Co-founder & Chief Learning Architect at Sealworks. 34+ years of turning ideas into prototypes, courses, apps, and platforms — from startups to Fortune 500's, reaching millions of learners every year.
A live snapshot — updated whenever something interesting changes.
LA, presented 4 sessions, 1 booth, and 180+ tools and resources.
Updated tools, resources, a new logo, and added a bookshelf. Love the search functionality.
Curated directory of mobile apps for learners, parents, and teachers — refreshed and re-launched with new categories.
Behind-the-scenes from LA — sessions, sketches, and a side trip that pulled the whole conference together.
Methods, tools, and techniques for teams who'd rather sketch than spec — refreshing the playbook with new prototyping plays each month.
Small cohort workshops on Claude for L&D — brainstorm, prototype, and jumpstart ideas in days, not weeks. Connect to learn more.
Excited to be presenting Amazing Apps & Tools to Create, Collaborate & Inspire this fall in Las Vegas.
Sealworks' own task & project tool — refreshing the engine and rolling out a redesigned experience.
Create, track, and connect learning experiences. A modern hub for cohorts, content, and outcomes.
Resource notebooks built to share the tools, tech, and best practices we use every day — one obsession: making learning better.
Getting started with prototyping — the tools, techniques, and methods to reimagine your learning.
Visit ↗ M mobileappsforlearning.comA curated catalog of mobile-first tools for learners, parents, and teachers — apps to create, explore, experiment, and share.
Visit ↗ C coolappsforlearning.comThe flagship list. Tools, apps & services Nick & the Sealworks team reach for every day to design, build, and ship.
Visit ↗Three decades of speaking, teaching, and workshopping — from conference keynotes to deep-dive workshops to weekly classes. Always available to speak, share, or keynote your next event. Reach out →
34+ years, a studio, a lot of sketching, imagining, architecting, playing — and four ways I help teams launch new experiences.
I'm a co-founder and Chief Learning Architect at Sealworks Interactive Studios, with 34 years of experience designing and developing learning experiences, applications, and web platforms.
I specialize in the intersection of design, technology, and learning — helping teams turn rough ideas into effective, learner-centered solutions.
I'm passionate about teaching, sharing, and inspiring others, and known for sketching, imagining, and prototyping innovative concepts that engage audiences of all ages.
My work has helped create learning experiences that reach millions of learners worldwide each year — from K–12 to enterprise.
Research, strategy, and interaction design. Start with the user, work backwards. Storyboards, journey maps, the whole kit.
From low-fi paper to working AI-built prototypes in hours. The fastest path from idea to "let's try it."
Scalable web apps, mobile apps, and platforms built to evolve with your business. Full-stack, full-cycle.
Learner-centered content, tools, apps, and platforms that scale, grow, and are designed from the ground up around your audience.
A short list of the books I keep gifting, citing, or re-reading.
Still the clearest explanation of why doors confuse people — and how to design things that don't.
The five-day playbook that cured my "let's-have-another-meeting" addiction.
If you build learning experiences and haven't read this, stop everything.
A 90-minute read that fixes 90% of bad customer interviews.
100 timeless strategies for positive interactions between people and technology. A reference I keep within arm's reach.
Pixar's playbook on protecting fragile ideas from the people who'd kill them too early.
Lessons from 15 years running Disney — leadership, taste, and big bets.
The obsession that drove Apple — and a great primer on simplicity as a discipline.
Life in first person. A wild reminder of what small teams can ship.
An unorthodox guide to making things worth making — from the Nest & iPod creator.
How habit-forming products get built — and the ethics of using the model thoughtfully.
A craftsman's memoir on inhabiting a character — and the art of restraint.
Sega vs. Nintendo — the scrappy underdog playbook for taking on a giant.
An inside look at how OpenAI became the most consequential company of the AI era — and what that means for the rest of us. Essential reading for anyone shaping products in the AI-native era.
A working journal from one of gaming's pivotal moments. Pure craft, pure honesty.
How to nurture the wild ideas that win wars, cure diseases, and transform industries.
Tiny changes, remarkable results. The clearest playbook I've found for designing systems that produce lasting behavior change.
A practical playbook for building accessible, inclusive learning experiences — accessibility baked in from the start, not bolted on at the end.
The friendliest, most practical intro to learning science I've ever handed a junior designer. Worth re-reading every couple of years.
Finally, an analytics book written for IDs — not data scientists. Clear, practical, and the missing piece for proving learning actually worked.
A blueprint for L&D that fits the way people actually work today — flow-of-work learning, content + community + coaching, all stitched together.
A field guide for the people closest to the work — practical plays for enabling frontline teams to learn, perform, and adapt at the speed of the business.
An unflinching look at what happens when studios collapse — and what the people who keep building learn from the wreckage. Required reading for anyone running creative teams.
A practical playbook for L&D teams moving past the AI demos and into real workflows — what to pilot, what to measure, and how to scale.
A clear-eyed guide to where AI actually fits in the L&D workflow — from authoring to performance support to platform decisions.
The studio I co-founded in 1992 — pairing design + technology to create amazing experiences that reach millions of learners each year.
Visit Sealworks ↗
Whether you're sketching out your first app, improving an existing learning platform, exploring a new AI idea, or scaling a solution to reach millions of users — I'd love to hear what you're working on.
Use the Let's Chat button to grab time on my calendar. I always enjoy connecting with people who are building, creating, and imagining what's next.