Learner management
CBT Nuggets is renowned for providing innovative training that's informative, meaningful, and engaging.
They provides a variety of training, primarily in IT, project management, and office productivity topics.
All of their training is delivered through high-quality online streaming video. Learners can train 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the convenience of a computer or mobile device.
In addition to the individual IT training lessons, CBT Nuggets provide IT training services for over 100 enterprise clients across the U.S. In May 2018, I led the innovations to empower enterprise clients to manage learners, assign custom team training plans, and monitor their progress in a simple and fast manner.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study.
The information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of CBT Nuggets.
My role
In May 2018, I partnered with another product designer, Marlon Rábago, and led the designs to create a seamless experience for enterprise clients and to keep training organized and on point so their teams can focus on what matters most.
Learner Management was launched on October 2019.
My Responsibilities
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Sketching and Wireframing
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Prototyping (lo/Hi-fi)
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Information Architecture
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Usability Testing
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Design Operation
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Design Research
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Project Management
Challenge
An organized approach for team training
Imagine you're a training admin at a big company like Google. You're managing over 10,000 learners by monitoring their training progress, assigning training materials to them, and updating the list of active learners.
CBT Nuggets has been delivering trusted IT training across industries and around the globe.
Discovery
I kicked off the project by conducting 15 interviews with enterprise admins and 2 of the enterprise customer support employees at CBT Nuggets. The enterprise customer support team was the stakeholders of this project.
After forming a solid understanding around the requirements of this project, I prioritized the features of the project. Considering the 6-month timeline of this project for implementation, I defined the MVP and future versions of the project. All of the proposed versions and the MVP were approved by our stakeholders and product owners.
Goals
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Enterprise clients can define one or more groups
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Admins can create learners in bulk
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Provide admin with data to best manage their learners & licenses
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Support large enterprise accounts without performance impact
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Assign Playlist to groups/learners
Opportunities
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All learners on an enterprise site are in the same group
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Admins need more data to know how their learners use CBT
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Admin pages are slow for anything more than a certain number of clients
Groups and group admins
Previously, client admin was the only role define by CBT Nuggets for enterprise clients. The insights from the interviews showed that approximately 63% managers and HR employees request access to the training information.
They often needed to create request tickets for the admins to assign specific training courses to the existing and new employees. The process was extremely time-consuming and frustrating for admins and managers.
As a result, I defined a new roles: "group admins" that can be assigned to managers or HR employees who want to create groups, create custom playlists, and assign playlists to groups.
Prototype testing
To create a high-quality and seamless experience for admins, I created user flows and defined testing scenarios to test the prototypes with admin clients. The high-fi prototypes were tested by 14 admin clients. Additionally, I defined the A/B testiing plant for after launching the MVP in order to learn, improve the experience, and validate the design roadmap.
For the first 7 rounds, I used InVision and Sketch to perform prototype testings. For the additional 7 testing sessions, I built a semi-functional UI to test the experience with admins.
Playlists
CSV mode
Impact
40%
faster process
with CSV mode
74%
conversion rate
within the first 6 months
91%
enterprise satisfaction
based on survey results
CBT Nuggets design operation
To establish an effective communication between the design team and other teams within CBT Nuggets and to build a transparent design process, I established CBT Nuggets design operation. The design process introduced a customized version of design sprints to the design team and helped designers effectively collaborate with all members of the design team, stakeholders, and external teams within the organization.
The pilot run of this design operation was conducted through the admin experience project. As a result, everyone at CBT Nuggets could monitor the progress of this project and follow its progress as it would go through different stages of design and development.
The documentation, design, and versioning of the admin experience were reviewed and approved by the stakeholders. In addition, we received positive feedback from stakeholders, information architects, and the developer team.
Although the project was very big, and therefore, had to be broken down into different versions, its design process was completed in less that 3 months.
My collaboration and communication with the developer team, the stakeholders, and members of the design team confirmed the success of the newly embedded CBT Nuggets design operation.
Personal learnings
Learning how to face a very big project as well as how to lead a design team was an invaluable experience that enabled me to believe in myself as a strong designer.
Designing the operation of a team and taking the responsibility of managing a project improved my skills as a lead designer.
Moreover, I had to find effective tools and approaches for both internal and external collaboration, and I'm proud that my CS and design backgrounds empowered me to effectively address this need and successfully respond to it.
Retrospective
Puente
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