High-Quality Online Learning Isn’t Luck. It’s Design

In a crowded market of online learning providers, it’s easy to find someone who will build a course quickly. It’s even easier to find someone who will build it cheaply.

But finding a partner who will help you shape a compelling educational vision, anchor it in sound pedagogy, and carry that quality through every stage of design and development?
That’s rare.

And that’s exactly where Learning Design Solutions stands out.

We believe that high-quality online learning is never accidental.
It’s intentional, rigorous, grounded in learning science, and strengthened by deep collaboration with expert educators.

One of our recent partnerships demonstrates this more clearly than any slogan ever could.

Award-Winning Results: The ICAS Digital First Transformation

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) is delivering one of the most ambitious professional-education transformations in the UK: a full Digital First redesign of the CA qualification, including strategy, pedagogy and learner experience.

LDS has been a key partner in this journey — from initial consulting through to large-scale design and development — and the impact of this work has now been recognised publicly.

At the Learning Technologies Awards 2025, ICAS received:

Silver — Best Use of Blended Learning (Public & Non-Profit Sector)

Bronze — Best Digital Learning Transformation Programme

These are highly competitive awards, judged across the entire learning-technology sector.
They place ICAS at the forefront of modern digital learning — and they also reflect the depth, care and craft that went into every stage of the design process.

LDS is proud to have been a central collaborator throughout this transformation.

You can read the full story in our case study.

How LDS Contributed — A Focused Overview

High-quality work happens when strategy, pedagogy and production align. Our partnership with ICAS covered all three:

Strategic & Vision-Setting

  • Consulting with ICAS leadership to shape the Digital First roadmap.

  • Establishing pedagogical frameworks for fully online delivery.

Pilot & Proof of Concept

  • Designing and developing a demonstrator module to test feasibility, interaction models and learning-experience quality.

End-to-End Design & Production

  • Structuring modules around clear, purposeful learning outcomes.

  • Ensuring alignment between outcomes, activities, content and assessment.

  • Creating high-quality on-screen interactions, graphics, animations and videos.

  • Applying a learner-centred, activity-based approach throughout.

This combination is what LDS brings to every client partnership.
It’s not about speed or shortcuts.
It’s about building something coherent, engaging and genuinely effective for learners.

What High-Quality Online Learning Actually Means

“Quality” isn’t a buzzword for us. It’s a discipline — and it has substance:

  • bold, meaningful learning outcomes

  • strong constructive alignment

  • activity-led design

  • thoughtful cognitive sequencing

  • accessibility and inclusion as a baseline

  • effective SME–LD collaboration

  • appropriate, transparent use of AI as a support tool

You can build a course without these things.
But you can’t build an award-winning one.

Introducing Our New Blog Series:

To support the wider sector, LDS is launching a new blog series:

How to Achieve High-Quality Online Courses

Each post will explore a core element of quality, including:

  • writing outcomes that actually shape learning

  • designing with cognitive load in mind

  • building genuinely activity-based online learning

  • working productively with SMEs

  • designing resilient, authentic assessments

  • using AI to enhance (not dilute) pedagogical rigour

These will be grounded in real LDS project experience — including ICAS and other HE and professional-education partners.

Why Organisations Choose LDS

Different providers offer different strengths:

  • Some prioritise speed.

  • Some prioritise cost.

LDS prioritises quality — and partners with organisations who want their online learning to be rigorous, inclusive and genuinely transformational.

We are an experienced team of learning designers, project managers and digital-learning specialists with deep expertise in:

  • higher education pedagogy

  • online and blended learning

  • constructive alignment

  • assessment strategy

  • multimedia learning

  • accessibility and inclusive design

  • working collaboratively with SMEs across disciplines

Clients repeatedly tell us that what makes LDS different is:

  • our attention to detail

  • the strength and clarity of our pedagogical advice

  • our ability to translate complex subject matter into meaningful learning

  • the consistency and quality of our design

  • and the supportive, collaborative way we work with their teams

Our ethos is simple: we care about the quality of what learners experience, and we design with that responsibility in mind.

Our work with ICAS shows what’s possible when you combine vision, experience and design craft.

Quality isn’t luck.
Quality is design.
And if you’re aiming high with your next project, we’d love to partner with you.

Book a consultation
Steve Hogg