Comment by tdaltonc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tdaltonc | Hacker News Reader

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I spent a lot of time a few years ago trying to build a BB replacement [0] that we ended up abandoning. Here's what I learned:

The LMS (learning management system) sales decision in made by either the university administration or the office for information technology (using a checklist made by the administration). Neither of these groups have significant contact with the UX, so they don't really care about it. And the people that do have contact with the UX (teachers/students) all want different things, but have no way of having their concerns heard by the decision makers.

One of the very important checklists items is that there be thorough documentation provided on how to preform every course relevant action. This is so that the computer illiterate art teacher can be hander a 500 page manual and be told that he now has no excuse not to use the LMS. This has the side effect of making UX improvement basically impossible, because the improvement would likely break the manual (that no one actually uses) and thereby violate the terms of the sale contract.

From the perspective of a UX designer, working in this space has all of the downsides of designing for enterprise plus all of the downsides of designing for multiple user groups that all want different things. I really wish I had understood this when I started that project.

EDIT: I got an email asking if there are any ways to make this market work from a designers perspective. One that I've seen work quite well is to borrow the textbook business model: Ignore the administration, cater to faculty, fuck the students. TopHat [1] has had a lot of success with this model. Just like with text books, a teacher deicides to use a tool, and then forces all of the students to pay for it. Your 2 users personas are tech-savvy teachers and college students. Both of these groups are prepared for frequent UX tweaks and UX improvements are rewarded with more repeat business instead of indifference. So it's a big win from a designers perspective. The business model is borderline immoral, but the more I learn about the higher ed market, the more convinced I become that it is the least bad option for operating in a very broken system.

[0] http://rootlearn.com/

[1] https://tophat.com/

The best option for Blackboard higher education is, IMO, fuck the decision makers, ignore the faculty, cater to the students. Let students edit all the info, faculty will get on board when they see students using it, decision makers want control when faculty and students are using it -> $$$.

The reason is teachers only care about Blackboard insofar as they are forced to use it by the administration. They don't really get anything out of it. This is different than interactive lecture software like TopHat, which teachers like. Students on the other hand do get something out of a working Blackboard: they get info they want to see such as homework due dates, what to study for exams, homework help from other students, etc. Unlike with TopHat there is also a strong network effect necessary, which you would get out of focusing on students.

So I think of this as "the Yammer strategy." But I don't know what academic activity students would want to engage in when they are not being forced to do so.

What activity would students be voluntarily engaging in on your Yammer.edu that would be so awesome it would be viral, and then your best monetization plan would be to give schools backend access?

Students want to know lots of info that is in blackboard, on the professor's personal web pages, and things that were said in the lectures, tips for exercises. In each lecture each student writes down:

- What homework is due for the next lecture

- Which chapters of the book were taught

- Notes copied from the blackboard (real life blackboard), and recently I see more and more students take a picture of the blackboard with their phone instead

Instead imagine a web application for doing this collaboratively. One student puts the lecture schedule in the calendar. When the prof says that homework is due on october 5, another student puts this in the calendar. Instead of having to go to 10 different personal web sites and 10 courses in blackboard, and look in your personal agenda, you can just take one look at the calendar to see which homework is due next week. Blackboard photos taken with smartphones get uploaded. If you don't understand something you can ask a question, and other students or the professor can answer. Some professors already put a lecture schedule on their personal websites, and if you make it easier than doing it manually in HTML they may be tempted to switch.

It is really hard to convince professors to use such a system, and I think it's much easier to convince students. You need some students to boostrap it and enter the information for some courses, so that other students want to use it to find that info, and hopefully contribute some of their own info. Students take different courses, so if a student learned about this in one course they may enter the info of the other course they are taking. Some students take courses in different universities, so it can even spread beyond one university.

You could maybe bootstrap it with a stackoverflow-like point system and by allowing people to ask questions across campuses. There's a lot to like about the Yammer strategy, but the key is (1) bootstrapping it (2) error checking and (3) dealing with the fact that 90% of student just cannot be bothered.

What would the super-over-achievers like in exchange for their effort? Job offers/interviews (companies like conscientious team players)? Bragging rights (a la stackOverflow)?

Many people just like to help out their classmates. People already share this information, just inefficiently.

> But I don't know what academic activity students would want to engage in when they are not being forced to do so.

Plagiarism, mostly :-/.

Ahhh yes. The joys of not being to make UX improvements because the manual already printed @_@

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