Online education has been booming recently, with new entries coming from startups eduFire and the upcoming (though nebulous) Grockit, among others. One of the newest is LearnHub, a startup that launched last March that has undergone a major redesign as it vies for a top spot in this space.
LearnHub has modified its layout to be less overwhelming - the site’s homepage now reads like an online magazine, displaying featured content, trivia, and polls. It isn’t until after clicking on one of the featured lessons that the user is thrust into LearnHub’s social learning network, which is its primary offering. This “mullet layout” (business in the front, party in the back) helps users find the content they’re interested in without having to go looking for it (assuming they can find something they like on the front page).
The site separates its topics of study into Courses, each of which can have its own tests, lessons, and games attached to it. Many of these are free, but content creators can also choose to charge for a course. Content providers can also tutor pupils using the site’s audio/video whiteboard. Students can gauge tutors by looking at their reputation rating, which is determined by the number of classes they’ve taught and the reviews they’ve received.
LearnHub is trying to be a lot of things, which may not work to its advantage. While the redesigned layout does help make the site more accessible, it is still a little overwhelming. With so many options to choose from, students may lose direction, which may lead experienced tutors to choose to use sites designed exclusively to promote their specialty, as eduFire does with video tutoring.
More on the “Mullet Strategy” here, The Mullet Strategy – New (Hair)Styles in Media and here, The Mullet Strategy.
New site looks great, Learnhub. Keep up the good work.
You know this is on Rails. Come on, Techcrunch. Nothing Rails is good, remember? Where’s the flood of lame comments?
Hey, looks nice I will visit & go for it to learn and teach there. We should keep learning ….. I love learning
@3, Rails all the way. Check out the Rails community on LearnHub. Some good stuff; these videos from RailsConf are interesting.
Another negative post about Canadian technology. You just hate Canada don’t you? There’s nothing wrong with their homepage, your just being negative cause it’s a Canadian company.
Looks great. Looks like there is a lot of stuff going on in learnhub already, lots of users, lots of communities, lot going on…
Nice review. So right about the site looking like it wants to be so many things to so many users. I wonder eventually will users determine what the site should be? Can a site be designed to become what its users want it to become without any (human) intervention. That would be so cool.
I think their approach with looking like a blog or online magazine is an interesting one. Injecting the cool factor to learning will encourage kids to be interested.
@railswtf
whats so bad about rails?
As a beta user of the service, I gotta say - despite a homepage that has become more cluttered than I recall (but which is easily changeable…relax people) - the user experience of the service is pretty slick is you are actually engaging with the content.
Congratulations to John and Gosia on the relaunch and here here to another Toronto based technology company!
Very nicely done John. I knew these guys from their previous company and they put up all the effort they could to get the site done in a few month.
It is refreshing to see emerging technology companies from Canada performing so well!
You forgot one: http://www.podclass.com
the landing page is still a mess
LearnHub is looking great. The new site is much easier to use - and a great place to get some in depth information. Thanks!
LearnHub is really on to something, and this UX simplification is a win.
As for its use of Rails as a framework, I’m sure that it was instrumental in helping them get their product out the door in a few months. It feels snappy and responsive to me, as well.
Kudos!
The site separates its topics of study into Courses, each of which can have its own tests, lessons, and games attached to it. Very good, nice.
exaclly this site is very good!
Malgosia, John, congrats on the launch!
#12 Alex, they didn’t forget one, it’s the Good Ole Boys Network. Jason, I agree, Learnhub is mullet material and trying to do too many things at once and the site is complicated and overwhelming…. which is exactly why you wrote an article about them right? And Grockit is very…. well, ok they have a nice logo, that’s about all they are. Nebulous as a nimbus cloud logo, but again, totally newsworthy. Meanwhile, the freckle faced red headed step children eating sour grapes sit quietly in the corner waiting for an invite to the prom. Clique vs outcasts 101.
http://siteanalytics.compete.c.....?metric=uv
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Hi,
Learninghub is still a mess. In order for students and teachers to use an elearning site it has to be SIMPLE. I think the best elearning site currently available is LectureShare.com but no one covers it. I found it via some obscure elearning blog. These elearning sites should be focused on small college and high school groups since BlackBoard has already monopolized the University market.
-John
exaclly this site is very good!
The site has lots of content but the ux is unusable by general public.
I’ve been using LearnHub for a little while now and I’ve always found it slick and easy to use. They have some incredibly advanced features for a startup that is only a few months out of the gate (I wish we could build things that quickly!).
John and Gosia’s experience is really shining through with LeanHub. They are pros and are well on their way to building another great service/company.
They’ve created a very nice concept to capture a good amount of users: give them something useful and wait for the rest to come (it worked for Google!).
Most bloggers (they can be considered bloggers, right?) forget what they are doing, what they are supposed to do and where they are going. Writing is supposed to be interesting and fun - and if one of those is lacking, you can’t expect it to continuously work. When I was creating my blog I used some strategies to help market it and recently found this article to give some good insights about it.
Edufire.com is nice and focused - the value to users and tutors is pretty clear. Although there doesn’t seem to be anything to stop tutors from cutting their own deals with students and using skype/oovoo or some other web cam tool.
On the other hand Learnhub.com is not focused. They seem to be targeting all users. Their biggest community is the GMAT prep - maybe thats a clue as to where they should be focusing. Also, not sure I get why someone would take the trouble to create a course on the site. I do however like the online magazine look - has a fun come and play feel to it.
exaclly this site is very good!