Project
The project aims to construct a UI/UX revamp proposal for Blackbord LMS, one of the oldest and leading LMS providers in the market today. It is hoped that this re-design will improve student engagement on the LMS platform with its user cantered approach and intuitive user interface to ensure future growth.
Product : Learning management systems (LMS)
Market : Higher education & EdTech
Role & Responsibilities : Literature review, Data analysis, Problem area analysis, Project plan, designing User-flow re-structuring, Wire-frames, creating click-through prototypes in Axure RP, Research report documentation.
Research Areas
Research papers, articles, market study reports and user feedbacks published on different platforms were analysed for deeper understanding of the problem areas.
Key problem areas analysed
- Features underutilisation
- Student engagement & collaboration
- Intuitiveness of the interface
- Personalisation options
- Mobile accessibility
Key findings and its effect on product usage
Feature underutilisation
It has been observed that most of the key collaborative and interactive features remain underutilised due to their inaccessibility and the learning curve required of the user to engage with the LMS effectively, resulting in LMS platforms never reaching their full potential.
Current experience
- Deep Learning curve
- Inflexible structure
- Feature inaccessibility
Effects
- Low level of student interaction
- Underutilisation of key features
Student engagement & collaboration
The findings suggests that students using the system, only tend to transmit their files for submissions/assessments rather than interacting and collaborating online.
Current experience
- Learning curve
- Difficult navigation
- Intuitiveness of the interface
Effects
- Low level of student collaborations
- Adverse effect on social aspect of learning
Intuitiveness of the interface
Users complain that the user interface is complicated, and the navigation system is confusing requiring many steps. Also study suggests that poor user experience is one of the main reasons of LMS switching.
Current experience
- Poor UI/UX
- Difficult navigation
- Information overload (poor user flow)
Effects
- Negative precipitin of the tool
- Negative effect on learning experience
Personalisation
According to a survey report, students and faculty want their learning support applications to have enhanced features and operational functions; be personalised; and use analytics to enhance learning outcomes.
Current experience
- Too many unused feature
- Inflexible structure
- Low third party app integration options
Effects
- Underutilisation
- Negative effect on product usage
Mobile accessibility
Tomorrow’s digital learning environments will have to meet the demands for anytime, anywhere access to course materials and 24/7 engagement by being mobile optimised and mobile friendly for its generation Z student front target audience.
Current experience
- Limited mobile accessibility
- Poor user experience
- UI breaks and inconstancy
Effects
- Low user reach
- Low usage frequency
LMS Market & Blackboard
LMS market overview
Learning Management System (LMS) market is projected to grow from $16.19 to $40.95 billion, according to Fortune Business Insight Report 2020.
Highlight
- BlackBord is one of the leading players in the global market.
- BlackBoard market share are on falling
- Large number of new entrants listed in last few years
Key players
- Canvas
- Blackboard
- Brightspace
- Moodle
Current Interface
Key interfaces/pages
- Home page
- Couse content page
- Course list page
- Calendar / Planner
- Notification
UI/UX problem areas
- No information grouping or hierarchy
- UI inconsistency
- Confusing navigation
- Information and feature overload
- Out dated UI
- Missing visual elements
- Cluttered layouts
Competitor product interface
Redefined design brief
"Design intuitive, flexible and responsive user experience for Blackboard LMS."
Design goals
- Make the user task flow easy to navigate by redesigning the user journey mapping and information layouts.
- Improve UX structural flexibility to allow a degree of personalisation and smooth external product integration.
- Provide a mobile responsive design solution.
- Future proofing by possible road map planning to accommodate technology advancement/innovations like student machine leaning integration, grade prediction or AI features.
User flow
Goal: Minimal information layering and centralised access points
Current user flow
Page flow & Feature mapping
Goal: Centralised access point
Wireframes
UI Library
User interface
Prototype: User interface prototype
Mobile interface
Prototype: Mobiel User interface prototype
Conclusion
Learning management systems have become an essential tool in university educational learning and have played an important role in Edtech market development. On the other hand, there are problems with these systems, which have been unsolved since they were first adopted two decades back. This project studies Blackboard LMS to understand the unsolved problems concerned with the underutilisation of key features on Blackboard, low levels of student engagement, inflexible UX structure and limited mobile accessibility. A Possible UI/UX design has been proposed, based on key research insights found from the research. However, further work can be done on identified problem areas from a technical point of view. Solving these challenges requires collaboration between design, technology, academic and system development experts. The findings and the UI/UX aspects of this proposed design solution can be used for parallel studies for different user groups and other areas related to the LMS platforms.
