UMGC - Learning Experience Online (LEO)
Designing and governing interface systems at institutional scale
Snapshot
- Role: Manager, Digital Learning Experience
- Scope: Interface design systems and governance
- Scale: 1,000+ courses across undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs
- Ecosystem: LMS (D2L Brightspace), CMS (Adobe Experience Manager), instructional design systems
- Focus: Standardizing the learning experience through systems, patterns, and governance
Why This Work Mattered
LEO is not a single product--it’s an ecosystem shaped by pedagogy, technology, instructional design, and faculty delivery.
For students, this system determines whether learning feels clear and navigable--or fragmented and exhausting--before instruction even begins.
As UMGC scaled its online programs, the experience became increasingly inconsistent. The issue wasn’t a lack of expertise--it was the absence of a shared system.
The real challenge wasn’t improving individual courses.
It was designing the conditions under which courses are built.
The Situation
The learning experience had grown fragmented:
- Students had to relearn navigation and structure in every course
- Faculty rebuilt common elements repeatedly, often inconsistently
- Course teams lacked shared standards and expectations
- Accessibility issues emerged from inconsistent structure, not content quality
Across the institution, teams were doing good work--but without a shared foundation, that work didn’t scale.
My Mandate
Within a shared ownership model, my role focused on the interface system:
- Translate pedagogy into clear, consistent structures
- Reduce cognitive load through predictable design
- Enable teams with systems--not one-off solutions
- Establish governance that supported trust and scalability
Just as important:
- I did not own the instructional model or platform infrastructure
- My responsibility was to align interface systems across those layers
Key Decisions
This work was defined less by deliverables and more by decisions.
Design the System, Not the Course
Instead of improving individual courses, I focused on building a shared interface system that all courses could inherit.
Why: Course-level fixes don’t scale. Structural inconsistency was the root issue.
Tradeoff: Less flexibility in the short term, but greater clarity and scalability over time.
Treat Consistency as an Accessibility Feature
We treated predictable structure as a form of accessibility--not a constraint.
Why: Adult learners benefit from reduced cognitive load, especially when balancing work, family, and school. Accessibility gaps were driven by inconsistency, not content quality.
Tradeoff: Reduced variation across courses, but significantly improved usability and learner confidence.
Define What Is Fixed vs. Flexible
A critical decision was separating:
- Templated elements (must be consistent)
- Guided elements (allow variation)
Why: Full standardization would flatten pedagogy. Full flexibility would recreate inconsistency.
Tradeoff: Required clear rules and communication--but enabled both structure and instructional voice.
Treat Governance as a Design Problem
We designed how the system evolves--not just how it works.
Why: Without governance, systems fragment over time. Teams needed clarity--not enforcement.
Tradeoff: Slower change cycles, but greater long-term stability and trust.
What I Built
This work resulted in two connected system layers:
LEO Classroom Model (Structural Layer)
Defines the foundational structure of every course:
- Navigation aligned to the instructional design model
- Accessibility built in by default (WCAG)
- Standardized layout and interaction patterns
This created a consistent baseline across all courses.
UX Pattern Library (Enablement Layer)
Supports flexibility within a shared structure:
- Reusable UI components (cards, layouts, callouts)
- Built in Figma with clear usage guidance
- Defined as preferred patterns--not rigid rules
This reduced duplication while preserving instructional nuance.
How I Led
This work required alignment across:
- Academic leadership
- Instructional designers
- Engineers and platform teams
- Accessibility specialists
- Vendor partners
My role focused on:
- Making tradeoffs explicit and visible
- Clarifying decisions and boundaries
- Aligning teams around shared standards
- Creating clarity that reduced friction across disciplines
Progress came from building shared understanding--not enforcing change.
Outcomes
The LEO interface system became the foundation for course delivery:
- All new and revised courses now use a standardized classroom model
- Course teams build with shared, accessible structures
- Accessibility compliance improved across the system
- Redundant design and development work decreased
- Students experience consistent navigation across courses
The result is a system that supports quality, equity, and scale--without requiring constant reinvention.
What I Learned
- Designing at scale requires restraint as much as initiative
- Governance is what makes systems sustainable--not overhead
- Clarity builds trust across teams and disciplines
- The hardest design decisions are often about what not to change
How This Connects to My Work
This project reflects how I approach complex systems:
- Governance as design: systems must evolve intentionally
- Consistency as accessibility: predictability reduces cognitive load
- Standards as enablement: structure frees teams to focus on outcomes