You built an LMS, packed it with content, and thought people would just… use it. But instead? They drop off, never come back, and worst of all—they don’t even get to the good stuff that would have kept them hooked.
The problem? Your LMS is too hard to use.
And if learners feel lost, overwhelmed, or frustrated… they quit.
Here’s how you’re losing users without realizing it.
Every second your learners spend figuring out your LMS instead of actually learning is a second closer to them giving up.
This is called Time to Value—how long it takes from sign-up to “Oh, this is actually useful.”
A long Time to Value = high churn.
• In B2C LMSs, where people choose to pay, a slow start means refunds, bad reviews, and abandoned courses.
• In B2B LMSs, where companies roll out training to entire teams, it means low adoption, disengaged employees, and wasted money. Eventually leading to that customer churning too
The good news is that fixing usability issues can dramatically improve retention, engagement, and learning outcomes.
And today, we’re breaking down the three biggest usability mistakes that are secretly killing your LMS—and more importantly, how to fix them fast.
Imagine logging into Netflix and seeing a random list of every movie they offer. No categories, no recommendations—just an endless scroll.
Would you know where to start? Probably not.
That’s exactly what happens in badly designed LMSs.
• Too much content with no clear path.
• No recommendations based on progress.
• Learners don’t know what’s relevant, so they get overwhelmed and quit.
How This Kills Engagement
Learners don’t want to search for content. They want the right content to find them.
The fix? Use smart recommendations.
• Show learners what’s next based on their progress, job role, or learning history.
• If they finish a course, suggest the next logical step—not an overwhelming course catalog.
• Use AI-driven personalization to surface relevant content instead of making users dig for it.
📌 Example Fix: Duolingo does this brilliantly. The app guides users through structured lessons across a larger learning path, unlocking the next step at just the right time. No guesswork, no searching—just smooth progress.
The dashboard is supposed to be the home base for learners—the place they go to access courses, track progress, and continue learning. But in most LMS platforms, the dashboard is either hard to find, confusing, or simply not useful enough.
A bad dashboard slows learners down, increases frustration, and makes it harder for them to re-engage with your content.
Here’s where most LMS dashboards go wrong:
1. The Dashboard is Hard to Find
Your dashboard should be the first thing users see when they log in. But in many LMSs, it’s buried inside a submenu or hidden behind multiple clicks.
This forces users to search for the very thing that should be guiding them. And the more effort it takes to get started, the less likely users are to return.
Fix it: The dashboard should be the homepage for all returning users. No searching, no extra clicks—just log in and get straight to learning.
2. There are Too Many Dashboards
Some LMSs split content into separate dashboards—one for courses, one for events, one for compliance history. This is normally because you have a plugin for each of those features, and each has their own dashboards. Unfortunately this forces users to guess where to go.
Fix it: Unify everything into a single, streamlined dashboard. Show courses, progress, upcoming sessions, and key stats all in one place.
3. It’s Hard to Resume Learning
Ever noticed how YouTube puts your last-watched video right at the top when you come back? That’s because they know that people want to pick up where they left off—immediately.
Most LMSs, on the other hand, force users to navigate through multiple menus just to restart a course. That’s unnecessary friction.
Fix it: The dashboard should have a clear, prominent “Continue Learning” section at the top. No extra clicks, no confusion—just click and go.
Some LMSs are so unintuitive they require a separate tutorial just to explain how to navigate.
That’s a sign of bad User Experience. No one should need a lesson to figure out how to start learning. If users have to search for buttons, dig through menus, or second-guess where to go, your LMS is working against them, not for them.
The Fix: Purposely Design the User Experience
The problem isn’t just a bad layout—it’s that many LMSs were never designed with the learner in mind. Most were built with functionality first - with user needs just an afterthought.
That doesn’t work.
If you want an LMS that actually engages users, reduces churn, and increases adoption, you need to invest in UX from the start. That means:
• Designing the user experience first, not just layering UI on top of business requirements.
• Eliminating unnecessary friction—simplifying navigation, reducing cognitive load, and making learning feel effortless.
• Understanding how real learners interact with the platform and designing for that experience.
At the end of the day, an LMS isn’t a repository of content but rather it’s an experience. And if that experience is frustrating, confusing, or overwhelming, it doesn’t matter how great the content is—learners will leave.
What we’ve covered today are the most common usability mistakes that kill engagement:
• Too much content with no personalization, making it harder for learners to find what’s relevant.
• A poorly designed dashboard, forcing users to hunt for the basics instead of guiding them back into learning.
• Bad navigation and unintuitive design, turning the LMS itself into a barrier to education.
This isn’t just about UI tweaks or adding a few features. Fixing these problems requires intentional user experience design from the very start.
That’s where Plume comes in.
We’ve worked with high-growth training businesses and global training leaders to help them remove technology bottlenecks—and a huge part of that is designing LMS experiences that actually work for learners.
We craft user experiences that make learning effortless. That means:
• Fixing usability issues that kill engagement
• Simplifying navigation so learners never feel lost
• Designing a seamless experience that learners actually enjoy using
So if your LMS is struggling with engagement, retention, or learner adoption, it’s time to rethink the experience.
