Evaluation Manangement Application (EMA) - original process & product
Evaluation Manangement Application (EMA) - original process & product from Karen Penlington
Evaluation Manangement Application (EMA) - original process & product

The Evaluation Management Application is WGU's platform for the publication, delivery, and evaluation of performance assessments.
In 2016 WGU got to a point with its partnership with Taskstream that called for change. While Taskstream meets WGU’s basic needs, the evaluation workflow is marked by inefficient and error-prone processes and the inability to accommodate improvements that are essential to scalability and continued credibility. Through the vetting of other third-party options and building a tool internally, the Evaluation Management Application (EMA) was born. This in-house developed platform would support the publication, delivery, and evaluation of performance assessments. This new platform would accommodate the growth of WGU, be more intuitive, provide a one-stop shop, all in fewer clicks.
Project launch July 2016
Product MVP launch April 2017
Product v1 completed launch Dec 2019

Student Portal - whiteboards sketches and wireframes The established team and stakeholders held several design workshops to begin with. During these workshops Product Sponsors discussed their high-level vision, their hopes and dreams. The many goals for this new product and ideas as to where we could take it came out of these workshops. We walked through the user workflow, identifying the pain-points of Taskstream, as well as what was good and the functionality we didn’t want to lose. Throughout these discussion, the ideas for the “Dream Machine” began to take a loose shape on the whiteboards. For our initial release, we would need to release 4 UIs for our 3 user audiences – students, evaluators, publishers.
Focus groups were conducted with a student audience throughout the design process – wireframes, hi-fi mockups, final designs. Overall, we received great feedback from students and the improvement in UX from Taskstream. This design evolved from a “fly-in” component on top of the Course of Study page, into its own page, due to technical challenges.
Student Portal - attach files
Student Portal - mobile responsive
Evaluation UI - Through the initial design process, I meet with various members of the Evaluations team to continue to broaden my understanding of their needs, review the designs, and receive feedback. This process worked really well, as the users were able to be part of the design process and really produce a good MVP product for them to use.
Evaluation UI
Evaluation UI For the admin experience, I collaborated directly and closely with my UI development team and we did the initial design work in code. We sat together do discuss the layout, content, and functionality. Then the dev would code up the UI and we would review and revise. Once our design was solid and working, reviews were done during our sprint reviews to incrementally show what we’d developed and get user feedback.
Publication UI - Wireframes
Publication UI
Publication UI -- The pre-EMA publishing experience consisted of several Word documents exchanging hands until it the assessment and tasks were “signed off” on and copied into the final delivery system. The EMA experience is intended to be a one-stop to create, approve, and publish the assessment and tasks out to the course. I had several discussions and reviews of the UX and UI with the stakeholders on the Publishing team. I was able to design an experience that met the team’s needs.
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Evaluation Manangement Application (EMA) - original process & product

The Evaluation Management Application is WGU's platform for the publication, delivery, and evaluation of performance assessments.
In 2016 WGU got to a point with its partnership with Taskstream that called for change. While Taskstream meets WGU’s basic needs, the evaluation workflow is marked by inefficient and error-prone processes and the inability to accommodate improvements that are essential to scalability and continued credibility. Through the vetting of other third-party options and building a tool internally, the Evaluation Management Application (EMA) was born. This in-house developed platform would support the publication, delivery, and evaluation of performance assessments. This new platform would accommodate the growth of WGU, be more intuitive, provide a one-stop shop, all in fewer clicks.
Project launch July 2016
Product MVP launch April 2017
Product v1 completed launch Dec 2019

Karen Penlington
Sr. User Experience Designer Galveston, TX