About — Kristin Hanlin Skip to main content

About me

I make things. That’s the whole thing.

Former high school English teacher. Current instructional designer. Lifelong maker of things with her hands. If I can learn it, build it, or take it apart to see how it works, I’m in.

Kristin Hanlin, instructional designer

Fig. 02 — that’s me.

The story

I used to get teenagers excited about semicolons.

Before I was an instructional designer, I was a high school English teacher. That means I’ve spent a long time thinking about how to get people genuinely interested in something they weren’t sure they needed. Turns out, that instinct travels well.

I collaborate with subject matter experts to build learning that feels simple on purpose. The hard work happens behind the scenes: finding the right angle, the right sequence, the right moment of surprise. So that by the time a learner shows up, it just feels obvious.

I design with accessibility in mind and care deeply about whether people actually learn something. Not whether they completed something. Whether they learned it.

something i’ll stand behind

watching a video and answering a few questions feels productive. research suggests it mostly isn’t.

Outside of work

I have never met a hobby I won’t try.

01
Scrapbooking

Turning a pile of moments into something that tells a story. Composition, sequencing, making the whole greater than the parts. Sound familiar?

02
Embroidery

Patience, repetition, and small details that only reveal themselves up close. Also: excellent proof that constraints breed creativity.

03
Collage

Finding meaning in unexpected combinations. Taking things apart and putting them back together in ways that make more sense than the original.

Fig. 03 — the throughline: everything i make by hand informs how i design learning.

How I work

A few things I genuinely believe.

On learning

The best learning doesn’t feel like learning. It feels like figuring something out. That feeling is by design, not accident.

On accessibility

Designing for accessibility isn’t a checklist. It’s a commitment to the idea that good learning should be available to everyone who needs it.

On simplicity

Simple on purpose is hard. It takes more work to strip something down to what matters than to leave everything in. I do the work.

On collaboration

Subject matter experts know things I don’t. My job is to ask the right questions, then translate what I learn into something a stranger can use.

Let’s talk learning.

I’m always open to discussing new projects, swapping ideas, or just talking about what makes learning actually work.

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