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Learner Experience Design –

Where the LMS meets the learningAre you thinking enough about your learners?

Mark Harrison, Director, City & Guilds Kineo

Totara User Group | London | May 15, 2014

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What’s the best LMS user interface?

It’s not best practice.It’s not based on what they need to know.

It’s about them being human beings.

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What’s the best LMS user interface?

What’s your learning style?

Don’t just design something

that you (or your key

stakeholder) would like to use!

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Catering for personas is the key to success

Theorist

Activist

Pragmatist

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Why are they coming to the LMS?

The Browser Learner

Activist

Theorist

ReflectorPragmatist

The Self Developer Learner

Activist

Theorist

ReflectorPragmatist The Involuntary Learner

Activist

Theorist

Reflector

Pragmatist

The Programmed Learner

Activist

Theorist

Reflector

Pragmatist

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The main types of LMS design

User-controlled Structured paths

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What kind of experience do they want?

At times, a learner can be any of

these!The Browser LearnerUser-controlled

The Self Developer LearnerUser-controlled

The Involuntary Learner

Structured paths

The Programmed Learner

Structured paths

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Catering for everyone?

User-controlled

Structured

User-controlled

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Recommended LMS design steps

• Get a clear and shared understanding of the project’s objectives through Stakeholder interviews

• Define and agree primary and secondary objectives – immediate and longer term

• Confirm the success criteria• Define and agree KPIs – what does good look like?

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Catering for personas is the key to success

Theorist

Activist

Pragmatist

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Key principles of designing for learners

• Collaborative design process working with subject matter experts and end-users

• Identify the key users/audiences and categorise them and develop personas (through dialogue with end users)

• Give the personas names, characteristics and constraints e.g. time pressures, technical-competency, devices they’ll be using etc. to bring them to life

• Define their keys tasks/information-requirements, to feed into the design and validation – the aim to solve users’ [real] needs/problems

• Adopt ‘Lean’ design over heavy-weight documentation/specifications

• Validate designs with ‘real’ users (if at all possible) – usability and visual design / aesthetics

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MindEd – Designed for everyone with no personal plans

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Who are MindEd learners?

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MindEd Example Personas

PhilSports Coach

− Professional sports coach− Ex-professional footballer himself – wants the kids to

achieve the success he never got− Lives and breathes sport− Personality type: Activist− Dismissive of kids who don’t get involved− Trigger: Has a star striker who is ‘weird’− Phil has a fear of the ‘unknown’ (he doesn’t know

what is wrong with the kid, and that worries him)− Found MindEd by googling it. Also saw it mentioned in

a coaching group newsletter− Wants the site to be straightforward to use− Turned off by jargon

Essential content / functionality for Phil: MindEd Core Curriculum Section 5 – presentations  Would like to search using key words Won’t log on to the site – he won’t be willing to spend 5 minutes putting in his personal details and won’t stay longer than 30 minutes

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MindEd Example Personas

JennieSports Coach

− Keen to explore the MindEd site (has more of a general interest in the content than Phil).

− Trigger for interest: She has an unreliable player in her team who never turns up for practice. Wants to find out how she can connect with this kid.

− Dedicated to her job

− Would spend 2 hours on the site

Essential content / functionality for Jennie:

Recommend MindEd Core Curriculum Section 5 – presentations

Would like to search using key words

As Jennie is an interested user, she will want to explore the content more and take advantage of other sessions

Site should steer Jennie towards a learning path without overwhelming her with too much content. 

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After the launch!

• Measure and evolve the solution after launch by responding to early findings: The launch is just the beginning!

• Set up criteria to answer the key question: How do we know if it’s working?

• Measure against the success criteria / KPIs:  Analytics and MI

• Iterate (where possible!) with phasing delivery/releases; fully functional deployments evolving the solution over time

• Content curation: Nurture your content and keep it targeted