Blackboard Learn

Blackboard Learn is a web-based virtual learning environment and learning management system developed by Blackboard Incorporated which is an American Educational Technology (EdTech) company. Around 11,990 companies software of Blackboard Inc. belonging to industries such as Higher Education, Education Management, and Information Technology and Services.

Being a Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard Learn gives an effective online platform that makes it easy for students to keep track of their coursework. Blackboard also facilitates collaboration among students and teachers and supports remote learning, which is quickly becoming the norm in today’s world.

Gathering information after an initial analysis, our own experience using the platform for a year, and the annoyances we’ve heard from our fellow peers, we dialed down on some notable issues to kickstart the process.

After researching the features of Blackboard and how it is used at UMBC, we narrowed down two types of users. The first type of user is a University Faculty Member – Professor, Teaching Assistant, or Grader. The second type of user is a Student who has access to the course-specific information shared by their faculty. In addition to these course specifics, students can also access their digital textbooks, track their group work, and manage their calendars.

For the interviews, we selected a user from each user type. In the case of faculty, we had the opportunity to interview a Teaching Assistant. The questions were designed to cater to a semi-structured format interview. Our goal was to start the interview by understanding the user’s frequency and context in which they use the software. The structured part of the interview had questions that contained specifics of their daily tasks. Based on their responses to these questions, we asked unstructured follow-up questions. The interviews were done virtually on Google Meet and recorded with the interviewee’s permission.

Users reported feeling that Blackboard could be improved in terms of functionality. While effective, there's a learning curve to the interface, requiring initial help from peers. Additionally, users expressed a desire for more customization options.

Interestingly, despite the variety of features offered, students rarely explore them. Additionally, student expectations include some standardized elements on the course homepage, regardless of instructor customization. An example is easy access to instructor and TA contact information.

In conclusion, we gathered valuable information from these interviews to help us improve Blackboard. We plan to tackle the learnability of the site by updating the navigation of the interface. Additionally, we feel a platform serving primarily students should have a more interactive user experience. This can be approached by updating the aesthetics and improving upon the platform's rigidity.

Conducting a Heuristic Analysis helped us uncover specific features of a page that users were having trouble with. We analyzed it with the participation of five different users. Three users were students, whereas the other two were faculty members. The results from the analysis also helped us narrow down specific user flows to work on for the oncoming prototyping phase. Some of the results are included below -

Taking the insights from interviews, we created user personas with the goal of helping us empathize better with the users we were designing for. We came up with two primary personas, one each for a Student and a Faculty member.

While performing competitor analysis for Blackboard, we gathered the pros and cons of each competitor with respect to the six usability goals. The assessment was done by going through each platform, which was made possible either by direct access shared by friends/acquaintances from other universities or through demos made available on the platform's website. Analysis of reviews of each platform was also done by going through the information available through Google Reviews and G2 Reviews.

For the prototyping phase, we decided to focus on three user flows. Prior interviews and analyses informed the factors we considered when choosing these flows. Other factors include frequency of use and usability score from the Heuristic Analysis.

To get started on refining the prototypes, we gathered participants to have them conduct a Cognitive Walkthrough with the low-fidelity prototypes. This exercise was a great way to verify whether the designed prototype helped address the issues we discovered during the Heuristic Analysis. It also gave us an insight into the mental model of the users while performing the specific tasks we defined earlier. Below is the cognitive walkthrough analysis taken from one of the users.

For the prototyping phase, we decided to focus on three user flows. The factors we considered when choosing these flows were informed by prior interviews and analyses. Some factors include frequency of use and usability score from the Heuristic Analysis.