UZ Software Academy Revamp

Project Overview

Client
UserZoom

Client Description
UserZoom, is an integral part of UserTestings, all-in-one Experience Insights Management (XIM) platform. It is designed for enterprise businesses to conduct targeted remote, digital user research. It offers both qualitative and quantitative tools - such as usability testing, card sorting, tree testing, and surveys—to make it easier for product teams to measure and improve digital experiences.

Team

Mo Goltz worked in collaboration with a UX Researcher, Customer Education Manager, and a UX Manager

My Role

Lead Learning Experience Designer

Timeline

2 Months

Deliverable

A report that outlined the introduction, goals, research questions, scope of evaluation, project organization, progress, and next steps for the revamp of the UZ Academy. The project's business goals focued on increasing customer renewals, platform adoption, and user self-reliance, while the training goals aimed to reduce time to application, improve research quality, and increase learner confidence and Academy efficacy. The research was designed around specific questions regarding the effectiveness, relevance, satisfaction, and potential improvements of the training, with the initial scope limited to Level 1 (Reaction) and Level 2 (Learning) evaluations.

The Ask and Context

UzerZoom Academy has built a strong foundation, since its inception, with positive signals, with supporting numbers, and the growth has been both organic and natural. The challenge wasn't vision; the Education Team had plenty of ideas. It was knowing where to begin. Mo was tasked with charting a path forward by doing an audit of the current Academy and providing priority fixes, tweaks, and unique ideas, topics, and features.

Problems

The current certification program was considered “out of date”. The real-world platform had changed a lot since the original certifications were launched, so all the existing certifications were considered out of date.
The majority of the content was product/platform focused, and not UX skills focused

Goals

Reduce churn - increase loyalty
To drive adoption and usage of the UserZoom platform and increase and promote renewal
To reduce costs and the reliance on “expensive” Research Partners who white-glove customers

Process and Approach

1 - Kickoff
Kickoff Brief - UZ Academy Revamp - UZ

I brought together a core cross-functional group — a UX Manager, UX Researcher, and two members of the Education Team — all with a shared stake in UzerZoom Academy. From kickoff, we determined four guiding goals: ensuring the Academy's content is the right content, refreshing both the site and its materials, exploring whether a structural overhaul makes sense, and potentially building out a recognition and certification framework.

2 - Primary Research
Questionnaire/Survey - UZ

Our primary research was organized around two question sets. The first explored the learner experience at large: Is the Academy's training actually relevant and effective? Are learners able to take what they've learned and apply it on the job? How satisfied are they — and how do they access, engage with, and move through the Academy? We also looked beyond the training itself, asking what external factors might be quietly undermining adoption and engagement, and where there's room to improve both individual courses and the Academy as a whole.

The second question narrowed in on structure and content. On the structure side: How do learners currently search for and navigate content? Where do they start — and what does that tell us about how categories should be organized? On the content side: What's missing? What's overstayed its welcome and can be cut?

Participants were current UserZoom users with active accounts on both the UZ Platform and UZ Academy (within the last six months), who had opted into research and logged into the Academy within the past three months. Active engagement with course lessons and content was required; course completion was not, though greater progress was preferred.

The target sample size was approximately 100 participants. A statistically significant sample (n=227 at 90% confidence) was out of scope for this study. The goal was directional insight: surfacing trends and patterns, not definitive statistical conclusions.

With a hundred UX practitioners surveyed, a picture started to emerge — what the Academy was getting right, where it was falling short, and where the real opportunities for dynamic change lived.

3 - Training Needs Analysis (TNA)
TNA Training Needs Analysis - UZ

A Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is a systematic process for identifying the gap between where people are and where they need to be in terms of knowledge, skills, or performance — and determining whether training is the right solution to close that gap. It typically answers three core questions:

This part of the project outlined the process and key considerations for conducting a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) for UserZoom. This process served as a diagnostic tool to determine the necessary training to help users and the organization achieve their goals. The TNA aimed to identify gaps between current and desired Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities/Attitudes (KSA's) for UserZoom customers and employees with a focus on increasing platform adoption, improving customer retention, teaching platform usage, and UXR skills while reducing reliance on expensive Research Partners. The process involved defining organizational and project goals while determining the level of analysis, identifying users, and their goals. We conducted primary and secondary research (including surveys, interviews, and content audits), defining required job behaviors and learning needs, and finally developing recommendations for training and non-training solutions to improve the UserZoom Academy website and content.

4 - Site, Content, and Feedback Audit
Audit and Evaluation - Academy Site, Content, and Feedback - UZ

This step is an audit and evaluation of the UserZoom Academy site, content, and feedback mechanisms, offering numerous recommendations categorized by priority (High, Medium, Low) and including items to consider or those already in progress. High-priority recommendations focus on separating support and education content, ensuring courses focus solely on either the platform or UX skills but not both, and creating a new Information Architecture (IA) for the Academy. Medium-priority suggestions address visibility of course catalogs and progress, making learning objectives clickable, and clarifying the presence of live courses. Low-priority recommendations cover course and learning path naming conventions, platform video updates, and consistent UI/UX elements. The audit also proposes an updated IA and a complete overhaul of the feedback forms, including new questions based on academic research and a delayed follow-up to measure the long-term impact of the training.

Solution

Solution Report
Milestone Presentation 1 - UZ Academy Revamp

This Milestone Presentation outlined the goals, research questions, and progress for the UZ Academy Revamp project. The project aimed to increase customer renewals, user adoption, and self-reliance (Business Goals) while reducing the time to apply learning, increasing research quality, and improving learner confidence and Academy efficacy (Training Goals). The research focused on the Academy's effectiveness, relevance, satisfaction, and potential for improvement, with initial evaluation limited to Reaction and Learning levels.

✅ Results

At its core, this project was about building a customer base that didn’t need to be hand-held — and who didn't want to leave the platform. By driving deeper adoption of the UserZoom platform, we created the kind of genuine engagement that leads to renewal. And when customers can stand and perform on their own, the reliance on Research Partners to white-glove them through every interaction starts to shrink — freeing up a resource that was never meant to scale that way.

Final Deliverables

Read Documentation

Present Slide Deck

Play Case Study

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