LinkedIn Learning — Usability and Accessibility
“Online learning is not the next big thing, it is the now big thing.” - Donna J. Abernathy, 1999
LinkedIn Learning, formerly known as Lynda.com, offers “online courses for creative, technology, and business skills”. Founded in 1995 and acquired by LinkedIn in 2015, LinkedIn Learning expands on Jeff Weiner’s vision of an “Economic Graph” (Facebook’s equivalent of a social graph) through its leeway into education.
Coming from a UX standpoint, this blog will be assessing the usability and accessibility of the LinkedIn Learning platform.
Usability
Usability, or ease of use for an interface, may be broken down to five components: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction.
Learnability of a product pertains to the ease in learning how to use it.
LinkedIn Learning maintains a reliable visibility of system status, by providing feedback on where a user is in a particular lesson, on a specific video. The site uses a blue color to highlight and indicate the exact video content, sentence in transcript, and video time with a progress bar. LinkedIn Learning also incorporates consistency into the content format of all its videos, with an introduction, numbered topics, and conclusion so that a user can rely on its predictability.
Efficiency is how quickly a user can perform tasks once they’ve learned how to use a product.
LinkedIn Learning enables users to intake information quickly through various forms: written transcript, audio, and visual video with captions — engaging both visual and audio senses. With the “Skip back 10 seconds” button, users can get a quick recap of a concept they may have missed while taking notes. The speed adjust button allows a user to play the video at a pace that suits their learning best and not be limited by the original timing.
Memorability consists of the ease in remembering how to use a product, when a user returns to it.
Their website automatically saves courses a user has watched into playlists of “Learning History” and “In Progress” and displays them first on the homepage. This saves the user from having to remember what course they were on and search for it among other content. Videos grouped into the “In Progress” playlist also show a progress bar that indicates how far along in the course the user currently is, giving the user a quick overview of the time and effort they may need to invest for completion.
Errors deals with errors users make in using a product, and working towards preventive design.
When typing into their search bar, LinkedIn Learning accommodates for user slip error by displaying options for a misspelled word. In addition, in case the user already searched for “ux desing”, the search results reflect what the user might have meant to type instead of displaying a “no search results” message.
Satisfaction pertains to how much the user enjoyed the experience of using a product.
According to TrustRadius, LinkedIn Learning holds an 8.8 out of 10 scoring for “Likelihood to Recommend”. The metric gives insight into user satisfaction and loyalty for the online learning platform. Reviewers listed some pros for LinkedIn Learning as: having a wide range of topics with in-depth tutorials, industry experts, user-friendly interface, and being cost-effective. Overall, users seem satisfied by high-quality learning content and usability of design.
Accessibility
Accessibility comprises of the ease in interaction for users with visual, auditory, mobility, and/or cognitive disabilities.
Content redundancy not only results in good usability by addressing different learning styles, but also results in good accessibility for users with different disabilities. The course transcripts allow hearing-impaired users to quickly skim through the written version instead of having to go through the captions on a video. Additionally, the keyboard tab button allows low-mobility users to access main elements such as the search bar, share button, view offline, and volume control. Users with vision loss, who may use a screen magnifier, will find the vertical stack layout and only two columns for the course page relatively easy to navigate. Lastly, a “Get Help” tab is available throughout the site, which leads to a search bar, suggested help for user, down to live chat assistance.
