Design
Systems-level curriculum architecture — reusable cores mapped to performance objectives and to the regulatory floor (OSHA / ANSI / ISO 9001).
Senior Instructional Designer / L&D Engineer
Derek Dorsett
I design, build, measure, and govern compliance learning end-to-end — hand-coded, regulation-anchored, and proven with data.
12+ years turning high-stakes training mandates into audit-defensible systems that work — and that prove they worked. I design the learning, write the code, instrument the data, and own the governance.
- 12+years in instructional design & L&D
- 4.8 / 5average learner rating
- 100%of measured courses improved
- WCAG 2.1 AAaccessible by default
Design. Build. Measure. Govern.
Most instructional designers do one or two of these. Doing all four — inside regulated, audit-defensible environments — is the rare combination that lets one person carry a high-stakes program from mandate to measured outcome.
Build
I hand-code my own accessible HTML/CSS/JS interactions and Articulate Rise web objects — no design-to-dev handoff, no separate dev team.
Measure
Identical pre/post instruments and SCORM/xAPI analytics, packaged into leadership-ready effectiveness reporting.
Govern
Audit-defensible certification records, SME-review playbooks, RACI, go/no-go gates, and accessibility held to WCAG 2.1 AA.
Selected work
A representative slice across compliance e-learning, hand-coded interactions, custom tooling, and client web design. Some of my best work is for clients I can’t name — discretion is part of the job, and full case studies are available on request.
Enterprise safety certification program
A confidential defense / advanced-manufacturing client
Architecting the complete redesign of an enterprise safety-certification program as sole designer and de facto program manager — a reusable shared-core spine feeding role-specific courses, each paired with a facilitator guide and an OSHA-defensible in-person practicum. (In active build.)
Read the case study →ISO 9001 QMS curriculum
A confidential defense / advanced-manufacturing client
A 10-course Quality Management System curriculum (document control, corrective action, calibration, nonconformance, internal audit, and related processes), deployed company-wide via enterprise LMS — sole author, developer, and media producer.
Hand-coded learning interactions
Self-contained, accessible HTML/CSS/JS interactions — drag-and-drop card sorts, audit simulators, decision flows — built as Articulate Rise web objects with full ARIA and keyboard support, on a versioned design system.
See a live demo →L&D project-intake pipeline
A custom web tool I designed and coded that operationalizes instructional-design judgment: a Mager-based triage filter feeding a five-pillar scoping intake, with structured JSON hand-off between stages.
Open the live tool →AI authoring console
A custom prompt-authoring console that standardizes AI-assisted content production across an entire course program — part of a suite of tools I built to accelerate multi-course development under a human QA gate.
Open the live tool →Client websites
Designed and built sites across platforms and industries — e-commerce, healthcare, and local services — on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and hand-coded stacks.
See the gallery →
About
My career has one thread: I don’t just teach — I build the system that makes people competent, then prove it worked.
That instinct took me from teaching and building an education micro-business, into instructional design in higher education and corporate L&D, into senior safety and compliance learning, and now into architecting certification programs for regulated and defense-sector environments. The stakes rose at every step; the craft is the same — design the learning, write the code, instrument the data, and own the governance.
I hold an M.S. in Instructional Design & Educational Technology, am an ATD Master Trainer, and bring a B.A. in Art & Performance to the visual and media side of the work.
Some of my best work is for clients I can’t name. Discretion is part of the job.
Let’s talk
Open to senior instructional design / L&D roles. The fastest way to reach me: