Designing for Something that Won't Sell

Why UX also needs to go where most people don't want to go

Photo by Jordan McDonald

Back in the year 2010, I was working for Oracle, designing e-learning products for schools. Back then, my job title was only “Designer”, I just started my career. Half of my work was marketing design, the other half user interface for these products. The products that we designed facilitated learning in the classroom (and off the classroom), by allowing teachers and students to collaborate in an online school. Every teacher and student would have their own “pages” or “blogs” where they can push content up, creating unlimited pages. Teacher admins can manage a centralized school portal where they can push announcements and calendars. The teachers can create “projects”, which is a collaborative blog/page that students can participate in, for example, a class or subject blog. We had a lot of fun building it, and advocating it for the school communities.

We didn’t sell this product. It was given, and even advocated (with free trainings), for free, to schools. Oracle…