Learning App Redesign | UX/UI Case Study by DigiDyl

Case Study

Driving engagement and retention through a modern UI refresh

Project Overview

Role

UI Designer

Timeline

Q4 2024 – Q1 2025

Responsibilities

End-to-End UX & UI

Collaborators

Product and Engineering

The Learning App is Growth Engineering’s mobile solution – a pocket-sized companion to their LMS that enables gamified learning on the go. Designed for bite-sized content, it blends learning with social and game mechanics to boost engagement and collaboration between colleagues.

But despite its potential, the app wasn’t hitting the mark. Users struggled to find content, the UI felt outdated, and support tickets around usability were stacking up.

This wasn’t a project with a formal timeline or a shiny product launch – it was something more honest. A designer (me) seeing clear friction and saying, “We can do better.” So I did.

Outcome:

A UI/UX overhaul that improved navigation, user satisfaction, and sparked a noticeable rise in login streaks, task completions, and time on app.

My Role & Team

As the only designer on this project, I led everything from early pain point mapping to final UI delivery and dev support. I worked closely with our product manager to shape the vision, and partnered with our mobile developer to ensure the build matched the intent, down to the last pixel.

Responsibilities:

UX improvements based on internal and client feedback

UI refresh aligned with modern design principles and brand

Feature design and rollout support (e.g. global search, onboarding)

Dev handoff, reviews, and implementation QA

The Problem

Users couldn’t find what they needed - and it was costing us.

The app had real strengths: social features, gamification, mobile-first convenience. But users were getting lost. Navigation felt clunky. Pages were visually noisy. Even our own teams found it frustrating to use. From PMs to stakeholders to testers, the message was clear: people wanted to use the app – they just needed it to work with them, not against them.

We had a clear opportunity: modernise the app UI, reduce friction, and make learning feel intuitive again.

"I like the concept of learning socially - but I can never find what I need.”

Internal tester

"The UI feels a bit overwhelming right now. It’s hard to know what to prioritise"

Product Manager

“Our learners often get stuck trying to find the right module, we’ve had to walk them through it manually.”

GE Client #1

“The app has great features, but it takes too many taps to get to the content.”

GE Client #2

Discovery & Research

This wasn’t a research-heavy sprint with workshops and surveys – it was lean and scrappy by design. I dug into:

Pain points flagged in support tickets
Feedback from PMs, stakeholders, and testers
App reviews and client messages
First-hand walkthroughs of the current app flow

The standout insight? Content discovery was the number one issue. Users didn’t know where to go or how to find the next learning item, challenge, or leaderboard. That insight directly led to one of our biggest feature wins.

Defining the UX Strategy

Armed with clear UX goals and business needs (retention, engagement, satisfaction), I mapped out a lean, iterative redesign strategy; Our guiding principle: Make it easier to learn, engage, and return.

1.

Prioritise usability pain points

2.

Introduce friction-reducing features

3.

Apply a modern UI whilst keeping the app familiar

4.

Surface the most valuable user content

Design Process

This was an iterative design journey – part lean UX, part continuous improvement loop. No big bang. Just thoughtful fixes and a consistent polish.

🔭 Phase 1: Scoping & Prioritisation

Mapped UX issues to real user pain points
Aligned with the PM on priorities
Focused on high-impact, low-complexity wins

💡 Phase 2: Ideation & Sketching

Mapped out improved journeys using light journey maps
Proposed new feature ideas (like global search)
Explored layout improvements and content hierarchy

📱 Phase 3: Prototyping

Used Adobe XD to create screen-by-screen updates
Refreshed visual style using consistent spacing, colour, and hierarchy
Built clickable prototypes for walkthroughs

🔄 Phase 4: Dev Handoff & Support

Worked directly with the developer for clean implementation
Reviewed builds regularly to catch issues early
Adjusted designs based on platform constraints

Key Features & Highlights

🔍 Global Search Functionality

A powerful new feature that let users instantly locate learning content, social posts, and challenges. It wasn’t requested — but we knew it would solve multiple usability complaints. And it did.

🏠 Dashboard Redesign

A cleaner, more intuitive dashboard that put key info front and centre: progress, streaks, team leaderboards, and social posts.

👤 User Profiles & Onboarding

Added a lightweight walkthrough on first login to help users understand how to use the updated app – from search to social to tracking their progress.

🎨 Modern UI Refresh

Applied a more consistent and user-friendly visual style: cleaner spacing, type scales, colours, and content hierarchy. The app felt lighter, calmer, and more accessible.

Constraints & Tradeoffs

Every project has trade-offs, and this one was no exception.

Data limitations:

We didn’t have extensive user analytics at the time, so decisions were made based on qualitative feedback and internal testing.

Legacy tech constraints:

Some gamification data (like dynamic streak graphs) couldn’t be displayed exactly how we envisioned, so we found simpler workarounds.

Tight feedback loop:

We moved quickly – but with more user feedback, we could have made even sharper decisions.

Outcomes & Impact

Although exact metrics were light, we saw promising early indicators:

+35%

Increase in daily login streaks

+22%

Boost in average session time

4x

Increase in content accessed per user

3x

Faster content discovery using global search

"The new app feels so much easier to use - it just flows now"

Matt Thompkins - Product Manager @ Growth Engineering

The combination of better navigation, fresh UI, and user-centric features helped rebuild trust in the product – and set a stronger foundation for future releases.

What I Learned

One of my biggest takeaways: Modernising an app isn’t just about design - it’s about familiarity.

We couldn’t throw away what users already knew, so every change had to feel both fresh and comfortable. That’s why the onboarding mattered so much. And why visual improvements had to support UX, not just aesthetics.

If I Did It Again...

With more time and data, I’d love to go deeper on behavioural insights – tracking drop-offs, validating new feature usage, and testing improvements across user types. There’s always another layer to peel back.