Rethinking a complex Learning Management System
Project: University of Applied Sciences Vienna, Austria (Digital Learning Department)
Project background
The FH Wien of WKW is a renowned University of Applied Sciences in Vienna, Austria for business and management studies. Due to my history of being a lecturer for 3 years at the institution, I deeply understand the Learning Management System. I saw opportunities for improving the software and addressing some crucial usability issues that both lecturers and students faced. So, I approached the management with an offer to overhaul the current system.
Problem statement
As digital learning becomes more popular, students expect better collaboration with their lecturers. For that reason, FH Wien asked me to speak to their users to do a usability audit of the current software to understand how users interact with Moodle and to learn about its capabilities, limitations, and what could be done to improve the overall user experience.
Role & responsibilites
- Role: UX Researcher/UX Designer
- Goals: Understanding the existing issues and designing a more user-friendly software.
- Team: The university eLearning team and associated stakeholders.
- Timeframe: 7-months.
Who are the users?
The lecturer
Gerhard Lenkart, a longtime lecturer at FH Wien der WKW, is proficient in Moodle, but finds the platform non-intuitive.
The academic coordinator
Michaela Herzog is an expert in eLearning trends, dedicated to student success and a valuable resource for professionals.
The student
Julian Schuh is a Tourism Management student who frequently uses Moodle for coursework whether on or off campus.
Using a solid UX process based on design thinking
Discover
Empathising with and understanding what our learners/teachers and lecturers need.
Define
Determining the problems to be solved that my research uncovers.
Ideation
Developing potential solutions to user problems.
Prototyping
Building a prototype of a concept or concepts to be tested with users.
Testing
Testing prototypes with users and other stakeholders.
Business Goals
Increase lecturer usage
Determine what percentage of users are using mobile to access Moodle
Crucial feature requirements
Design Goals
Harmonize the branding to communicate a strong brand
Discover opportunities for features to support the user and remove ones that are not
Benchmarking metrics to track such as time on task & retention rate etc.
Research #1
I interviewed students, learners, and lecturers as defined at the start of the study because this is the core user group to better understand the daily interactions with the software.
How users were recruited
- I asked the eLearning department to select a pool of 6 students, 4 lecturers, and 2 academic coordinators that could be interviewed.
- Each participant shared their screen and demonstrated a part of the software they most freqeuntly use.
Research #2
I used empathy mapping to sythesise the data as I felt it would help me to better categorise the points to work on first. This process helps shift the focus of attention away from the product and is therefore more user-centered.
Key research findings
Using video tutorials
Short training videos to appear on the dashboard so the user can learn small nuggets of information.
Lecturer feedback
It was found that the way a student receives feedback on an assignment was unclear.
Cognitive overload
When adding a new assignment the different sections don’t offer enough information and causes strain for the user.
Unnecessary information
Organise the dashboard and homepages to display only essential menu information and new courses.
Design System
FH Wien benefits from having a legacy design system which meant I could jump into some potential ideation.
As part of the build of a new LMS, I wanted to modify the legacy design system.
Design systems are especially useful when formulating what components to use and where they should be placed.
Early stage designs
I began to use Figma fairly early on to work on some low-fidelity wireframes that helped me formulate an approach my final concept would take.
High Fidelity Prototype: Lecturer feedback
The below video shows the new concept based on logging into the Moodle interface and checking for lecturer feedback in addition to replying and responding to the lecturer directly within Moodle.
From what I tested with students in the above video, a quicker and easier way for students to access lecturer feedback was determined. This improved the lives of our students immeasurably by giving them the chance to get feedback more quickly and respond and engage with their lecturer outside of class.
Prototyping & testing
From the user research gathered it was determined that critical pain points to test were the way students access and edit their course content details and also access grades for their assignments and liaise with their lecturer.
Two sets of prototypes in Figma were built to begin user testing how users interacted with both flows.
Executive summary & take aways
Upon completing the research and design proposals, I put together a post-project report with several recommendations and suggestions.
FH Wien der WKW greatly appreciated the report, so they know what to follow up on next.
Stakeholder feedback
Design impact
8/10 surveyed
students said they greatly valued the possibility to get a reminder of assignments to be handed in.
9/10 surveyed
valued the lecturer feedback option as it meant not having to wait for each class to be given feedback.
9/10 surveyed
lecturers said they found the interface a lot more intuitive.
Management
FH Wien der WKW management felt the new screens based on the research gathered would create a positive impact to a newly developed LMS.
Thank you for viewing. I hope you enjoyed the case study.
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