We are very excited to announce the launch of the new e-learning platform for our Design Leadership Academy: Livebook 2.0. After months of hard work and dedication, we are pleased to officially launch a better e-learning ecosystem for PARK Academy users.

The PARK Academy (formerly known as Grow) system is fully focused on empowering our clients to become true design leaders. It is the basis for all PARK Academy education programs. Through a myriad of functionalities, it helps to create a perfect online learning experience that never stops giving. For the students, the tutors, the admins, and all the other stakeholders.

We wanted to make our system faster, more intuitive, more user-friendly, and simpler, to give our students a better learning experience. The most significant improvements of the new user interface are the responsive design with adaptable content to fit multiple screen sizes, faster load time, increased user and data security, and consistent layout design for the two versions of the Livebook: the desktop and the iOS app.

With the Livebook 2.0 we make sure PARK Academy participants have all their materials, notes, learning goals, assignments, and reflections in one place. Available anywhere, any time. It is their unique learning tool, growing along with them.

On May 12th, the first program in the new Livebook started in partnership with The Norwegian Center for Design & Architecture. Now entering the 11th partnership program with the Design Center, 10 students from various leading companies & agencies are now enjoying the new design, new functionality, and updated content in the new platform.

Back-end system

In addition to the Livebook, we developed a more efficient and simpler back-end system to manage our programs and courses. This system allows the administrators and tutors to control the programs faster and easier, and monitor the students, reducing the amount of work required to run multiple functions and the time spent creating new programs and courses. Thanks to the new system, we can create and update content easier and faster for our users.

Our users and stakeholders

Our development process included research on design trends and UX best practices, and benchmarking other web platforms for inspiration.

The Livebook 2.0 was developed with the participation of users in different stages of the process. Users included students, alumni, tutors, and back-end admins. We conducted one-on-one interviews, research with students and alumni to get insights into which features they wanted to improve from the old platform and add to the new Livebook, did A/B testing and validation with all kinds of users. During this process, we created several prototypes and mock-ups to test the different features.

Customized Branding & Content

We know that our in-company clients value having a dedicated branding in their content. The new Livebook provides a dedicated branding option that incorporates a specific brand identity for in-company trainings. This service allows our clients to use their own brand as an identifier instead of the PARK Academy identity. In addition, we can customize the content to meet your company’s needs.

As a first example, we created a customized Livebook for and with our client Dräger, an international leader in the fields of medical and safety technology. We incorporated their brand identity on our system and combined PARK Academy content with Dräger’s materials. The UX Training program launched in May, with modules about UX Design Basics, UX Design Process, and UX Research.

We would like to thank all the students and alumni who participated in the research and collaborated with us so we can improve our platform and continue to serve the design community with our design leadership expertise.

We are working hard to update all 16 modules and bring new relevant content for our alumni and future students. Currently, we are focusing on the new module of Design Teams and Managing Service Design, in collaboration with our subject experts Frank van den Horst and Brian Gillespie, respectively.

If you are interested in learning more about Grow Design Leadership programs and courses, module updates, new modules, or you would like to get a demo of the Livebook 2.0, contact us at info@growdesignmanagement.com

About PARK Academy

PARK Academy programs were created to advance the value of design. By mastering the fundamentals of leading and managing design, you will be better positioned to add more value to your company, clients, customers, consumers & colleagues. We have developed the program for busy working professionals and offer a smart mix of distant and live learning with personalized learning goals and one on one coaching.

More than 2000 professionals from over 100 world-leading companies have participated in PARK Academy since 2012. And 11 Design Academies at global companies have been established.

With the PARK Academy e-learning system, we cover, in terms of content, especially the field of design leadership in all aspects and in relation to all other (business) disciplines involved.