Learning is an ongoing process that doesn’t end when we graduate from school or college. Development and growth occupy a big part of our adult lives. Adopting learning management systems (LMS) and technologies enhances learning processes for educators, coaches, business leaders, and tech specialists.
Almost every homework assignment is now assigned to students through digital platforms. Teachers can easily track the completion and progress of tasks without requiring tons of paper. The statistics confirm that 90% of students like learning online more than when using traditional methods. Thus, LMS becomes essential to any educational process for young people and adults.
At its core, the system is a digital platform that aims to improve online training and learning. It is a center where users create content, edit it, give other contributors access, and manage the whole educational process.
As a business owner, you might reach for solutions that already exist on the market. However, generic applications don’t provide personalized services and tools that can suit your educational activities. And this is where custom LMS development steps in. A perfectly tailored to your needs managing and tracking platform.
Therefore, this article will explore the role of LMS, its creation process, testing, and maintenance.
Learning management systems offer streamlined solutions for those who conduct educational activities and training. However, this is not an instrument for a blackboard or chalk substitution. This is a whole digital universe with effective tools and features that shape the learning journey.
It is a web-based technology or software application that allows the creation and management of educational processes. It is a server on which educators can upload courses, make tests, and track the overall procedure. Advanced custom learning management system development also includes interactive functionality like video conferencing or forums.
The key characteristics of this technology are accessibility to materials anytime, integration with third parties and other tools, and the ability to feature multiple courses, tests, and large volumes of content.
A typical learning management system has the following features:
Systems for conducting learning activities are divided based on deployment models. So, you can choose such options:
Even though building an LMS from scratch requires more resources and time, it pays off by offering you the following benefits:
LMS development encompasses a wide range of processes. So, before you assign developers and designers the task of building a learning platform, it is essential to clarify some questions upfront and wisely approach strategy building and planning.
In general, an LMS is software that helps to conduct educational processes. This is an extensive definition. So, you have to identify what objective among the following your custom LMS will pursue:
Thus, further development steps align depending on the goal you want your new system to pursue.
Another essential step of preliminary research is learning about end users’ needs. You can build exact solutions by identifying their goals, struggles, and preferences.
For instance, if you want to create LMS for your employees for internal use, you have to estimate their technical proficiency, preferred learning techniques, and accessibility needs. This will define the future functionality of the application.
Based on the information gathered, a roadmap is created to guide developers and designers throughout the process. The course of action should identify must-have functionalities, needed technologies and instruments, and realistic timelines.
It will serve as a blueprint for guiding teams through all the LMS creation steps.
Users first see its design and interface when entering the platform. An LMS should be user-friendly and easily manageable to ensure a fast and efficient learning process. Designers must follow these steps to optimize their design creation.
An LMS aims to help students learn the material and apply it in practice. However, imagine if you provide a platform that also requires a training course on managing it. This will reduce the overall software efficiency.
Instead, focus on creating technology that welcomes students with intuitive navigation, a clear interface, minimal learning curves, and an aesthetic appearance.
Design starts with clear visualization. This is done by building wireframes, prototypes, and mockups of the final design outcome at different fidelity levels: low, medium, and high. Designers can use a pen and paper for basic visual representations. However, complex interactive prototypes require professional tools.
Instruments like Figma, Adobe XD, InVision, and Sketch allow designers to feel the gap between design ideas and reality. They also enhance collaboration and communication between teams and stakeholders.
There are general UI/UX design recommendations for all digital products. Be sure to follow them when designing an LMS:
All students should be equal in offered possibilities to use the learning management systems. Thus, it is crucial to build LMS design according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
The key instructions are to offer text alternatives for non-text content, provide keyboard navigation, and design the user interface in contrast colors.
When building learning management software, developers go through these stages to ensure the final product is high-quality, robust, and scalable.
A technology stack is the skeleton of any digital product. You must decide on these technologies based on your requirements, developers’ expertise, and scalability plans.
An LMS’s backend stores everything hidden from the user’s eye. This part of the computer system stores all the data, integrations, and logic. Working on a learning tool with solid user authentication, seamless communication between the back and front ends, easy integration with third-party services, and scalable data storage is vital.
Front-end developers create everything students and educators see in the app. Ensure the platform’s responsiveness and intuitiveness when creating an LMS.
Developers use services like Vue.js or React.js to build dynamic elements. They also closely cooperate with UI/UX designers to ensure an LMS is easy to navigate, accessible to people with special needs, and compliant with different device requirements.
Before integration, the backend and frontend outcomes existed separately. At this stage, they are connected through APIs. Thus, data can transfer in both directions, and users can interact with the platform using features such as course management, user profiling, progress evaluation, and notification receipt.
One of the final stages of developing a learning management system is testing. This ensures that the application works as intended without major bugs or crashes.
Although the development team might be confident about the quality of their work, bugs are always hidden deeper and can only be revealed in real-life scenarios. So, before you show an LMS to your students, choose a couple of them to test the platform.
Usability testing helps examine the overall user experience, app performance, navigation, broken links, loading times, and other factors that contribute to system functioning.
Quality assurance (QA) teams use these tools that help to automate the testing process:
To deploy LMS on cloud services, developers follow these steps:
Like any other digital product, a learning management system is a living organism that evolves over time. Thus, it must be maintained to meet relevant user needs and remain reliable.
User feedback and analytics are two main categories that provide meaningful insights into the system’s performance. Learn to hear from your students and educators about issues in navigation and performance. Track essential metrics using tools like Google Analytics and Mixpanel to gather quantitative data.
Implement regular quality checks for seamless platform maintenance. Monitor system performance and fix issues early. Update security to comply with the latest threats. Ensure server optimization, especially when scaling.
Building an application for educational purposes from scratch is a notable financial effort. To understand what influences an LMS development cost, look at these factors.
First, the final bill depends on the desired feature set. Advanced software with AI-driven insights and superior-level interactions will cost far more than an app with basic functionality.
Secondly, the overall complexity contributes to the price. If you wish to receive a highly customizable LMS with unique solutions, you need to plan to pay more.
Thirdly, the cost to the workforce must be considered. Highly skilled developers and designers charge high rates; the expenses will be greater if you have a large team.
The timeline from the beginning of the process to the product launch also depends on the project’s complexity. Creating a basic LMS takes up to six months, an intermediate LMS requires up to a year, and highly advanced platforms might be made within 16 months or more.
The FocusED app is a perfect example of how creating an LMS simplifies the lives of all education participants: teachers, students, and parents. At Uitop, we were asked to develop a solution to help track homework completion easily. However, after some research, we identified many pain points users face when managing this process. For instance, students always lack motivation when using educational apps. They also can’t control all the deadlines and plan their time efficiently. Teachers have a hard time submitting homework for different groups and levels. Everyone, including parents, has a problem with effective communication.
We devised solutions such as a reward system, a clear plan for upcoming deadlines, real-time tracking, an organized way to add homework, and a chat for everyone to stay current.
After creating, implementing, and testing the solutions, the ease of use score was 96%, and the user retention rate was 91%. This is all thanks to the experts on our team, who follow UI/UX design principles and know how to extract meaningful insights from user feedback.
Developing a learning management system from scratch is a multi-step process that involves planning, researching, creating an innovative design, executing development, testing, and maintaining the platform. To successfully move from point A, where you have only an idea, to point B, where you have a perfect visualization of the final result, you need to cooperate with professionals.
At Uitop, a UI/UX design agency, you can get the expertise you are looking for. We work with projects of different types and complexities and can guide you through every step.
Contact us today, and let us mark your path to success!
It is a crucial element of any digital product, especially the one that aims to motivate users to interact with the platform.
Yes, you can find cloud-based and open-source tools for managing educational processes. However, these apps won’t provide you with a high level of customization.
Yes, absolutely! Advanced learning platforms can connect with third parties to enhance their overall functionality.
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