customer consultation scenario, the learner will select and justify a product recommendation aligned to the customer's experience level, stated goal, and format preference — demonstrating both product knowledge and consultation judgment.
1
Recall
Identify the primary effects and customer use cases for THC, CBD, CBN, and CBG without reference to the job aid.
Bloom's Level 1–2: Knowledge / Comprehension
2
Distinguish
Compare onset times and duration across product formats (flower, edibles, tinctures, topicals, vape, concentrates) and explain the implications for dosing guidance.
Bloom's Level 2–3: Comprehension / Application
3
Apply
Use the 5-step consultation framework to guide a customer from goal identification to product recommendation in a branching scenario.
Bloom's Level 3: Application
4
Evaluate
In scenario-based questions, identify the highest-risk response choices (overdose risk, compliance violation, or poor customer experience) and explain why they're problematic.
Bloom's Level 5: Evaluation
04
Storyboard Excerpt — Branching Scenario (Slides 14–18)
This excerpt shows the consultation scenario sequence — the module's highest-complexity interaction. The scenario places the learner in a real consultation with "Maya," a first-time customer. Learner choices drive branching paths with immediate formative feedback before the scored knowledge check.
#
Visual / Screen Description
Narration / On-Screen Text
Interaction / Branching Logic
Split panel: Left = simple illustrated storefront exterior. Right = text-based scenario setup. Clean, editorial layout matching module design.
"Maya just walked in. She looks a little nervous. She tells you: 'I've never been to a dispensary before. My doctor mentioned cannabis might help with my anxiety, but I don't really know where to start.'"
Click to continue
Advance to slide 15 on click. No branching yet — establish scenario context.
Three response buttons displayed as cards with brief preview text. Hover state highlights card. No character illustration — text-forward design.
"How do you open the consultation?"
Branch
Option A → Slide 16A (good: asks about experience). Option B → Slide 16B (okay: jumps to format). Option C → Slide 16C (poor: leads with product).
Green feedback banner. Same two-column layout. Checkmark icon, brief explanation text.
"Good call. Starting with experience level gives you everything you need — it tells you what language to use, what to recommend, and how cautious to be with dosing guidance. Maya tells you she's never used cannabis before."
Click to continue
Advance to Slide 17 (best path — full consultation continues).
Amber feedback banner. Caution icon, brief explanation text.
"Starting with product recommendations skips the most important step. You don't know her experience level, her goal, or her lifestyle — so any recommendation right now is a guess. Maya looks a bit overwhelmed. Let's back up."
Redirect
Returns to Slide 15 with the "poor" option grayed out. Learner must choose a better response. Not punitive — reframe and retry.
Maya's stated goal appears as a highlighted quote card: "I want something to help with anxiety — but I don't want to feel high or out of control." Second branch point.
"Maya is a first-time user looking for anxiety relief without intoxication. What do you recommend?"
Branch
Option A = CBD-dominant tincture (correct). Option B = 1:1 gummy (acceptable — feedback explains nuance). Option C = THC flower (poor — feedback explains why).
Summary screen: consultation outcome, key decision recap, connection to job aid reference card.
"Nice work. You gave Maya a recommendation that matched her experience level, her goal, and her concern about intoxication — and you set her up with the right dosing guidance. That's what a good consultation looks like."
Leads to Knowledge Check
Transition to scored 8-question knowledge check covering objectives 1–4.
Note: Full storyboard spans 24 slides. This excerpt shows the branching scenario — the module's primary application activity. View the completed module to see full execution.
05
Evaluation Plan — Kirkpatrick Four Levels
Level 1
Reaction
3-question end-of-module survey: relevance, clarity, and confidence increase. Tracked by cohort over time.
Built into module
Level 2
Learning
8-question scored knowledge check at module close. 80% required to advance to floor clearance. Results stored in LMS.
Built into module
Level 3
Behavior
Manager observation at Week 4 using a 5-item consultation checklist. Evaluates real-world transfer, not just knowledge retention.
Manager-facilitated
Level 4
Results
Mystery shopper scores at Day 30 compared to pre-training baseline (61% avg). Target: 75%+. Tracked by cohort, not individual.
Org-level tracking
06
Key Design Decisions & Rationale
No Audio Narration
Audience analysis surfaced that training will often happen in break rooms and at home without headphones. All narration is on-screen text. This also reduces production time and makes the module easier to update as product SKUs or regulations change.
Branching over Linear
A linear module could have delivered the same content faster. Branching was chosen because the terminal objective is judgment under uncertainty, not recall. Scenario-based decision-making activates the mental models learners will actually use on the floor — information transfer alone doesn't build that.
Retry on Wrong Answers
Poor choices in the consultation scenario redirect rather than penalize. Research on corrective feedback supports immediate correction with explanation over scoring errors and moving on. The goal is to shift the mental model — not measure how wrong they are on the first attempt.
No Sativa / Indica Language
Current cannabis research does not support the sativa/indica framework as a reliable predictor of effects. The module intentionally avoids this language and instead uses terpene profiles and cannabinoid ratios — more accurate and increasingly how sophisticated dispensaries talk about products.
HTML/CSS over Articulate
Built natively in HTML/CSS/JS to match the company's web-based delivery constraint (no LMS at launch), enable mobile responsiveness without additional tooling, and allow rapid content updates without re-publishing a SCORM package. Tradeoff: no SCORM completion tracking. Mitigation: track via end-of-module survey submission + manual cohort records until LMS is in place.
Why This Document Exists in the Portfolio
The modules in this portfolio show what I build. This design brief shows how I think. A hiring manager looking at a polished eLearning module sees the output — but the decisions that made it good (or kept it from being bad) happen before a single screen is designed. Sharing the brief demonstrates needs analysis, audience analysis, learning objective writing, evaluation planning, and design rationale — the invisible work of instructional design.
This is a spec project, which means there's no real client, no real stakeholder sign-off process, and no real data to validate against. I've been transparent about that here. What I've tried to show is the quality of thinking I'd bring to a real project — the questions I'd ask, the decisions I'd document, and the measurement I'd plan for before anyone opened a storyboard tool.