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User Experience

UX Survey of Learning Design Practice — LEI & TIU 2025

A quick pulse on practices, confidence, barriers, and platform preferences among learning design practitioners.

RoleFacilitator & UX ResearcherYear2025Duration2 weeksTeamRich Bartlett, Kelli Knuth, Tim Churchward, Alex Price
UX ResearchSurveyHigher EducationAdelaideCollaboration
Live poll results projected to colleagues during a division meeting

UX Survey of Learning Design Practice — LEI & TIU 2025

A quick pulse on practices, confidence, barriers, and platform preferences

Project overview

A pulse check was needed to understand current UX practices, confidence levels, and barriers among learning designers to better inform capability support and platform choices.

Method

Live Poll (LEI)

A live poll was run using Mentimeter during the LEI division meeting. Questions allowed for multi-select answers to capture a broad range of practices.

Follow-up (TIU)

An identical survey was created in Jotform and shared with colleagues at the Teaching Innovation Unit (TIU) at UniSA for asynchronous participation.

Note: Multi-select questions mean that total responses can exceed the number of participants.

Key findings (LEI results)

  • UX practices used (multi-select): user interviews 20; surveys/feedback forms 29; student journey mapping 18; personas/empathy maps 17; wireframes/prototypes 33; card sorting/tree testing 6; none 3.
  • Confidence applying UX: average 3.35/5.
  • Experience: haven't thought about using ux 1; understand value but don't apply 0; would like to incorporate 9; sometimes apply informally 22; actively use methods/tools 11.
  • Interest in learning more: average 4.85/5.
  • Support preferences (multi-select): workshops/events 28; a ux knowledge base 24; exemplars/case studies 28; 1:1 support 12; short video explainers 17.
  • Barriers (multi-select): time constraints 31; lack of training 15; limited tools/resources 22; team/academic resistance 19; don't know where to start 13; none 3.
  • Preferred platform for future resources: canvas course 29; dedicated website 6; confluence 3; pdfs 3; other 2.
  • Open-ended themes: interest in recognised upskilling/certificates; access to paid resources; exemplars and baseline quality standards; earlier usability testing; small-group training; "fewer clicks"; leadership awareness that ux testing is longer and continuous; encode best practices in course templates; helpful link shared (nngroup.com/articles/).

Implications

  • Prioritise canvas as the preferred delivery platform for future ux-for-learning resources.
  • Sequence support as: workshops + exemplars first, then a knowledge base, with short explainers and optional 1:1s.
  • Design around time constraints; provide lightweight, start-here pathways.
  • Plan for ongoing usability testing and leadership comms about cadence/effort.
  • Schedule interviews with volunteers; consider micro-credentials.

Outreach status (TIU, UniSA)

The Jotform survey was distributed to TIU colleagues at UniSA post-session. The results have been added.

Artefacts

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