Designing an LMS from scratch
How UX design reduced student data entry time by 70% and prevented financial loss
Key poins
Project overview
In this project, I served as the sole product designer, creating a centralized LMS (Learning Management System) platform from scratch for the Maqsad educational school. The system was designed to replace the chaotic process of managing students across disparate Google Sheets.
The result was an automated system for managing student finances and data which, during end-user testing, demonstrated a significant increase in operational efficiency and eliminated the risk of costly errors associated with data loss.
Before
12 min
to enter one student
After
3 min
to enter one student
Result
70%
of improvement
In this project, I took on a dual responsibility. As the sole product designer, I was responsible for the entire end-to-end process: from initial research and stakeholder interviews to creating the information architecture, UX/UI design, prototyping, and conducting usability-testing.
Problem statement
I had an interview with a CEO of the school to understand their pain points and needs. Also it was important to understand where and how users could use our future app. I visited their office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and observed how managers and CEO work in real life. It was useful, because I saw that managers work at the open space together and they have a lot of actions and opened apps at one moment.
Insight that I got: we need to create an app where users couldn’t accidentally do something wrong. Interface should be like a helper and with a dialogue with users
User research: pain points
A lot of apps
CEO has a lot of apps to work with school: online platform with lessons, an app for finance actions, an app for calls, an app for control students, a table with employees etc.
Lost information
Because they use different tables they often lose information about students just because mistakes between tables. Also employees can delete some of information accidentally
Can’t control the progress
CEO wants to control the progress of sold products and finance at all. They need to observe the progress by some periods. With tables it’s difficult or impossible overall.
The User Journey Map visually demonstrated the stages (for example, adding a student or processing a payment) where the CEO experienced the most stress, confusion, and fear of data loss in the old process.
Information architecture
The system was required to accommodate approximately 50 different functions for three user roles. To create an intuitive navigation, I conducted a card sorting session with the client. This method helped us group all the functions into logical sections.
Creating a clear and scalable Information Architecture was one of the key stages that I am particularly proud of. The IA consists of 3 maps for the 3 key roles in the system. Each map outlines the functionality, broken down by MVP.
From idea to prototype
I started the design process with low-fidelity paper wireframes to quickly sketch the structure of key screens and test basic hypotheses without the time investment of detailed rendering.
After the general concept was approved, I moved on to creating digital low-fidelity prototypes in Figma. This allowed me to detail user scenarios and work through the interaction logic of elements before transitioning to the visual design.
High-Fi prototypes
In the final stage, I developed a clean and functional UI that aligns with the Maqsad brand identity. Special attention was paid to creating a consistent design system.
I developed a UI kit with a set of components (buttons, input fields, colors, typography), which not only accelerated the design process but also ensured interface consistency and simplified future development and product scaling.
  • Key Metric: We measured the time required to add a new student in the old system (Google Sheets) versus the new interface. The result showed a reduction in time from 12 to ~3 minutes, an improvement of over 70%.
  • Qualitative Feedback: The CEO's reaction best summarized the outcome. He noted that the solution transformed "a source of daily stress into a simple two-minute task" and, for the first time, gave him a clear and transparent overview of the business's financial health.
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