Learning happens at a threshold. I design the way across.

Liminal Design is the instructional design practice of Normand Theriault, PhD. I plan, write, and build online courses, branching scenarios, and learning tools for universities and workplace training teams.

Selected work

Each door is a working sample. The lit ones are open now. The others are on the way.

Title screen of the Diplomacy and Tact course, with four illustrated coworkers standing in a row.

Storyline 360

Diplomacy and Tact

Seven workplace scenarios that put a learner's communication skills to the test.

See how it was built

Home page of professortheriault.com, with cards linking to courses in philosophy, ethics, and humanities.

Higher education

Professor Theriault

Course sites, philosophy games, and a thinking tool for college courses in philosophy, ethics, and the humanities.

Visit the site

  • Rise 360

    Rise course, title to come

    A responsive course built in Rise 360.

    Arriving soon

  • Rise 360

    Rise course, title to come

    A second Rise 360 course on a different subject.

    Arriving soon

  • Custom build

    Workplace simulation

    A practice activity built by hand in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, outside any authoring tool.

    In development

What I build

One person handles the design, the writing, and the build, so nothing gets lost between them.

Courses in Rise and Storyline

From a subject-matter expert's raw material to a finished, published course: outlining, scripting, building, and testing.

Scenarios and practice

Branching scenarios and decision practice that ask learners to do the thing, not only read about it.

Canvas builds and accessibility

Course shells, pages, and quizzes for Canvas, built to WCAG 2.1 AA so every learner can use them.

Custom interactives

When an authoring tool can't do it, I build it directly in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: games, simulations, and small tools.

Both sides of the line

I work in higher education and in workplace training, and each makes me better at the other.

Higher education

Online programs and faculty who need courses designed and built for the LMS. I teach online myself, so I build with the instructor's side of the course in mind.

Workplace training

Training teams and learning agencies that need a designer who can also write and build, from a single module to a full course series.

Clients have included

  • YU Global
  • Amwell
  • Mosaic Learning
  • TISTA
  • Sunset Learning

About Normand

Portrait of Normand Theriault, smiling, in a red henley shirt.

I'm Normand Theriault, an instructional designer and college instructor based near Houston, Texas. I hold a PhD in E-Learning, master's degrees in philosophy and English literature, and a bachelor's in creative writing.

I have taught college courses since 2008, and today I teach philosophy, ethics, and humanities fully online. That mix shapes the work: I write like a teacher, structure like a designer, and build the result myself.

The name comes from limen, the Latin word for threshold. It is the point where a learner has left what they knew and hasn't yet arrived at what they can do. Good design is what makes that crossing short.

Start a project

Tell me what you're building and when you need it. I'll reply by email.