Elearning platform redesign

User research & designs for Nimble Author elearning platform

Introduction

I joined elearning provider Nimble in early 2020 as their first design hire, primarily responsible for working on their Nimble Author product, which allows companies and HR professionals to easily build and publish online courses.

The previous Nimble Author was Flash-based so needed updating. In 2020 the Author was relaunched with a brand new drag & drop interface based on Material UI and designed to make building courses even quicker and easier.

My responsibilities

  • Conduct user interviews
  • Test platform and enhancements with users
  • Design platform enhancements
  • Champion the user
  • Present designs to stakeholders & dev squads
  • Creating assets, style guides and imagery

The challenge

The project was challenging from a UI/UX perspective with two main areas to consider - the authoring tool and what the learners see. The product had to:

  • Be user friendly for course creators to administer. Creators want to create course content, add interactions, include branding and enrol their learners quickly
  • Give instant desktop, mobile and tablet previews, so creators will see a course exactly as their learners will
  • Be engaging and easy to use for end-user learners. No-one wants to have to take a boring looking, uninspiring course
  • Work across multiple devices, so learning can take place anywhere

Nimble Author course creator designs

A selection of designs showing the Nimble Authoring tool:

The Nimble Author WYSIWYG drag and drop content editor

The new Nimble Author

The course page structure is shown in the left hand panel. Pages can be added or re-ordered easily

The new Nimble Author

Adding a page, survey or assessment is easy

The new Nimble Author

Assets sich as images, videos and audio can be selected from a Library

The new Nimble Author

Each interaction has editor controls

The new Nimble Author

The course can be previewed across multiple devices, to see it exactly as the learners will

The new Nimble Author

If you'd like to demo the Nimble Author for yourself please visit the Nimble website and complete the form. It's free and there's no time limits to your trial.

Nimble Author course player designs

A selection of designs showing how a course will look to learners:

A course created in Nimble Author

Features included in the Nimble Author include text blocks, images, interactions and surveys. All needed in-depth consideration so they worked perfectly in different scenarios and were engaging with learners