BrightspaceByD2L

D2L's corner location in the Tannery building is more than a matter of geography. Dedicated to building a brighter future by developing online learning solutions like their flagship Brightspace, they are expanding their roots to be an anchor in both the tech and design communities.

They are radiating a tremendous energy that's having positive ripple effects beyond just Kitchener-Waterloo. Their recently announced $85M financing round and ambitious goals focused on growing their design team have placed D2L in the middle of many conversations.

We had an opportunity to catch up with D2L's Engineering Director, Cam Turner, to find out more about all this exciting news.

What role does UX play in the product life cycle at D2L?

We are always experimenting with our processes and therefore we are eager to gain some more inspiration for future experiments by attending Fluxible.

That said, UX considerations are incorporated directly into the very beginning of every project at D2L. Interaction design and testing is prevalent throughout our product development lifecycle with everything from user personas (and courseonas), through to internal hallway testing. This culminates ultimately in the evaluation of a baseline SUS score when the product enters alpha or beta testing with our early clients. This process allows us to know with high confidence that subsequent changes we make and features we add are improving the overall experience of the user.

Our internal UX Specialist group acts as a liaison to all of our designers who are embedded directly in-sprint on the development teams. It’s great to be an in-house designer at D2L because we have incredible access to real end-users. We have every opportunity to build up knowledge about our audience – and follow through with ideas.

What trends are you seeing in user experience in the on-line learning space?

Learning is happening everywhere. There is a definite trend moving away from big, comprehensive, highly-configurable systems towards simple empowerment tools that enable educators to explore and invent new ways of teaching. D2L has invested considerable energy in the user experience of some of our key tools to help learning become more personalized and distributed. Our tools continue to be refined in a direction of simplicity to enable instructors to focus on teaching, interacting with and engaging students and not spending time learning how to use tools.

What's your favourite thing about being located in downtown Kitchener?

The vibe at the Tannery is just electric. This is a gorgeous space and it fosters creativity and collaboration quite well. It’s not just D2L but all of the tenants here including the start-up incubators. We are thrilled to be part of growing the tech district in the region. On top of that the parks, walking-distance restaurants and the ease of public transit are also things our staff enjoy on a regular basis. It’s hard to pick just one thing about being in downtown Kitchener as a favourite.

What made D2L want to get behind Fluxible?

It’s a great event to connect to top-tier designers!

We want to grow our team – and want to connect with designers that want to make learning more perceptive, pervasive, and personal. D2L has also been exploring a path to deeper involvement in the local tech community’s peer collaboration space and this is an excellent opportunity for our interaction designers, UX specialists and technical product managers to be exposed to alternative ideas. Lots of D2Lers will be there – and would love to chat with you and share experiences. All this led to our decision to go ‘all-in’ with a top-tier sponsorship and participating by offering facilities hosting as well.

And we're so thrilled to have D2L on board this year. Thank you for your tremendous support!