UX vs. profit: The blurred ethical lines between EdTech and public education
How big money affects the online learning experience for our kids
As our underfunded K-12 public school system is reimagining the future of education post-pandemic, it is becoming more and more dependent on software like Canvas LMS to help lead the way. It is important that we as a UX community understand the implications of this growing dependency so we can proactively design solutions for the challenges that lie ahead.
On March 16, 2020, my family officially went into quarantine and our 3 kids had their first day of virtual school. We’re extremely grateful to be part of Broward County Public Schools in South Florida, the 6th largest district in the nation. We love our community and have nothing but praise for the wonderful teachers and administration here. Pre-pandemic, our kids were generally very happy going to class every day in person, so we were very nervous about making the transition to a digital model using the school’s learning management system (LMS), Canvas.
Like most families across the country, our first day going virtual was nothing short of a disaster. Canvas was down, passwords didn’t work, and after we were able to log in for a few sporadic moments, we realized there was no intuitive path for the children to follow (even when they had a mom helping them who is an experienced UX designer like my kids did). Long story short: we were lost and confused. However, the world was just beginning a global pandemic, and schools were forced to shut down overnight, so naturally, we were patient, and along with our community, we practiced compassion towards everyone who touched the educational space. We were all in this together, right?
The high-level effects of poor UX on K-12 schools
A few weeks after that first day, I had several meetings with our school district’s technology leaders to express my concerns with their platform as a UX professional. They let me know that they were aware of the issues and had been flooded with usability complaints from students, parents, and teachers. They understood that the Canvas design was causing big problems, but because of their lack of funding, were relying on Instructure to make the UX better as part of their contract. I hoped Instructure was also aware of these issues and had a team working on them, but after the 2019/20 school year finished and the new 2020/21 school year began, my patience as a parent and UX professional started to wane when I noticed Canvas remained exactly the same.
Students
My children were frustrated to tears many days because they couldn’t access things like their work, a shared video, or class activity in time. Homework assignments and classroom sessions got missed often. Their morale and overall enthusiasm for school was lowered immensely. It was easier for my 5, 10, and 14yr olds to manage their own bank accounts, order food for delivery, and make their own YouTube channels, than it was for them to go to school.
Teachers
I also spoke with several teachers who were so burnt out and overwhelmed by the poor UX, that they were considering a career change, assuming they couldn’t do their job properly anymore because they didn’t understand the Canvas interface. Each teacher was expected to create their own virtual class experience, but the lack of UX guidance created an inconsistent user experience that was unique per classroom. They also typically spent 1–2hrs per day of class time assessing technical issues (both their own and their students), leaving much less time for actual teaching.
Parents
On average, I spent around 8–10 hours each week helping them find out where they were supposed to be inside the platform while sending text messages back and forth constantly with their teachers. I have no idea how parents with a less flexible work schedule were able to do this and can’t help but connect the dots to the 1–4 women who considered downshifting their careers or leaving their jobs last year + the 64 million women who lost their jobs globally.
How did we get to this point?
However bad our experiences were, time went on and still no improvements were made. We soon depended on the platform indefinitely for our children’s main source of education. It was unsettling and I began digging into the company that created it to see how I could help them make their product better.
Canvas was developed to fulfill a need in higher education
I learned that Canvas was built by Instructure, which was founded in 2008 to challenge the archaic designs and architectures that were dominating the LMS market at that time. I read they were, “A developer of a cloud-based learning management platform designed to make teaching and learning easier.”
It evolved to fit more unanticipated needs, including those in primary and secondary education
Canvas was built with the best of intentions in mind 13 years ago, and based on their marketing today, it appears to still be their mission. But as an actual user of the K-12 platform, it is clear that the original intent somehow doesn’t apply to the subset of users my kids and I fall into. I dug further to find out how this could be. Here’s what I discovered:
- Like many LMS tech companies, Canvas was originally designed for higher education. It has since been retrofitted for K-12 use.
- There are many positive reviews about Canvas, including some complimenting their UI. They are praised for their feature set. However, no reviewer specifically focuses on the K-12 user experience. They are assuming the online education of a 5yr old is the same as that of a 22yr old. It doesn’t take a UX expert to see the problem with this.
- The founders left the company in 2013/2015 (one who was a usability expert). Since then, they’ve had 2 CEOs and many leadership changes.
- In 2015, they went public on the NYSE.
- In 2019 they had 30 million users and were the #2 cloud-based LMS in North America
- In 2020 13 new states signed a deal with Canvas to make them their statewide learning platform for all educational institutions during the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the LMS into the center of an experience it was not originally designed for
While the user experience and interface might not have been ready, investors were. On March 24, 2020 (exactly 8 days after our school and many others across the nation began relying on them 100%), PE firm Thoma Bravo acquired Instructure for $2 billion. The bank estimated to earn about 6.6 times Instructure’s revenue over the following twelve months during the pandemic. Broward County alone paid $5.4M in 2016 for its district-wide implementation…which evolved to $5.8M in 2019. The UX that my team and I were trying to fix for free to help our public schools was actually purchased by us and other taxpayers for $6M dollars. (Insert jaw drop 😱)
The technology is now owned by a private equity firm that fails to see the business value in good UX
Instructure made billions off of the United States educational system during one of the toughest economic years our nation has ever seen. They can afford to invest in a custom-tailored experience for our kids. What they can’t afford is to continue growing without it. Competitors like Google Classroom are right on their heels and are committed to meeting the evolving needs of education.
Investing in best-in-class UX for an industry like public education, whose bar is set notoriously low, does not make a good business case for companies like Instructure. Since they are now owned by a private equity firm, they must naturally be laser-focused on profit and growth…but what about their moral responsibility as an educational leader?
How can we fix this?
Knowing that nearly ½ our nation’s children now relied on the less-than-ideal learning experience Canvas was providing, I reached out to Instructure to offer our support. Because the platform was designed for higher ed, my team and I put together a recommended 3-part solution that focuses on how they can make the LMS more intuitive for our elementary, junior high, and senior high school users.
Part 1: User research study
Before a proper experience can be designed for this new demographic, we must learn what they need first. This study must be based on comprehensive research compiled to inform all future UX optimizations and opportunities. It should be a multi-faceted, educational, and comprehensive study that demonstrates the value of good UX within the K-12 Canvas LMS, presents qualitative + quantitative user data, personal testimonials, and knowledge provided by the industry’s most renowned experts.
Part 2: UX audit
A deeply detailed user experience and user interface audit should be conducted based on research gathered from the study, best practices per age group, and the larger user/community feedback. Recommendations should be made, discussed, and aligned on with engineering and product teams. This report should be broken down into user segments and the recommendations ordered based on priority and level of effort. To help Instructure understand the value in this, we conducted a high-level UX audit of the current system pro-bono based on a small group of students from various backgrounds.
Part 3: Custom redesign for K-12 users
After each user segment has been identified and their needs have been defined, the new experience should be architected, designed, and developed. This new design should be created independently from the higher education system because of their drastically different use cases and user scenarios. It should be considered something that evolves with the community it serves while being seen as a source of inspiration behind an informed, engaged, and motivated society.
What I hope you learned from this
When an EdTech company doesn’t properly design for each unique user type at the center, there are huge repercussions and ethics come majorly into play. If the educational leaders we support as a nation value profit over UX design and big money over underserved communities, then they aren’t ethical.
Equal educational opportunities are essential to the individual and collective well-being of our country. Virtual K-12 public school classrooms and tech-based learning experiences are here to stay post-pandemic in some form or another and governmental standards are lacking to help guide companies that create them. As UX leaders working in this complex and highly political industry, it’s our responsibility to be an advocate for those voices who don’t get heard.
Our second school year has passed since that first rocky day using Canvas in 2020 and the UX/UI, unfortunately, remains the same. I hope Instructure and other EdTech leaders read this article and are able to gain a new perspective on just how important user experience and design are to our next generation, especially those in underserved communities dependent on the gray area between government funding and for-profit investments.
As I mentioned in the beginning, we are all in this together.
Nicole Gallardo has almost 2 decades of experience designing digital products that grow businesses and serve communities. She is the Founder & Chief Design Officer at Founders Who UX, an education company offering practical UX/UI programs for early-stage startups.
