Rethinking a complex Learning Management System

Client Project: FH Wien der WKW (University of Applied Sciences Vienna), Austria (Digital Learning Department)

The challenge

As digital learning becomes more popular, students expect better collaboration with their lecturers. For that reason, the digital learning team at FH Wien der WKW 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.

Solution

The overall look and feel is crafted from extensive interviews with key stakeholders involved to craft a functional and meaningful user experience based on hours of observations and understanding of real user pains and needs. What is more strong consideration has been given to the strong brand and visual identity of FH Wien der WKW.

Redesigning the legacy design system

FH Wien benefits from having a legacy design system which meant I could jump into some potential ideation to begin with then slowly integrate it into my designs.

As part of the build of a new LMS, I wanted to also modify and update the legacy design system.

So not only does this product have a new look and feel but a new design system to support in formulating what components to use and where they should be placed.

Ensuring consistency

Given so many visual elements a major consideration was given to maintaining design consistency. Dashboard components were heavily made use of for example, for user ease, but to also maintain a consistent look and feel.

Impact

The new UI was met with positive responses due to it’s simplified navigation but also because of the practical properties in supporting student goals learned from deep user research. Both staff and students alike have found the system considerably easier to work with halving the time needed to complete several functions and user flows.

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