A screenshot of Nivelat's summary page after creating a new training

Nivelat Edutech

Chilean SaaS Platform for Employee Training | 2024

Project Overview

Nivelat is a Chilean startup offering a SaaS platform designed to help companies train and upskill their professional teams. The tool aims to provide an engaging learning experience for employees while offering a robust administrative dashboard for HR and team leads to track progress and manage training programs.

As the product matured, Nivelat identified a need to strategically redesign both the end-user experience (for employees taking courses) and the administrative interface (for HR and managers), to improve usability and engagement.

My Contributions

My role was to redesign specific portions of the SaaS tool, addressing both business goals and user needs. This meant:

Simplifying task flows for both user types: administrative users managing the platform and end users participating in training.
Conducting a heuristic evaluation and usability tests to identify roadblocks and pain points.
Collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure the design solution met the needs of both stakeholders and end users.
Developing a UI Kit and creating high-fidelity prototypes in Figma to deliver a consistent, scalable design solution.

01- Discovery

My process started with a comprehensive competitive analysis and heuristic evaluation, followed by iterative prototyping and user testing. This allowed me to validate design decisions, uncover critical pain points, and refine both the end-user and admin interfaces based on real feedback. Given the dual nature of the platform, showing clear differences between these two user types will be a key challenge in this case study. Explore my research phase on Figjam, which includes detailed competitive analysis and heuristic evaluation insights.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive Matrix

Heuristic Evaluation Findings

Consistency and Standards:

‍Sidebar should minimize for better screen space.
Download interactions need to be consistent across the platform.
Maintain consistent labels and terminology throughout the UI.

Visibility of System Status

Add visual indicators for dropdown states and breadcrumbs for easier navigation.
Ensure feedback is clear when hovering over data visuals.

Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

Incorporate drag-and-drop functionality for easier task assignment.
Add clear filtering options in navigation for smoother use.

Match Between System and the Real World

Simplify confusing terminology to align with user expectations.
Ensure task flows mimic familiar patterns (e.g., filters, state indicators).

Overall Findings & Insights

Findings and insights summary divided in things working out, things to improve, questions and ideas

02 - Concept Definition

Through a thorough heuristic evaluation and usability testing, key areas for improvement were identified across the administrative and end-user experiences in Nivelat. The challenge was to simplify complex workflows, enhance usability, and strengthen AI and gamification features to meet both business goals and user needs.

Our focus was twofold:
‍- Simplify the administrative workflow for course creation and management.
- Enhance the end-user experience by improving the learning journey's clarity and engagement, particularly for mobile users.

How might we simplify the experience for both administrative and end-users, so that creating, managing, and participating in training becomes more intuitive, engaging, and scalable across different devices?

Proposed Design Solutions

Design Solutions for Admin Users and End Users based on the heuristic evaluation and usability testing

03 - Design and Testing

The redesign of the Nivelat platform was an iterative process that tackled two distinct but interconnected user flows: the admin dashboard, focused on simplifying content creation and automation, and the end-user interface, focused on mobile usability and gamification. Each stage of the design process involved creating wireframes, conducting usability tests, and gathering feedback to refine the final solution.

03-1. Admin Dashboard:

Streamlined Course Creation and Automations

The admin dashboard underwent a significant transformation to improve usability and efficiency. The goal was to consolidate the previously fragmented process of creating and managing various types of courses (online, in-person, e-learning, etc.) into a more streamlined flow under the newly created "Trainings" section.

Wireframing and Feedback: The design process began with wireframes for the entire admin experience, focusing on unifying the course creation, rule builder for automations, and publishing flow into one seamless experience. The "Trainings" section was introduced as a single hub for admins to manage all course types, addressing the confusion caused by having multiple, disjointed sections for different types of content.

‍Rule Builder for Automations: One of the most challenging areas was the rule builder, where admins could set up automations based on user attributes (e.g., department, role). This required designing an intuitive system for creating complex rules in just a few steps. The wireframes allowed us to explore various approaches to simplifying this process and making it user-friendly for non-technical admin users.

‍Iterative Testing: Through several rounds of feedback from the Customer Success team and admin users, we refined the content creation and rule builder flows. We reduced the cognitive load for admins by simplifying the number of steps and integrating a clearer, more logical task flow. The final design allowed admins to:
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1. Create new trainings by selecting and organizing content.
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2. Assign courses to users through an intuitive filter and assignment system.
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3. Automate the process using predefined rules, easily configured in the new rule builder.
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4. Publish the trainings, completing the flow in just a few streamlined steps.

First screen: all trainings with a new training button

03-2. End-User View

Mobile-First, Gamified Learning Experience

For the end-user interface, the focus was on creating a mobile-first design that would engage employees who are often on the move. Many of Nivelat’s clients—such as Lipigas and WOM—have employees who travel between different work locations daily. As a result, we needed a design optimized for mobile usability, while also incorporating gamification to motivate users to complete their learning tasks.

Wireframing and Ideation: The end-user experience was designed with an emphasis on simplicity and engagement. Early wireframes focused on creating a scrollable, chronological timeline that would allow users to follow their learning path in a sequential, task-oriented way. This structure minimized cognitive overload, letting users focus on one task at a time, clearly showing which lessons had been completed and which were upcoming.

‍Mobile-First Approach: The wireframes were further refined to ensure they worked seamlessly on mobile devices. Given that most of the end users were “employees on the move,” the interface had to be highly accessible, easy to navigate, and responsive on smaller screens.

‍Gamification Elements: A key part of the end-user design was the incorporation of gamification features, including a ranking section that displayed users' progress relative to their peers. This helped reinforce motivation through friendly competition and enhanced user engagement with the platform.

Diagram of the final Information Architecture for the app version.

A mobile mockup of nivelat's edutech platform

04 - Iterating and Learnings

Testing was conducted throughout the design process for both the admin dashboard and the end-user interface. Key stakeholders, including members of the Customer Success team, provided valuable feedback that helped refine each feature.

‍Admin Testing: Admin users tested the new "Trainings" section, which allowed them to create, assign, and automate courses more efficiently. The feedback led to adjustments in the rule builder interface, simplifying how admins set up automations based on user attributes.

Outcomes

By the end of the design and testing process, we had successfully delivered a streamlined admin dashboard and a mobile-optimized, gamified end-user interface. The "Trainings" section simplified content creation and automation for admins, while the end-user experience was enhanced with gamified elements that improved engagement, especially for users accessing the platform on mobile devices.
Although measuring the direct impact of these improvements was limited due to the B2B nature of Nivelat, the streamlined admin flow specifically played a key role in the acquisition of major clients in Chile, including WOM, Walmart, and several mid-sized companies. These enhancements helped Nivelat present a more compelling, user-friendly product to large organizations looking to optimize their employee training and upskilling processes.