Dynamic Health E-Learning

Jr. Creative Lead (Lead Designer)

Time

2.5 Years

Team

1 Lead Designer, 3 Junior Designers, 4 Medical Writers/Nurses, 1 Doctor

Skills

Product Design, Interaction Design, User Research, Prototyping, Coding, Mentoring

Deliverables

Responsive Designs, Scalable Course System

CHALLENGE

Current e-learning solutions for medical professionals are demeaning and unresponsive.

With over 1,500 clinicians on EBSCO’s Dynamic Health platform and many more seeking continuing education, I built a 0→1 SCORM-compliant e-learning platform in a Fortune 200 healthcare corporation for working clinicians to gain further education

IMPACT

Design + Development

Shipped scalable SCORM-compliant e-learning platform serving 1,500+ clinicians.

Mentorship

Increased team output by 25% through mentorship and process improvements.

Leadership

Persuaded C-suite executives to invest in new tooling and expand the design team.

Medical Illustration

Produced 400+ scientific illustrations and prototypes in 2D and 3D alongside clinicians.

THE PRODUCT

We delivered 200+ responsive courses for 1,500+ medical professionals and ongoing.

We launched an internal e-learning platform for EBSCO clinicians, enabling continuing education through SCORM compliant courses. Demonstrating the value of design in this product to senior management led to increased investment, growing the design team.

INITIAL RESEARCH

I tested these users:

Nurses

Extremely busy nurses including those that work more in an office setting and those that work in emergency settings during the COVID pandemic. They are contracted to work with EBSCO as medical writers.

"I want to get more education credits while juggling my job at EBSCO and at the hospital."

Doctors

Extremely busy doctors who often work full-time jobs in their area of specialty and often work with EBSCO in senior level medical editor positions.

"I just got off of my shift from the ER, and I'll be here (at EBSCO) reviewing some medical algorithms for today."

INITIAL RESEARCH

Quick interviews and competitive analysis

To evaluate the current sentiment towards medical e-learning tools performed a competitive analysis. I synthesized these overall insights:

Insight 1

Design for engaging, interactive learning experiences

Insight 2

Incorporate memorable, game-based elements

Insight 3

Create a calm, dignified environment for tired clinicians

Insight 4

Ensure a responsive experience across desktop and tablet in clinical settings

INITIAL RESEARCH

Further analysis through ranking matrix

I facilitated a remote ranking exercise with clinicians and uncovered a clear preference for realistic, calm design aesthetics over the highly stylized approaches of competitors like Picmonic and Sketchy.

INITIAL RESEARCH

Even our top competitors had significant room for improvement

Nurses mentioned that they really disliked the options out there for further education. Competitors either used childish cartoons to help memorization which they found demeaning, or their platforms would be too rigid and lack interactivity. This revealed a need for a credible, professional experience that still incorporated engaging and memorable elements to support learning.

SYSTEM DESIGN

I designed a scalable course system that would help future employees on this product

Keeping in mind that there were no engineers on the project and sometimes a rotating team of contract designers, I structured the product as a modular, template-driven system to enable course creation. This approach allowed us to produce 200+ courses within a year and streamline onboarding for new designers. I led the end-to-end design process - from concept sketching and wireframing to iterative testing. I also evaluated SCORM-compatible LMS tools such as Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360.

INITIAL RESEARCH

Even our top competitors had significant room for improvement

Nurses mentioned that they really disliked the options out there for further education. Competitors either used childish cartoons to help memorization which they found demeaning, or their platforms would be too rigid and lack interactivity. This revealed a need for a credible, professional experience that still incorporated engaging and memorable elements to support learning.

SYSTEM DESIGN

I designed a scalable course system that would help future employees on this product

Keeping in mind that there were no engineers on the project and sometimes a rotating team of contract designers, I structured the product as a modular, template-driven system to enable course creation. This approach allowed us to produce 200+ courses within a year and streamline onboarding for new designers. I led the end-to-end design process - from concept sketching and wireframing to iterative testing. I also evaluated SCORM-compatible LMS tools such as Adobe Captivate and Articulate 360.

ITERATION

I advocated for improvements to my team's tools

At the beginning, I worked in Adobe Captivate due to our existing license and budget constraints. This legacy software presented challenges with hard-to-resolve niche bugs and lack of customizability that significantly slowed down the design process. The first iterations were made with basic interactive games for the sake of testing with nurses. I learned Javascript in order to manipulate the designs through code but realized that this would be difficult to onboard for junior designers.

I built these prototypes in our company tool Adobe Captivate, which required learning Javascript and fixing niche bugs to get basic interactions. The design system was also very outdated and tedious to use.

MORE RESEARCH

I gathered feedback on this initial prototype

I presented this early prototype in a company-wide meeting to recruit clinicians for feedback and then gathered qualitative insights through prototype testing. Key findings included:

  • Interaction patterns in games (e.g., drag-and-drop, Jeopardy) were not intuitive

  • Most clinicians found simple interactive games effective for memorization without feeling overly childish

  • The experience lacked modern design and clear EBSCO branding, constrained by limitations in Adobe Captivate

ITERATION

I influenced leadership to invest in a better platform for long-term sustainability

Due to the limitations of Adobe Captivate, I called for a shift to the Articulate 360 platform. Articulate offered a solution for an engineer-less team like us to create responsive products, and the software had more stock tools to make interactive games without the need to teach junior designers how to code. Additionally, there was the added benefit of a lower learning curve and the ability to create courses modularly, which meant for easier onboarding. With this newer platform, I created themes that were within brand guidelines while creating new icon libraries and banners that would feel calm and safe to our users because one of the most common complaints about competitors was how unpleasantly "loud" their visual designs were.

ITERATION

I improved interactions from previous iterations through more user testing

During prototype testing with clinicians, I discovered that while some users were tech-savvy, many were unfamiliar with drag-and-drop interactions. By adding visual affordances, clearer instructions, and enhanced feedback and controls, I reduced task completion time by ~15% on average and applied these principles across other interactive games.

ITERATION

I advocated for improvements to my team's tools

At the beginning, I worked in Adobe Captivate due to our existing license and budget constraints. This legacy software presented challenges with hard-to-resolve niche bugs and lack of customizability that significantly slowed down the design process. The first iterations were made with basic interactive games for the sake of testing with nurses. I learned Javascript in order to manipulate the designs through code but realized that this would be difficult to onboard for junior designers.

I built these prototypes in our company tool Adobe Captivate, which required learning Javascript and fixing niche bugs to get basic interactions. The design system was also very outdated and tedious to use.

MORE RESEARCH

I gathered feedback on this initial prototype

I presented this early prototype in a company-wide meeting to recruit clinicians for feedback and then gathered qualitative insights through prototype testing. Key findings included:

  • Interaction patterns in games (e.g., drag-and-drop, Jeopardy) were not intuitive

  • Most clinicians found simple interactive games effective for memorization without feeling overly childish

  • The experience lacked modern design and clear EBSCO branding, constrained by limitations in Adobe Captivate

ITERATION

I influenced leadership to invest in a better platform for long-term sustainability

Due to the limitations of Adobe Captivate, I called for a shift to the Articulate 360 platform. Articulate offered a solution for an engineer-less team like us to create responsive products, and the software had more stock tools to make interactive games without the need to teach junior designers how to code. Additionally, there was the added benefit of a lower learning curve and the ability to create courses modularly, which meant for easier onboarding. With this newer platform, I created themes that were within brand guidelines while creating new icon libraries and banners that would feel calm and safe to our users because one of the most common complaints about competitors was how unpleasantly "loud" their visual designs were.

ITERATION

I improved interactions from previous iterations through more user testing

During prototype testing with clinicians, I discovered that while some users were tech-savvy, many were unfamiliar with drag-and-drop interactions. By adding visual affordances, clearer instructions, and enhanced feedback and controls, I reduced task completion time by ~15% on average and applied these principles across other interactive games.

ITERATION

I improved interactions from previous iterations through more user testing

During prototype testing with clinicians, I discovered that while some users were tech-savvy, many were unfamiliar with drag-and-drop interactions. By adding visual affordances, clearer instructions, and enhanced feedback and controls, I reduced task completion time by ~15% on average and applied these principles across other interactive games.

PLATFORMS

We optimized course responsiveness to support clinicians using the platform on the job

To accommodate our busy clinicians, we prioritized responsive courses optimized for desktop and tablet, since they mentioned that mobile use was rare in hospitals. Moving to Articulate 360 made this shift feasible, allowing our engineer-less team to deliver fully responsive content efficiently.

AFTERWORD

By implementing a modular course design and encouraging leadership to Articulate 360, we scaled course production and streamlined onboarding for new designers. My team and I created most illustrations, animations, games, and videos in-house, and I conducted interviews and surveys with 40+ clinicians to ensure the content supported engaging, interactive learning while maintaining professional standards.