Insights
Pick the kind of eLearning design agency first, content studio or product studio, then the firm. Nine product studios grouped by learning product. An eLearning design agency can be one of three quite different suppliers: a content studio that writes and produces courses, a web agency that builds sites for schools and E
Disclosure. This shortlist is ours, and our studio is one of the firms in it, judged by the same six checks as the others.
An eLearning design agency can be one of three quite different suppliers: a content studio that writes and produces courses, a web agency that builds sites for schools and EdTech brands, or a product design studio that designs the learning product itself, with its practice, feedback, progress and educator tools. Decide which one your problem needs before comparing firms. If the job is courses or instructional design, hire a content studio; if the platform has to work differently for learners and for the people who teach them, hire a product design studio that can show you work covering both sides.
The product design studios below are grouped by the learning product you are changing, and the groups overlap:
- A learning platform that has outgrown its LMS template or its first design: [Tcules](#outgrown-lms), Adam Fard and Think Design.
- A new learning product, including AI tutoring with educator oversight: [Tcules](#new-learning-product), Cosmos Studio and Tenet.
- Learner apps, exam preparation and upskilling: Cieden, Lollypop, [Tcules](#learner-apps) and Tenet.
- Workplace learning and learning administration: Desisle, Think Design and [Tcules](#workplace-learning).
- In-product research with instructors and students at a live publisher product's scale: Openfield.
- Courses and instructional design rather than the product: a learning content studio (see [the last group](#course-content)).
How we judged every firm
These six checks are the standard we hold our own learning-product work to. Each can be read on public pages, and work a firm can show you under a non-disclosure agreement counts as much as a published case, so ask each firm for it. What a good platform does for learners and administrators is covered in our guide to eLearning platform UX; this page is about who can design and build it.
| Check | What to look for | Why we think it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. A learning-product case | A platform, app or LMS, with its problem, its users and what the firm did; not a course or a school's marketing site | It is the evidence that a firm has designed practice, feedback and progress, not only pages |
| 2. Learners and the people who teach | Educator, coach or administrator screens as well as the learner's | An educator who cannot see who needs help works around the product |
| 3. Progress the product can honestly claim | Access, completion, performance and demonstrated learning kept apart in the design | A finished module is not proof that someone learnt; a report that blurs the two misleads teachers and buyers |
| 4. The platform under it | Moodle, Canvas, a custom build or a mobile app, and what the firm did there: theme, plugins, integration or none | An LMS template sets the limits of the experience; the firm should say which limits it changed |
| 5. Who builds it | Design only, the front end, or the whole build, and who checks the result against the design | A feedback state or a role permission lost in the hand-off is paid for twice |
| 6. AI with educator oversight, where AI is in scope | What the AI may do alone, what the teacher sees, and how a wrong answer is corrected | An AI that does the thinking for the learner can look like progress |
We read every firm only from its own pages, and every outcome figure below is the firm's own claim. We left out Guidea, which links no EdTech case page we could open, and Octet, whose two readable linked cases are not learning products under check 1: Quizzer is a career-aptitude app, and Mom's Belief, which Octet labels "An E-Learning Platform", names parents and caregivers as its only users.
The shortlist at a glance
| Firm | Case we read | Who it serves | Platform work | Builds? (firm's own claim) | Based | Review profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tcules | The Wandering Raven, creative writing for ages 8 to 18 | Learners aged 8 to 18 | Moodle plugins, configuration, custom theme | Yes: software development | Ahmedabad, India | Clutch |
| Adam Fard | Kinteract, an EdTech SaaS LMS for schools | Teachers, parents, students | Revamped LMS web and mobile apps | No: research and UX/UI design | New York and Berlin | Clutch |
| Cieden | MedEntry, medical and dental exam preparation | Students | Two web platforms, new mobile app | Yes: web app development | Lviv, Toronto and Wilmington | Clutch |
| Cosmos Studio | Povir, state-backed platform for Ukrainian schools | Students, teachers, special-needs teachers | Custom web platform | Yes: front end and back end | Europe-based team | Clutch |
| Desisle | B2B upskilling platform, client unnamed | Learners, administrators | Custom web app | Yes: "we design and develop" | Bangalore, India | Clutch |
| Lollypop | KnowledgeHut, professional e-learning | Learners who can also teach | Web and mobile | Yes: research, design and development | India, US, UAE, Vietnam | Clutch |
| Openfield | Wolters Kluwer gradebook; Macmillan Achieve | Instructors; students | Research on live products | No: research, design and prototyping | Cincinnati, US | None found |
| Tenet | AcePlus, gamified e-learning for children | Young learners, parents; admin panel | Android app, website, 15 games | Yes: web, app and SaaS development | UAE, India, UK | Clutch |
| Think Design | Tata ClassEdge; Linchpin | Teachers; learners and administrators | Classroom app; web LMS | Yes: digital product development | India and Singapore | Clutch |
A learning platform that has outgrown its LMS template or its first design
This is the product that started on an LMS's default screens, or a company's own LMS whose first design no longer fits, and now needs its own structure: a sequence learners can follow, practice that feels like the subject, and educator views that show who needs help. The work is product design carried onto the platform, not a new skin.
Tcules
For The Wandering Raven, a creative-writing platform for learners aged 8 to 18 that began as a basic Moodle site, we interviewed its educators and a sample of young writers, audited the old site, rebuilt the information architecture and created the brand and its characters. Then we installed and configured the Moodle plugins and built a custom theme, so the client could spend its time on courses rather than on running the platform. Writing prompts, peer feedback, progress tracking and badges now sit in one product.
We treat content, navigation and participation as one journey and carry the design onto the platform ourselves, so the decisions survive the theme and the plugins. In our view each objective should lead to practice, an attempt, feedback and a next step, and the educator should see more than a score: attempts set against a clear criterion, feedback tied to the work itself, and unfinished activity told apart from real difficulty. More on our EdTech and learning product design page.
Adam Fard
Adam Fard worked on Kinteract, an EdTech SaaS learning management system for schools, used by teachers, parents and students, for 1 year and 7 months: an audit of the existing designs, a revamp of the LMS web and mobile apps, which the case says were inconsistent with each other, and new features such as teacher-set assignments that parents can see, group and class management, curricula and lesson plans, and an achievement timeline for students. Ideas were tested with teachers, educational consultants and other users, and the designs went to the client's developers as hand-off files.
Think Design
Think Design redesigned Tata ClassEdge, a teacher's app for interactive whiteboards, mobile and web, after audits, usage analysis, interviews and classroom shadowing. Its design covers a pen-driven whiteboard, a lesson-plan builder teachers can share, and usage and performance reports; the case lists development coordination among Think Design's roles. Its Linchpin platform appears under workplace learning.
A new learning product, including AI tutoring with educator oversight
A new product, or AI added to an existing one, has to decide early what the learner does, what the software does and what the educator sees. With an AI tutor the stakes rise, because the easiest version simply answers for the learner. England's Department for Education now expects learner-facing generative AI products to report to teachers how often learners ask the AI to do their thinking for them (Generative AI: product safety standards, updated 19 January 2026). None of the firms in this group, us included, shows a published case of AI in a learning product, so put check 6 to each of them.
Tcules
An AI tutor should help a learner practise rather than practise for them, and the teacher should be able to see what it did and correct it. For each step we agree with you what the AI may explain, generate or adapt, which approved material it draws on, where the limits for the learner's age sit, and what the educator can see and override; the learner's record and the teacher's view keep what the tutor wrote apart from what the learner showed they can do.
We have designed that kind of check before, for BuildTwin's structural-engineering software. There, a quality engineer reviews each AI check with its sources in view. Missing information is flagged before the check runs again. An override needs a corrected state and a reason. Our design engineers try such behaviour in code on sample material, as in the demo we coded for ConnectX, and we can walk you through more AI work under a non-disclosure agreement.
How we design AI that people can check and correct: AI Product UX.
Cosmos Studio
Cosmos Studio designed Povir, a state-backed platform that helps Ukrainian students in grades 7, 9 and 11 close gaps in Ukrainian, maths and English through personalised, gamified practice. Students, teachers and teachers of pupils with special educational needs each have their own flows, teachers get planning tools such as a smart calendar, and the case lists front-end and back-end development.
Tenet
Tenet built AcePlus, a gamified e-learning platform for children's holistic education; the case lists an Android app, 15 games, the app's back end, a super-admin panel and the website. The case describes the experience for young learners and their parents; it does not show a teacher-facing interface.
Learner apps, exam preparation and upskilling
When the learner is the paying customer or the main user, the work is a study plan, practice, progress and a reason to come back, on web and mobile. Tenet's AcePlus, above, belongs here too.
Cieden
Cieden redesigned MedEntry's web platforms for two markets and designed a new mobile app for students preparing for medical and dental entry exams: a personal study plan, a calendar linked to Google Calendar, a skill trainer, analytics with peer comparison and a leaderboard. Two specialists worked on it for 12 months in close collaboration with the development team, and the finished product was tested with students.
Lollypop
Lollypop's KnowledgeHut case covers UX research and UX and UI design for the web and mobile app of an e-learning platform with virtual classrooms and training programmes, where professionals can learn and also teach. Lollypop built on the existing brand, used a balanced grid, with consistency across every page, and added a guide to moving between pages and courses.
Tcules
A learner app has to make the next step obvious and give the learner a reason to come back. We start from the learner's own practice, what an attempt looks like, what feedback follows it and what progress the product can honestly show, and we tie badges and streaks to practice done rather than to time spent in the app.
The platform we designed and implemented for The Wandering Raven, above, is a learner-facing product of this kind.
Workplace learning and learning administration
Corporate learning products are judged by administrators as much as by learners: enrolment, courses, competencies, certification and the reports managers ask for. A design partner should show both sides working in one product.
Desisle
Desisle led the UI, UX and product design of an unnamed B2B e-learning platform for employee upskilling, built from scratch in a 90-day project: micro-learning, learning paths, quizzes and gamification for learners, and tools for administrators to upload material, build courses, assess learners, track competencies and report.
Think Design: Linchpin
Think Design shaped, designed and built the front end of Linchpin, an enterprise learning platform where employees learn and administrators create, manage and track learning, with its own design system; it coordinated the wider application development.
Tcules
A learning administration product needs its roles, records and rules settled before its screens: who may enrol whom, which record proves a competency, and what a certificate depends on. We map how enrolment, access, progress, certification and support connect, then design the learner's path and the administrator's tools as one system, so a report counts the same thing the learner sees. When you want it built, our developers carry it into working software with our designers in the build team. Our B2B SaaS and workflow software work, such as the staffing and quoting products we designed, shows that order in practice.
In-product research with instructors and students at a live publisher product's scale
If you run a publisher's live courseware or assessment product and want research inside it with instructors and students at the scale of its existing user base before a redesign, Openfield is a better pick than we are, because that is the work its published cases show. For Wolters Kluwer it ran intercept research on the live CoursePoint+ gradebook, asking instructors for feedback inside the product as they used it, and reports feedback from 289 instructors, with results delivered within two weeks. For Macmillan Learning it interviewed instructors and tested a prototype of a graphing tool in the Achieve assessment product with precalculus students. Openfield offers research and testing, design and prototyping, and product planning.
When the job is courses, not the product
If what you need is courses (instructional design, storyboards, video, simulations or a library of training content for your LMS), hire a learning content studio rather than a product design firm. SweetRush offers custom eLearning, learning games, video and XR for learning and development teams. AllenComm sells consulting, custom content, technology and staffing for corporate training. ELB Learning offers learning development and design, game development, video and staffing. Learnnovators designs and develops custom eLearning for the workplace. Some products need both: a product studio designs the platform, and a content team fills it.
Questions that settle the choice
Ask every firm on your shortlist the same questions:
- Which case is closest to our product, and what problem, users and part of the work were yours? We want a learning product, not a course or a school website.
- Which educator, coach or administrator screens did you design, and what could those people do with them?
- How did your design keep access, completion and demonstrated learning apart in what learners and teachers see?
- What did you change on the platform itself: the theme, plugins, an integration, or nothing?
- Who builds it, and who checks the built product against the design before release?
- If AI is in scope, what may it do without a person, what does the teacher see, and how is a wrong answer corrected?
- How do you design for learners who need other ways to engage with the material? A framework such as CAST's Universal Design for Learning guidelines is a fair thing to ask about.
- For learners under 18, who on your side and ours reviews privacy, consent and safeguarding, and when?
The firm whose answers describe your product back to you, rather than its own process, is the one to brief.