Unlocking the Joy of Learning Through Design

We know that in an era where digital tools are everywhere, learning platforms need to do more than just provide content. They need to feel effortless, trustworthy, and engaging, especially for people who aren’t naturally tech savvy. When our client asked us to refresh their learning platform’s user experience, the goal was not only to modernise the interface, but to make sure every user could navigate, learn, and achieve without challenge.

The client’s existing platform was full of good features, yet many users struggled to discover or use them effectively. Functions for course creation, activity editing, feedback, and navigation weren’t behaving as intuitively as they should, and the visual design didn’t always enforce clarity. What this meant was a steeper learning curve, user frustration and lower retention. Our mission was to transform the experience to clarify functionality, streamline pathways, and help users find what they need quickly and confidently.

We started by listening to the not-so-tech-savvy users already using the platform to understand where they felt stuck, confused, or discouraged. By engaging with these voices in our first phase, we could test assumptions and ground design decisions in the real experiences of people who have less confidence using digital tools. Complementing that, we conducted a competitor audit to analyze what similar platforms were doing well so we could establish benchmarks and uncover where our client could differentiate. At the same time, we used heuristic analysis to systemically evaluate usability across the site, identifying where users might struggle with consistency, visibility, affordance, or feedback.

From that, we identified ways to create quick wins. We refined visual elements like typography, colour palettes, button styling, and navigation structure to improve readability, ease of use, and first impressions of clarity. Changes in these areas alone began reducing cognitive load for users. Once those were mapped out, we turned towards simplifying how courses were created, enhancing interfaces for activity editing, and improving feedback mechanisms so that both learners and instructors could more easily see what’s working and where improvements were needed. We also paid special attention to the dashboard and overall navigation to ensure the experience felt coherent from entry point to task completion.

The result was a clearer, more intuitive platform where users reported fewer moments of confusion and fewer abandoned tasks. The platform’s visual design felt more polished and consistent, making trust easier to build. By aligning course creation flows, editing tools, feedback mechanisms, and navigation more closely with user expectations, the client was set up to improve both user satisfaction and platform uptake.

When users come from diverse backgrounds or have limited technical experience, small adjustments in the interface, layout, and feedback can generate large gains in usability, confidence, and retention. When design supports clarity and simplicity in this way, learning becomes less of a task and more of a journey.

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