UZ Software Academy Revamp

FULL CASE STUDY

Project Overview

Uzerzoom is a UX Research platform company that wanted to improve the efficacy of their Academy but didn't know where to start.

Client
UserZoom

Client Description
UserZoom, is an integral part of UserTesting, an 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

Deliverables

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 had a lot of great content in the Academy, but didn't know what could easily be improved to provide the most impact

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

Much of the content in the Academy was outdated and the act of mixing platform content with UXR content was confusing to users while also making it challenging to update

The current certification program was considered “out of date”.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had changed a lot since the original certifications were launched, so all the existing certifications were considered out of date.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 Research skills focused

Goals

Uzerzoom wanted a way to make non-resercher users more self reliant and more effective on the platform

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

Combining the power of multiple disceplines to see this project from different angles simulaniously.

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

Users found parts of the Academy outdated, inconsistent and confusing. Users liked how thurough and complete the material was as well.

Recruiting:

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.

Questions:

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?

Findings

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

Non UX researchers using UserZoom know just enough to be dangerous, but could use more support in conducting world class user research from scratch and on their own

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.

Users (non UX Researchers conducting research):

K - Knowledge

Had high baseline knowledge of UXR methods
Had awareness of quality standards for UX research

S - Skills

May have conducted UXR methods before, but not frequently or consistnatly, and thus had rusty UXR skills
Understood where UX Research played a role in comparison to their position, but lacked the

A - Abilities/Attitudes

Was not confident with the quality or efficacy of their research, or were overconfident in their ability to conduct high quality user research

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

The highest priority for improvement was to separate software tutorials from UX research process documentation. This change made it easier for users to follow and for UserZoom to update more easily

This 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.

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

The highest priority reccomendation was to seperate and differentiate platform/systems training from core UX research skills training, and to be cautious and intentional when combining the two

✅ Results

By incorporating the suggestions from the site audit and training needs analyis, the Academy improved and users became more self-reliant, became more satisfied with the UserZoom product, and conducted better user research as a result

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.

Overall Results

Business and Company Results

Increased user adoption of the platform and its features
Increased the ammount of users who are self-reliant and self-directed when it comes to UX research by 12%
Reduced the reliance on expensive Research Partners by 7%

Training Results

Increased learner confidence in applying key UX methods on the job by 28%
Increased the efficacy and usability of the Academy by improving over 80 UX issues

Final Deliverables

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Present Slide Deck

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