Learning Hub 2.0 — platform refresh research
End-to-end mixed-methods research informing a refresh of Cisco Meraki's flagship self-paced learning platform.
Context
Cisco Meraki’s Learning Hub is the flagship self-paced training platform used by network administrators learning the Meraki dashboard. The platform was due for a significant refresh — “Learning Hub 2.0” — and the team needed evidence to decide what to keep, what to change, and what to add.
I was the lead researcher on the effort, partnering with a designer and contributing research throughout a roughly six-month engagement.
What I did
The work was end-to-end: study design, instrument creation, recruitment, fieldwork, synthesis, and a final insights deliverable to the team.
The research plan combined three streams:
- A platform-level CSAT and System Usability Scale (SUS) survey to anchor the baseline quantitative read on the existing Learning Hub.
- A screener-driven recruitment process to assemble a learner sample that matched the platform’s actual audience composition (not the assumed composition).
- Learner interviews and moderated user testing with that sample through Spring and Summer of 2025, structured around the most consequential journeys: finding content, deciding whether to engage, and getting through a module.
Synthesis was iterative — themes were shared with the design partner as they surfaced so design exploration could move in parallel.
Outcome
The findings were delivered as a synthesis deck in October 2025 covering:
- Where the existing platform was working well (and worth preserving)
- Specific friction points to address in 2.0
- Recommendations for what new capabilities would have the highest learner impact
- A clear read on baseline CSAT/SUS to anchor post-launch evaluation
The deliverable became the reference document the team used as 2.0 progressed. Recommendations were tied to specific learner behaviors and quotes, not to my own preferences — which mattered for influence in a team where the research function was relatively new.
Reflection
Two things stood out from this project.
First, the screener-driven recruitment was worth the upfront cost. The team had historically run lightweight research without much sampling rigor, and the audience composition turned out to be meaningfully different from what was assumed. Investing in the screener kept downstream findings grounded in the actual user base.
Second, pairing SUS with CSAT gave the deliverable two complementary anchors. SUS let me speak to usability in a comparable, well-established metric; CSAT let me speak to overall sentiment in a metric the team already tracked. That combination made the findings hard to dismiss — both halves of the table could see something familiar.