Audience: Hikers, outdoor enthusiasts, and visitors to Caballero County Parks who may be new to desert hiking or unfamiliar with heat‑related safety practices. The audience represents a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and experience levels—from beginners to seasoned hikers—seeking to make safe, informed decisions on the trail.

Responsibilities: Instructional Design, Design Document, Course outline (including activity design and scripting), Content Research, Gamification Design, Custom Code Integration, Visual Design, Interactive Prototype Development

Tools used: Articulate Rise 360, Mighty by Maestro, Canva, ChatGPT, Replit, GitHub, 

Project Features: Gamified elements with points and tiered badges, Interactive Scenarios, Custom HTML/CSS/JavaScript Blocks, Process Comparisons, Hotspot Interactions, Drag‑and‑Drop Activities, Knowledge Checks, Personalized Trail Name Integration, Mobile‑Friendly Design, Intuitive Heads Up Display, Personalized downloadable badge for learners who complete the quest

The Problem

Desert trails present unique hazards for hikers, including extreme heat, dehydration, and challenging terrain. Visitors to Caballero County Parks—many of whom may be new to desert hiking—often lack the knowledge and preparation needed to safely choose trails, manage water intake, and respond to heat‑related illnesses. This training addresses the need for an engaging, accessible resource that empowers hikers to make safe decisions before and during their hikes. In addition to solving this real‑world safety challenge, the project also served as an experimental space to explore the potential of integrating Mighty with Rise. By testing custom‑coded interactions, gamification mechanics, and advanced personalization, this course demonstrates how these innovations can transform a standard Rise module into a highly interactive, game‑like experience that both educates and motivates learners.

The Solution

This course directly addresses the dual challenge of uninformed hikers navigating desert trails and the need for innovative, engaging eLearning experiences. The course equips learners with the practical knowledge to select appropriate trails, prepare effectively, stay hydrated, and respond to heat‑related emergencies. Built in Articulate Rise and enhanced with Mighty’s custom‑code capabilities, Trail Quest transforms traditional safety training into a gamified, interactive journey. Learners engage in realistic decision‑making scenarios, complete interactive trail and gear activities, and earn points toward tiered hiking badges—reinforcing safe‑hiking principles through play. For instructional design practice, the project also serves as a working example of how innovative technologies and gamification strategies can elevate the effectiveness and appeal of eLearning. This blended approach delivers not only a valuable public‑safety resource but also a model for pushing the creative boundaries of online learning. 

My Process

For this training, I adapted a streamlined version of the ADDIE instructional design model to meet a strict timeline while balancing other projects. I began by analyzing the target audience—hikers and outdoor enthusiasts visiting Arizona’s desert trails—to understand their needs and potential safety gaps. From there, I created a design document and built a rough outline that quickly evolved into an expanded outline with detailed scripting and image descriptions. Rather than producing a full traditional storyboard, I worked directly from this expanded outline to design and develop the course. This approach allowed me to focus on building the interactive elements, integrating gamification, and experimenting with Mighty’s custom‑code capabilities, while still maintaining alignment with the course’s safety objectives and overall learning goals. 

Design Document

The design plan for Trail Quest: Hike Smart in Caballero County set the stage for the whole project. In it, I pulled together the purpose of the course, who it was for, and what I wanted learners to walk away knowing and doing. It laid out the safety problems the course needed to tackle, from picking the right trail to recognizing heat‑related issues, and it outlined the kinds of activities I wanted to include—like scenarios, gamified challenges, and quick knowledge checks. I also made sure to include notes on accessibility, branding, and how learners would be assessed. Having this plan in place gave me a clear roadmap to follow and kept the focus on creating a fun, interactive course that still met its ultimate goal: helping hikers feel confident and prepared on the trail.

Expanded Outline

Instead of creating a traditional storyboard for Trail Quest, I worked from an expanded outline. This document started as a rough course outline and quickly grew into a detailed guide that included the full script, descriptions of each planned activity, and notes about the visuals I wanted to use. I mapped out where scenarios, gamified challenges, and interactive elements would appear, along with how they would tie back to the learning objectives. The outline also helped me keep track of where custom Mighty blocks would be integrated and what accessibility features needed to be in place. Working this way let me move faster while still keeping the course organized, creative, and aligned with my vision for a fun, interactive hiking safety experience.

Style Guide

I had a lot of fun creating the style guide for Trail Quest. I built it in Canva and even used ChatGPT to help brainstorm elements, which made the process really creative and collaborative. I pulled together a desert‑inspired color palette, playful yet functional icons, and a few font pairings that matched the adventurous tone I was going for. I also designed the badge set and visual elements for our trail guide character here, which carried straight into the course. The final course look and feel ended up matching my original vision almost exactly, thanks to having this style guide to keep everything consistent. It gave me a clear visual direction from start to finish and made it easy to keep the design cohesive, immersive, and on‑brand for the Trail Quest experience.

Results and Takaways

Creating Trail Quest was a different kind of project for me—it was as much about research and experimentation as it was about design. I pushed myself to explore new tools and techniques, learning how to integrate AI into my workflow in meaningful ways and how to weave CSS and JavaScript into a Rise course to create unique, custom interactions. I also got to put my gamification certification to work, building a learning experience that feels more like an adventure game than a traditional training. While I always aim to make learning fun and engaging, this project really drove home how technology, creativity, and instructional design can work together to make “learning” feel like anything but learning.

"This project really drove home how technology, creativity, and instructional design can work together to make learning feel like anything but learning" - 

Karisa Cloutier M. Ed