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A blueprint: designing a learning system people want to use

Jon Grinnell · Jan 20, 2021 · 3 min read

As a digital learning manager, I'm intrigued by a common challenge many companies face with their learning management systems (LMS): they're dull, irrelevant, and few have time to engage with them. Even as sleek learning experience platforms (LXP) came online as a potential solve to the LMS engagement problem, it still seems as though many of the same issues persist that make learning system adoption difficult to achieve. So how do we bridge the gap? How might we design a system that people want to use? In this article, I'll attempt to answer these questions, drawing on past experiences implementing learning platforms for adult learners. Note: I will use the term "customers" and employees interchangeably.

• Know the voice of the customer. With a strong grasp on your organizational talent model and its culture, create a list of questions and conduct a system needs analysis. Ask employees what they're looking for in a learning platform, and take detailed notes. Once you hear themes, group employee needs into product feature sets, and focus on the functionalities that could most likely increase adoption. Additionally, segment your customers into personas who have common attributes, and embed these personas into your system architecture. As a result, you will better understand who your customers are (personas) and their needs (feature sets) — effectively the "voice" of the customer.
• Articulate a learning platform strategy. With the voice of the customer in mind, define your platform vision and the business objectives it will support. Identify your priority customers (e.g. engineering, sales, etc.), hypothesize how to win their engagement (e.g. feature "X", content "Y"), and create a workplan to get it done. David Sacks, co-founder of Yammer, defines this as going sharp. Thinking like a product manager, create and monitor system key performance indicators on an ongoing basis (e.g., 30% NPS by Q4, 70% adoption by year 2). Address any risks to learning system adoption up front, such as lack of time, and implement programs that create space/time for learning (e.g. Udemy's DEAL program). Once you have a draft, communicate the strategy internally and ask for feedback, particularly from leadership.
• Create a feedback loop. Develop a direct line of communication with your customers. Send personalized messages to employees about the system, hold focus groups, and demonstrate to customers how you're acting on their feedback. Maintain a backlog of learning system needs, and ask your employees themselves to prioritize it. With consideration to your business objectives, focus on the right features, deploy them, ask for feedback, iterate, and refine.

The key is to consistently ship, to deliver functionalities, features or content anchored on customer feedback. Sustain this, year after year, and you will build a learning platform people want to use.

There may be budget restraints, bureaucracy challenges, compliance considerations (required vs. optional usage), and perhaps other barriers to learning system adoption such vendor mismatches or lack of resources. In any case, I believe that in order to design a learning system people want to use, it helps to know your customers, have a plan, and create a feedback loop to ensure their voices are heard.

If you have feedback, want to chat, or have other approaches or techniques that have helped with learning system adoption — leave a comment or reach out!