Believe it or not, an eLearning platform used by an education institution or business reflects on the organisation positively, or negatively. With more and more colleges and corporations using online learning platforms to deliver their learning and assessment material, students are reporting higher satisfaction rates if the LMS they used in their training was easy to use, provided a great user experience and had a modern UI design.
This shows how imperative it is for schools and businesses to adopt an online learning management solution that not only is friendly on the organisation’s budget, but also contains tools and features that would enable them to deliver high quality training experiences as well as a fresh design using colours proven to engage students and colours which elicits feelings of trust and reliability.
What is UI Design and UX?
User interface (UI) design is the style and look of a software program, whilst user experience (UX) is the feelings and thoughts invoked in a user when interacting with the system. Do they enjoy the style and layout of the platform? Do they find it hard to navigate? Are they able to accomplish their intended goals and tasks smoothly?
Think about some programs you might use for work and for your personal life such as Microsoft Word, Gmail, Facebook and Instagram. What do you like or not like about their design and layout? What do you find cumbersome when using the software? How easy is it to accomplish your tasks – for example, prepare a Meeting Agenda with Microsoft Word, or send out a group e-mail on Gmail?
Many software applications on the market are enriched with useful and much needed features, but fail miserably at UI and UX. And as a result turn away many potential customers. This all comes down to the designers hired and their ability to work with the development team and truly understand human psychology and modern trends very well.
UI and UX Designers are very well paid and in great demand as it is a very challenging to find a UI/UX Designer who understands people psychology and their needs, as well as managing user expectations. It is tricky as most companies believe that a UI Designer’s work revolves around their eye for creativity and design and UX Designer’s work revolves around creating efficient processes. However, there is much more to it than that. They have to work with cyber security specialists, coding superstars, software developers, project managers, subject matter experts, software testers and user acceptance testers to refine and perfect the user interface and user experience for the software.
Learning Management Systems which effortlessly integrates and intimately understands UI and UX components
One LMS that has a very attractive user interface and provides its users with a memorable and satisfying user experience is Penske Stuttgart’s Advantage SaaS. Its main target users are Australian schools, VET colleges and universities as well as their students, and they do an amazing job at ensuring each user level’s psychology and needs are met. They have a different dashboard and user interface and experience for users at various levels and addresses the needs of the different users impeccably. For example, at an administrator level, the contents of the dashboard reflects the information and data they would need such as best-selling courses and enrolment numbers in their top training programs. They enable AQTF survey responses to be viewed at one-glance and provide for AVETMISS, PRISMS and funding reports to be generated in one-click. At a student level, the contents of their dashboard includes the student’s calendar, news from the training provider, assessments due dates and past assessment results – all information that a student would need. This personalised approach makes Advantage a leader in eLearning portals in Australia.
On top of that Advantage also connects the learning management system to the student management system so seamlessly that its users report great savings in administrative and operational costs.
Another contender in this space is Absorb LMS. Its main target users are corporate institutions focused on providing educational and learning experiences to employees of its enterprise clients. Whilst it does not have the same individualised set-up for each user level as Advantage does, it still is complete with features that would enrich a user’s experience when using its LMS. An added bonus with the Absorb LMS is their mobile app – which Advantage is not slated to debut until early 2022.
With almost every living adult in the world owning a mobile device, it is a smart strategy for all software providers to have a mobile application for their software. This will enable the developers to reach more users and connect with more people compared to just having a web application. Whilst it does cost considerably more to develop mobile applications, it definitely is something that is worthwhile with more and more users (both retail and corporate users) connecting and utilising mobile devices rather than using their desktop or laptop computers.
Author | Emily Forbes
An Entrepreneur, Mother & A passionate tech writer in the technology industry!
Email:- EmilyForbes69@gmail.com
