Video Upload Workflow Re-design

UX Designer and Researcher - Natalie Woodford

Product


Mediasite Video Platform is a comprehensive video content management system designed for educational institutions and enterprises. It integrates into Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle to facilitate the creation, management, and delivery of multimedia content.

Problem


A confusing video upload workflow lead to low usage, high support tickets, and workarounds galore.


Workflow re-design can be considered dull to many designers, but I LOVE it. It’s a chance to see and feel users pain points first hand and bring user experts into the design process.

Opportunity

I feel your pain.

User participant quotes

“All I want to do is upload a video, why do I need to leave Blackboard (LMS) at all?”

“…What happens if I accidentally close the Mediasite tab? Is my work lost?

“We train people to bypass this workflow all together, it’s not worth the support calls.”

Old flow workflow diagram

The old flow: The user starts in the LMS, and when they click Upload New, a new browser tab opens where they need to choose if they want to record a video, upload, or link a video. After they select a file to upload, they are brought to the video library view where they wait minutes to hours for the video to upload. From this page, if you close the tab, or forget to click Link or Embed, you’ve broken the “link” to the LMS and you have to start over. BOO!

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Reasearch & planning

I interviewed 6 users about this workflow and they all wanted the same thing: Upload a video directly from the Add Video modal, and NOT open a new tab.

Design plan:

  • Create separate sections for adding new videos and searching existing videos.

  • Convert this Add Presentation page into a small dropdown within the Add Video modal.

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  • Create different states for uploading process to show the user exactly what step they are at in flow.

Results

Upload flow within LMS modal

“This is exactly what we needed!”

“This makes sense… training this flow will be so much easier.”

Taking out the shock of being moved to a new website by bringing the upload workflow into the embedded modal made for more natural and seamless experience.

This was a fun project because I was able to solve every pain point the users expressed by meeting the user where they were (in this case the LMS).