MIT: xPRO professional learning platform.

Organization

MIT Open Learning

Project date/duration

Spring 2019 Duration: 5 months

My role

As the Design Lead, I oversaw the planning strategy and contributed to prototypes & final designs. I directed my three direct UX reports and two in-house full-stack developers to complete the project.

Project Summary

We built MIT xPRO’s online learning platform to distribute curated content from world-renowned experts, helping professionals develop their skills on the job. Users needed a better way to browse the xPRO course catalog, purchase course licenses, and process payments. The current model requires numerous emails, phone calls, and a wire transfer to complete a sale. The goal was to create a portal for new and existing users to gather course information and enroll in courses. The analog model only serves enterprise clients, and this project allows xPRO to service its target users better and adds individual learners into its business model.

Pain Points

  • Analog Process: The original enrollment system relied on emails, phone calls, and manual wire transfers, making it time-consuming and prone to errors.

  • Limited to Enterprise Users: The platform primarily catered to enterprise clients, excluding individual learners and limiting growth potential in new user segments.

  • Limited Access to Course Catalog: Users struggled to browse and explore the course catalog easily, impacting their ability to discover and enroll in relevant courses.

The Challenge

In the spring of 2019, MIT, Open Learning began preparation to roll out a bunch of new professional training courses. With these new courses came a need to change the way xPRO delivered the course catalog was and how clients were affected. Outside of email correspondence, the process of closing a sale lacked a lean digital experience.

We had three months to design and develop a web app that could house a portfolio of courses, allow user sign-up & registration, a payment portal, and a dashboard for returning customers. Also, there was a two-step authentication process for new users, which became a non-negotiable feature that added bulkiness to the app.

Design Process

The Solution

As a solution, we created a platform to deliver xPro’s advanced professional development courses. While brainstorming, we had to identify the platform’s critical needs, including a course catalog, sign-up, login capabilities, user registration, process payments with check-out, and a user dashboard. With only three months and a hard deadline, we went straight into the design.

User Flow

Personas

After a short research process, we based our findings on the similarities in user goals. With that, I could describe the entire user base of xPro into two primary Personas. These personas helped to create a better picture of the target users we aimed to serve with this new platform.

Usability test results

I instructed development to begin building as each design was approved. Jumping into the development process allowed us to have an early clickable prototype available for testing. We tested the platform with a small group and included a short survey. The design was well-received, with one significant finding: users were frustrated with the email verification process. Users felt a little better explaining the reasoning behind the steps and expressed that this was the only problem they found. Most users had no issue with the length of the forms and found it reasonably simple. Users were happy with the purchase, and the check-out process and the customer dashboard were received well. Many felt the platform was straightforward and provided a pleasant user experience.

User Interviews

I conducted phone interviews with some of our current clients to get more insight into the user's frustrations. I aimed to get some qualitative data to identify new problems during this process.

Sketches

Prototype

Final Screens

Results

With only 3 months to complete the project, I created a straightforward design and development strategy to meet our deadline and roll out xPro on time. As a result, xPro launched without a snag, and the xPro sales team began funneling their leads to the site to purchase licenses. We discovered that upgrading the analog process would allow us to extend xPro offerings to individual learners. This created new business for xPro, which had previously only provided courses on an enterprise level. Since its release, xPro has sold bulk licenses to Boeing, The US ARMY, & IBM, to name a few.