Guidelines for Designing AI Technologies to Support Adult Learning
AI education tools often ignore adult learners—here's the fix.
Researchers from a U.S. national institute on adult learning examined five AI-powered educational technologies deployed over multiple years, focusing on how adults (not K–12 students) interact with these systems. Through reflexive thematic analysis of longitudinal data, they surfaced 19 design guidelines—covering areas like goal-setting, feedback timing, scaffolding, and autonomy—specifically tailored to adult learning contexts.
To validate these guidelines, the team conducted a heuristic evaluation on the deployed systems, confirming the guidelines' utility in identifying misalignments. They also built a guideline exploration tool that connects each guideline to real stakeholder statements, helping designers brainstorm and iterate more effectively. The work was accepted at the Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2026 conference and published on arXiv with 22 pages, 7 figures, and 3 tables.
- 19 evidence-based guidelines for AI systems that support adult learning, derived from longitudinal deployment data
- Heuristic evaluation of existing systems confirmed guideline utility in identifying design gaps
- Includes a stakeholder-informed exploration tool that links guidelines to user statements for ideation
Why It Matters
Adult learners have unique needs—AI tools must adapt, not just scale K-12 designs.