ABOUT

Blackbaud Everfi, a leader in digital education, faced a significant challenge: combining User Experience (UX) and Learning Experience (LX) design to create digital courses that effectively meet educational goals based on Bloom's taxonomy. Despite substantial efforts to create delightful and impactful courses and educational materials, feedback indicated that learners were not achieving the expected depth of learning.

This misalignment was threatening our ability to deliver on educational outcomes. I led the initiative to bridge this gap and ensure our digital courses supported various levels of cognitive skills, from basic recall to complex creation.

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OUTCOMES

• Enhanced Collaboration: 90% of designers reported improved cross-functional teamwork between UX and LX teams.
• Improved Educational Impact: 85% of users achieved higher cognitive skill levels according to Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid improving from lower levels of this pyramid to higher levels. 
• Streamlined Design Process: Implementation of a shared design system and tools.

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PROJECT GOALS 

• Align UX and LX design to meet educational goals.
• Increase user engagement and learning outcomes in courses and other digital learning tools.
• Develop a design system informed by Bloom's taxonomy.

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MY ROLE

I led the initiative by conducting user research, facilitating cross-disciplinary workshops, and developing a design system that integrated UX and LX principles. Collaborating closely with both UX and LX teams, I focused on creating a shared language and tools to enhance our design process and educational impact.

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PROJECT INITIATION

After Q2, we recognized a significant gap between our UX designs and the cognitive skill levels outlined in Bloom's taxonomy. User feedback indicated our digital courses were not meeting educational expectations, prompting the need for a more cohesive design approach.

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EXISTING LEARNING PROBLEMS 

For the past few years of course building, there appeared to be significant improvements to our users’ learning goals but in 2022, we set out to conduct extensive testing of our courses at the classroom level. 

Here, we found learners were simply memorizing and repeating information only to finish the courses’ exam sections, making the courses’ different components and activities we created more of an obstacle in their learning than fruitful learning lessons. To understand and fix this issue, we set out to dissect this problem and reach higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. 

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COMPETITIVE AND SECONDARY RESEARCH

To understand best practices, we conducted a competitive analysis of leading educational platforms. This revealed key insights:

• User-Centered Design: Competitors effectively aligned their design components with the educational goals of helping users grasp complex topics at a faster rate and adding gamification features for user delight.
• Effective Collaboration: Successful learning platforms facilitated seamless collaboration between UX and LX designers.

Our analysis highlighted the need to integrate Bloom's taxonomy into our design process, ensuring our courses addressed all cognitive skill levels: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating.

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IDENTIFYING OUR PROJECT NORTH STAR

User testing and competitive analysis revealed our design system's shortcomings in supporting cognitive skill development. To address this, we focused on:

• Component Mapping: Aligning design components with specific cognitive skill levels.
• Collaborative Tools: Developing workshops and guidelines for cohesive teamwork between LX and UX teams.

Our goal was to create a design system that not only met educational goals but also streamlined our collaboration process.

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USER TESTING

User testing was crucial in refining our design system. We conducted surveys and usability tests to identify pain points and areas for improvement. This feedback informed the development of a more intuitive navigation system and clearer instructions for using the design system.

• Image of user tests

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ITERATIVE DESIGNING

We explored various site structures and design templates, iterating based on user feedback and testing results. Each iteration aimed to better align our design components with Bloom's taxonomy and improve user engagement.

• Image of iterative designs and collaboration models

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RESULTS

Our efforts led to significant improvements in user engagement and learning outcomes:

• Enhanced Educational Impact: Users achieved higher cognitive skill levels in course assessments.
• Improved Collaboration: Designers reported better teamwork and a more streamlined design process.

After launching our new design system and implementing it at the correct stage in the design process, 90% of designers reported improved cross-functional teamwork between UX and LX teams. 85% of users of our courses also achieved higher cognitive skill levels according to Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid improving from lower levels of this pyramid to higher levels. Overall this implementation of shared design system and tools streamlined our design process.

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The new design system not only supported educational goals but also reduced design decision fatigue, enabling more efficient project completion.

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FUTURE STEPS

• Improved cross-platform compatibility: Expand our components and design systems to better handle different content types cross-platform. 
• Enhanced Analytics: Implement component tracking and hotspotting to better understand user behavior and preferences.
• Additional Features: Introduce new features based on user requests and market trends to continually improve the user experience.
• Increased Accessibility: Enhance accessibility to cater to all users' needs, ensuring our designs are inclusive.

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REFLECTIONS

This project reinforced the importance of user-centric design and cross-disciplinary collaboration. By aligning UX and LX principles, we were able to create a design system that significantly improved educational outcomes. Moving forward, we aim to continue refining our approach, focusing on accessibility and user feedback to ensure our designs are effective and inclusive.

By leveraging Bloom's taxonomy, we ensured that each design component supported specific cognitive skill levels, from basic recall to complex creation. This alignment was key to enhancing the educational impact of our digital courses and improving overall user engagement.