CAST.org: Enterprise Learning Architecture; Creating an Organization-Wide eLearning System
CAST.org: Enterprise Learning Architecture; Creating an Organization-Wide eLearning System
Embedded Files
Roles
Roles
Lead Learning Systems Architect & Product Designer at CAST, Inc
Tools
Tools
Canvas LMS, Articulate 360 (Storyline/Rise), Figma Design Systems, Miro, WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance Standards, Agile Course Governance
TLDR
TLDR
I partnered with Executive Leadership, Professional Learning Directors, Research Scientists, and Accessibility Specialists to address an exciting organizational scaling milestone: as CAST’s professional learning footprint expanded rapidly, their course catalog needed a unified digital and product infrastructure. I spearheaded a dual-track strategic initiative: the design, development and launching of their flagship UDL learning program while simultaneously architecting CAST’s foundational, reusable eLearning design system, component library, and workflow governance. This infrastructure slashed future course development cycles by ~70% and established a scalable digital standard for the organization's entire professional learning ecosystem.
The Context: Scaling an Expanding International Portfolio
The Context: Scaling an Expanding International Portfolio
As CAST’s national impact grew, their professional learning offerings had naturally expanded organically across diverse research initiatives and teams. While this decentralized growth fostered rich content from world-class SMEs, it presented a classic enterprise scaling challenge: maintaining unified digital product architecture, consistent UI/UX patterns, and proactive WCAG 2.1 AA compliance across a rapidly expanding catalog.
Leadership recognized the need for a flagship eLearning product, as well as a centralized design system and standardized workflow to support CAST's next phase of national growth.
The Strategy: Two Tracks, One Scalable Ecosystem
The Strategy: Two Tracks, One Scalable Ecosystem
The strategic question that reframed the project was: “How do we deliver an exceptional flagship experience while simultaneously building the underlying product infrastructure for the entire catalog?” To ensure the system was practical and stress-tested, I ran the initiative as a dual-track parallel workflow:
Track 1: Design and develop the flagship UDL professional learning program under rigorous enterprise constraints.
Track 2: Build the underlying eLearning design system, component library, and governance framework in real-time using the flagship course as a live beta environment.
Part 1: System Discovery & Portfolio Evolution
Part 1: System Discovery & Portfolio Evolution
Before building the framework, I conducted a collaborative audit with instructional staff and learning technologists to map the end-to-end development lifecycle and identify opportunities for product efficiency.
Key Discovery Areas:
Portfolio Consistency: Aligning decentralized styling conventions into a single, cohesive digital brand standard so learners experienced seamless continuity across different CAST courses.
Proactive Accessibility Engineering: Designing WCAG compliance checks from a late-stage validation step into an automated, component-level baseline constraint.
Production Optimization: Streamlining handoffs between SMEs, designers, and developers so creative hours could focus on high-impact pedagogy rather than manual layout formatting.
User journey research process
Part 2: The Core Product Solutions
Part 2: The Core Product Solutions
1. The Flagship UDL Course (Track 1)
1. The Flagship UDL Course (Track 1)
A multi-module professional learning experience designed for diverse adult educators, district leaders, and researchers.
Embodying UDL through Product Design: The digital course itself served as a living model of Universal Design for Learning, offering flexible navigation pathways, multi-modal representation, and authentic performance-based assessments.
Accessibility by Design: Every UI component, accordion, and knowledge check was engineered from the ground up to be fully keyboard-navigable and compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA contrast and screen-reader standards.
2. The Enterprise eLearning Design System & Governance (Track 2)
2. The Enterprise eLearning Design System & Governance (Track 2)
We engineered a three-part operational ecosystem to unify CAST's course offering:
Reusable Component Library: A modular suite of WCAG-compliant UI building blocks (text/image layouts, interactive scenario structures, knowledge checks) documented with clear usage guidelines in Figma and Canvas templates.
Standardized Development Workflow: A streamlined process map from SME intake to final QA, establishing clear handoff milestones and version control.
Governance & Team Enablement: Created living style guides and led internal workshops to mentor team members, ensuring the internal L&D group could independently maintain and scale the system.
Snippet from the streamlined process map for course creation
Example of the living style guides inside the own LMS ecosystem (Canvas)
Results & Impact
Results & Impact
Unified Internal Architecture: Established the foundational design system and templates powering the core professional learning course catalog.
~70% Reduction in Development Time: Standardized UI components and Canvas templates eliminated redundant production hours for future course rollouts.
100% WCAG 2.1 AA Compliance by Design: Automated accessibility at the component level, ensuring every digital learning product was fully inclusive from day one.
80% Improvement in Portfolio Consistency: Standardized instructional patterns and visual branding across CAST’s entire professional learning ecosystem.
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
The system is the ultimate product: In enterprise education, building a single great course is valuable; building the scalable infrastructure that allows an organization to produce dozens of great courses sustainably is transformative.
Model your core principles: If an organization champions accessibility and UDL, the underlying digital product architecture must authentically reflect those standards from the first wireframe.
Design for sustainable handoff: A robust design system is only as good as its documentation. Empowering internal teams with clear governance ensures long-term operational resilience.
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