From 0 to Live in 5 weeks: Here’s how we built a full functional online learning platform in record time.
Project Overview
Task
e-learning platform based on WordPress
from scratch in a matter of weeks.
Duration
5 Weeks
Team
1 Back-End Developer, 1 UI/UX Designer
Result
Introduction
Onomy is an early stage start-up that provides college students free practical educational resources on the life-skills that are not being taught in schools. Onomy’s founders were looking for a team of LMS experts with an extensive web-design portfolio to build and launch the first version of their gamified elearning product in a quick time-frame.
Challenges
- Building a website with extensive LMS functionality and SSO.
- Implementing beautiful front-end design to best appeal to the client’s young target demographic.
- Creating and implementing a referral program to boost student engagement.
- Deliver a finished product that accomplishes all requirements as quickly as possible
- Stay on budget as startups normally have limited funds and any development mistakes might put the whole project at risk
Solution
Discovery Phase
Onomy was born with the purpose of teaching college students and graduates about the essential life skills and concepts that aren’t featured in the traditional educational systems. Founders, Sam Rowen and Sam Abrahamson, were looking to build a WordPress based platform that enabled them to present short, easy to digest video and written content to an engaged community of learners.
That’s when co-founders contacted LMSNinjas, looking to bring their idea to life and build the first version of the product on a tight deadline. We got to work right away.
“When we spoke to LMSNinjas we felt very strongly that the team had the expertise we were looking for. We felt really at ease, like it was no problem to accomplish all the things that we wanted for our project,” said Sam Rowen.
In order for us to provide the ideal solution in the optimal time frame, it was crucial to dive deep into the client’s project and define their website requirements as well as the steps in the desired user-flow. Communication, team collaboration and research were the three main components of mapping out a plan to build a full-fledged product from a blank slate.
Let's map your journey towards a successfully launched e-learning site
Solutions
WordPress Website Build
We built a brand new site featuring modern, eye-catching web design as well as website speed and security optimization using Elementor and LearnDash.
Learning Management System
Our team implemented LearnDash LMS as the online learning platform to host Onomy’s educational content, structured into courses, lessons and quizzes. The system supports the main content format, pre-recorded video lessons, as well as user profiles, course certificates, written content and downloadable resources.
We also set up a visitor user flow, allowing users directed through organic search to quickly get the knowledge they seek by accessing individual lessons directly. Students registering on the site can also complete a full course-flow and get involved in the site’s gamified learning experience.
Referral Program
We developed a custom plugin to meet the needs of the unique referral campaign that Onomy’s founders were running as part of their marketing efforts. The referral system is very simple and intuitive, it tracks how many users joined the site have been referred through affiliate links by each student and allows admins reward students based on the amount of referrals they brought to the site.
The campaign increased the amount of new users by 25%.
We also set up a visitor user flow, allowing users directed through organic search to quickly get the knowledge they seek by accessing individual lessons directly. Students registering on the site can also complete a full course-flow and get involved in the site’s gamified learning experience.
Gamification
We helped Onomy’s founder set up a gamification system to boost student engagement among Onomy’s community for young adult learners.
Using BadgeOS, we configured student badges while giving the client the option to implement a point system at a later time. Students can keep track of earned badges and badges still to be unlocked through a visual progress map.
Testimonial
From an impact standpoint, we went from 0 to 1 to some degree. We had nothing when we first started and now we have a full product that we are proud to put in front of users and investors. We got new users and saw a 25% improvement over the days following the launch. Plus, the team also came 20% under budget which is huge!