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AcademyDesignLMSHuman Centered Design

LighthouseDesignAcademy

ClientN/A
RoleLead Design Engineer
IndustryEducation
Duration4 months
TeamN/A

01. The Context

The Challenge

Lighthouse Academy is an open digital educational platform and marketplace built to decentralize technical design education. By providing a multi-tenant ecosystem, the academy allows specialized industry facilitators to launch native courses, while giving global students a vast, transparent marketplace to select the exact practical skills they need to close the gap between high-fidelity design and high-performance code.

Business Goal

Lighthouse Academy aims to scale from a single school into a multi-tenant educational ecosystem. The platform drives revenue through transaction fees by providing the core infrastructure that connects specialized tech professionals with global learners, allowing the business to expand exponentially without the overhead of creating its own content.

User Goal

The user ecosystem consists of specialized creators looking to monetize their expertise and learners looking to acquire it. Creators need a frictionless, all-in-one infrastructure to easily host courses and manage cross-border payments without technical overhead. Simultaneously, students need a transparent marketplace where they can bypass rigid bootcamps to buy specific, modular courses directly from those active practitioners. Ultimately, both groups want an efficient, trusted network that simplifies the exchange of production-grade technical skills.

02. Execution

Design Process

  • Bite-Sized Learning: Micro-courses (≤15 mins) with instant project application.

  • Peer Collaboration: Integrated Slack/Discord hubs for role-specific feedback.

  • Progress Milestones: Certificates tied to LinkedIn/GitHub auto-posting.

Methods

  • Quantitative: A/B tested 3 course structures (data from 50K+ trials).

  • Qualitative: Deep-dive workshops with 50 senior hires to map career bottlenecks.

  • External Benchmarking: Compared tools with Google’s Career Guru and Codecademy Pro.

Target Users

  1. Mid-Career Designers (5K+ projects completed): Need upskilling in generative AI/3D.

  2. Junior Developers (HTML/CSS basis): Struggle to build scalable portfolios.

  3. Career Switchers (non-tech backgrounds): Require guided pathways into tech roles.

Key Insights

  • 68% of users prioritize "project visibility" over raw skills for job applications.

  • Failure Triggers: Platforms lacking step-by-step project deconstruction see 45% higher dropout rates.

05. Conclusion

The Impact

Learnings

Iterative testing is key to solving complex UX problems.

Tools Used

FigmaMiroNotion