Learning Management Systems Are Stuck in the Past

In 2025, you can ask your phone to plan your entire vacation, have AI write your emails, and stream 4K video to anywhere on Earth. But if you're a teacher or student, you're probably still clicking through six nested menus just to submit an assignment.

Welcome to the world of learning management systems, where user experience goes to die.

The Problem Is Obvious

Open any major LMS (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, D2L) and you'll immediately notice: these interfaces look and feel like they were designed in the early 2000s. Because, functionally, they were.

Sure, they've had visual refreshes. Maybe some rounded corners. A slightly less aggressive color scheme. But underneath the cosmetic updates, the fundamental interaction patterns haven't changed in 20+ years.

And yet, these are the systems managing education for millions of students globally. We've normalized terrible UX because "that's just how LMS works."

It doesn't have to be this way.

Why LMS Design Is Stuck in the Past

1. Enterprise Sales, Not User Experience

LMS platforms aren't sold to teachers and students. They're sold to IT departments and administrators. The buying decision happens at the district or institutional level, and the people making that decision rarely use the system daily.

This creates a fatal misalignment: The people who choose the LMS aren't the people who suffer through it.

So vendors optimize for what impresses procurement committees (feature checklists, compliance certifications, enterprise integrations), not for what makes teachers' and students' lives better.

2. Feature Bloat Over Focused Design

Every LMS vendor is terrified of losing a sale because they're missing Feature X. So they build everything: gradebook, discussion forums, quiz tools, content authoring, analytics, messaging, calendar, file storage, collaboration tools, video hosting...

The result? Systems that do 40 things adequately instead of 5 things brilliantly.

And because each feature is built by different teams at different times, nothing feels cohesive. The gradebook UI is different from the assignment UI which is different from the quiz UI. Users have to relearn the interface for every feature.

3. Backward Compatibility Chains

Major LMS platforms have been around for 15-20 years. They have millions of courses, assignments, and content objects built on old versions.

Any redesign has to maintain backward compatibility with all that legacy content. You can't just rip out the old architecture and start fresh. You're stuck incrementally improving a foundation that was never designed for modern workflows.

4. Institutional Resistance to Change

Even when vendors want to improve UX, institutions resist. Teachers have spent years learning the current terrible interface. Any change means retraining, which means resistance.

"I finally figured out how to use it" is somehow an argument against making it easier.

What Modern LMS Design Should Look Like

Imagine if we designed an LMS today, learning from 25 years of user frustration and modern UX principles. What would it look like?

1. Mobile-First, Actually

Students access courses on their phones. Teachers grade on tablets during lunch. Parents check progress from work.

A modern LMS should be designed for mobile from day one, not "responsive" as an afterthought. The mobile experience should be the primary experience, with desktop as the enhanced version.

2. Contextual, Not Nested

Stop making users hunt through nested menus. Put controls where people expect them, when they need them.

If a teacher is looking at an assignment, the grade entry should be right there. Not in a separate gradebook they have to navigate to. Not in a hidden dropdown. Right where they're already looking.

3. Intelligent Defaults

Most LMS platforms present every possible option for every action. Want to create an assignment? Here are 47 settings to configure.

A modern LMS would use intelligent defaults based on context. Creating a quiz for high schoolers? Different defaults than a university exam. Patterns from your past assignments inform suggestions for new ones.

Advanced users can still access every setting. But novices shouldn't have to.

4. Real Search

Google solved search in 1998. Why can't I find an assignment I posted three weeks ago without clicking through six screens?

Modern LMS search should:

• Actually work (minimum bar, apparently)
• Search across all content types: assignments, discussions, files, announcements
• Understand context: "quiz from last week" should work
• Learn from behavior: surface frequently accessed items

5. Collaboration-First

Students don't work in isolation. They message each other, form study groups, collaborate on projects.

Why does the LMS treat every student as an isolated unit? Modern LMS design should make collaboration easy, not require workarounds through Google Docs and Discord.

6. Accessibility Baked In, Not Bolted On

WCAG compliance shouldn't be a checklist item. It should be foundational to every design decision.

Keyboard navigation that actually works. Screen reader support that doesn't require a PhD to configure. Alt text prompts that help instead of nag. Accessible by default, not through retroactive patching.

What Can Be Done

Some course developers don't accept the default LMS experience. They use custom CSS, iFrames, HTML, and API integrations to build something that doesn't feel like "an LMS."

Well-designed courses can be built to look like purpose-built learning experiences that happen to run on LMS infrastructure rather than generic institutional platforms.

It's more work than it should be. But it demonstrates what's possible when UX is prioritized over institutional inertia.

How We Fix This

For LMS Vendors:

• User research with actual users. Not administrators. Teachers and students.
• Design sprints focused on specific workflows. "Submit an assignment" should take 3 clicks, not 12.
• Kill features. Remove the 30% of features that 90% of users never touch.
• Modern design patterns. Drag-and-drop. Inline editing. Real-time collaboration. These aren't nice-to-haves anymore.

For Institutions:

• Include teachers and students in procurement decisions. Don't let IT choose a system they'll never use daily.
• Evaluate based on user experience, not feature lists. Can a new teacher figure it out without a 3-day training course?
• Budget for customization. The out-of-box experience will be terrible. Invest in making it better.

For Instructional Designers:

• Don't accept the default. You have more control than you think. Use it.
• Learn enough HTML/CSS to customize. You don't need to be a developer, but basic skills go far.
• Focus on workflows, not features. What do users actually need to accomplish?

The Bottom Line

Learning management systems don't have to feel like archaeological artifacts from the early web. We have the knowledge, the technology, and the design patterns to build better.

What we lack is the will. Vendors chase enterprise contracts. Institutions resist change. Users accept terrible experiences because "that's just how it is."

It doesn't have to be.

We can build learning systems that feel modern, that respect users' time, that actually help instead of hinder.

We just have to decide that user experience matters more than backward compatibility and feature checklists.

The question is: Are we ready to demand better?