What is Onsi University?
Onsi University is the core learning management platform for The Onsi Group, a specialized company delivering government contracting and legal compliance education. The software functions as a dual-sided engine, serving everyday corporate learners navigating complex regulations while equipping platform administrators with powerful auditing and user management tools.
My Role
Stepping into a small, fast-moving startup environment as the Sole UX Designer, I owned the end-to-end product footprint. I wore multiple hats simultaneously—acting as the primary user researcher, interaction architect, UI designer, and design system builder. I engineered the full learner-facing ecosystem and the complete backend administrator console, driving every screen from initial whiteboard concept directly to high-fidelity developer handoff.
Context
Although framed internally as a product redesign, there were zero existing design patterns, no shared UI libraries, and no pre-established design guidelines. Working under a lean startup launch deadline, I had to confidently navigate extreme ambiguity, make foundational system-level architecture decisions independently, and establish scalable product processes to ensure the application was ready to ship.
01 Role
Uncharted territory
This project was my first real-world UX experience on a product actively being built and prepared for launch. Joining a small startup meant stepping into a role with no existing design team, no established processes, and requirements that evolved week to week.
Rather than focusing on a single lane of UX, I wore multiple hats simultaneously: researcher, interaction designer, UI designer, and documentation owner. I had to make foundational decisions independently, move quickly under ambiguity, and ensure my designs were grounded enough to hand off directly to engineers.
The experience pushed me to become more confident in my decision-making, more adaptable to rapid change, and more intentional about balancing user needs with what was actually feasible for a startup preparing to ship.
Solution
Establishing a Scalable Design System
Because I was building the platform entirely from the ground up, my first priority was creating a consistent, componentized visual design system. I established reusable page layouts, global navigation hierarchies, cohesive form inputs, and unified interactive states. This flexible, production-ready foundation cleared immediate front-end development bottlenecks and ensured future features could scale without visual drift.
Feature #1: The Goal-Oriented Learner Dashboard
Answering the core student questions instantly.
I structured the primary landing dashboard to surface immediate value upon login. The interface highlights an unmistakable "Pick Up Where You Left Off" pattern through dedicated modules
Courses In Progress, Recently Viewed, and Recommended Content. Prominent top-level stat counters track enrolled tracks and earned credentials to build visual momentum, while custom-designed empty states proactively guide first-time users toward their first course enrollment.
Feature #2: Progress-Centric Course Interface
Dismantling cognitive fatigue in dense material.
To help professionals navigate lengthy, mandatory regulatory legal content, I engineered a highly structured, focused course environment. The interface integrates a persistent left-hand course outline sidebar so students always maintain structural orientation.
I embedded micro-progress checkmarks at the chapter and lesson levels to lower completion anxiety, placed a dedicated panel for quick resource downloads, and introduced an intentional "Check Your Understanding" interactive junction at the end of each module to solidify learning before progression.
Feature #3: A Rewarding Certificate Experience
Turning administrative milestones into moments of value.
Rather than treating course completion as an afterthought, passing a final exam triggers an immediate transformation in the user state. Students land on a clean, celebratory dashboard that surfaces their government compliance certificate instantly. The interface provides single-click download paths and automatic saving parameters directly within the learner profile, ensuring credentials remain easy for employers to audit.
Feature #4: Multi-Tier Profile Architecture
Bridges enterprise control with individual personalization.
I designed an adaptable profile management matrix built to automatically shift layouts based on user access levels and subscription tiers (Basic, Standard, Premium). The settings give individual and corporate-plan learners complete preference autonomy over notification frequencies and light/dark interface modes, while structurally enforcing business rules that restrict account-level billing modifications for organizational users.
See Next
Ultimately, I am profoundly grateful for the trust, mentorship, and creative freedom I was given so early in my design career. This project didn't just teach me how to build a better user interface; it taught me how to be a resilient, collaborative, and adaptable product designer.
Where we began
The mandatory government compliance training module sat on the screen—dense, highly technical, and completely overwhelming. For a contracting professional, completing this mandatory education felt like a bureaucratic chore, made worse by fractured navigation, invisible progress indicators, and a transactional approach to certification.
On the other side of the platform, non-technical administrators struggled through buried settings and disorganized data views just to assign simple training tracks.
To launch successfully, Onsi University desperately needed a unified, intuitive product architecture that transformed legal friction into a smooth educational experience.
What we found
What’s really going on?
To map out the digital learning landscape without pre-existing internal data, I conducted comprehensive secondary research, examining industry-standard UX methodologies and benchmarking competitor ecosystems.
The Learning Management Blind Spot
After analyzing how competing enterprise tools structured their platforms, it became clear that these weren't isolated interface problems—most existing applications over-engineered their administrative controls while treating the core student motivation and progress-tracking experiences as secondary features.
Feature #5: High-Control Admin Dashboards & Multi-Step Training Plans
Powerful data tools for non-technical managers.
On the administrator side, I mapped out a high-utility management workspace. The primary admin dashboard provides immediate visibility into operational success through three top-level metrics: Overall Pass Percentage, Overall Completion Rate, and Non-Active Enrollments, supported by an intuitive calendar interaction for granular date-filtering.
For scheduling, I designed a multi-step configuration wizard that allows administrators to easily construct complex training plans, assign curriculum tracks to user groups, and manage internal approval queues in one interface.
The Road Ahead
Rigorous Self-Directed Quality Controls
To pressure-test the complete application framework prior to developer handoff, I conducted an independent, comprehensive heuristic evaluation of all designed flows against Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics. This proactive audit allowed me to catch edge-case discrepancies, tighten error-prevention parameters, optimize system feedback messaging, and structurally unify button alignments (shifting left-aligned button anomalies to consistent right-aligned layouts) across complex data flows.
Key Takeaway
Sometimes the best thing to do is get thrown into the fire.
Stepping into my first real-world product design role and owning a shipped project from start to finish was an incredible "thrown into the fire" experience. While I am proud of the final solution delivered, the most valuable part of this journey was the sheer volume of hands-on learning that came from navigating real-world constraints.
Moving From Intuition to Primary Validation
While the platform foundation is structurally production-ready, the immediate next phase of the product roadmap is introducing direct usability testing with actual government compliance professionals. Because initial research was largely secondary, the next iteration cycle will introduce targeted student interviews and live behavioral testing to refine content layouts and further tune dashboard visual hierarchies based on direct user data.
If I could do this project over again, there are two pivotal shifts I would make to my process:
Advocate Fiercely for Early User Testing: While timelines and resources can push user testing to the sidelines, I learned firsthand that making assumptions is a risk. In future projects, I will actively push for even lean, rapid user testing cycles early on to validate design decisions before moving to high-fidelity mockups.
Establish Early Cross-Functional Alignment: Because development was handled by an external third-party team, a major turning point occurred when I discovered late-stage CMS limitations. Certain components I designed couldn't be built natively, requiring unexpected redesign sprints. This taught me that engineering constraints aren't the enemy of good design—they are the parameters of it. Moving forward, I will prioritize cross-functional alignment calls with development teams on day one to understand the technical architecture before sketching a single screen