What is a Learning Experience Platform (LXP)?

We scoured the web for a definition of Learning Experience Platform, but couldn’t find anyone who pinned it down perfectly. So, based on some research and what we know here’s our definition:

“A Learning Experience Platform (LXP) is a tool which enables end users to capture, share and consume content and knowledge from internal and external sources through means of a personalised and continuously adaptive experience.”

But what does this mean in reality? What key things would you find in an LXP? Here’s a few to get you started…

Personalisation

To satisfy consumer’s evolving expectations, personalisation is core to any LXP. 

SalesForce found 52% of consumers will gladly hand over data if it allows them a more personalised experience. And the same applies here. 

So how do we let our users have a personalised experience, and how can we use their behaviour to better recommend content? 

THRIVE’s LXP has a few different levels of personalisation: 

• We ask users what they want to learn and what they can teach others 
• We track behaviour to feed them content and people based recommendations

Learner led

LMSs are about the administrator. An LXP is very much about the end-user – the learner. How do we give them the best experience possible?

LXPs are better equipped to allow users to develop themselves in all sorts of subjects, above and beyond mandatory training. Things the administrator has no control over. It’s not ‘you must do this training now’, it’s self-directed learning.

This is certainly a shift we’re seeing lots of clients trying to make at the moment. And there are certain features of an LXP which are absolutely built to support this way of learning. 

1. A way to find what they need: A great search lets learners find what they need, when they need it. 
2. A way to discover new content: In other words, browsing – much like we see on sites like Spotify.
3. A way to explore things they might be interested in: Recommendations, to help users explore things they might be interested in. 

LXPs are about giving people the tools and access to the content they need – to empower them to learn what they want, when they want.

User generated content 

The best knowledge in your business comes directly from the people actually doing the work. You don’t always need to scope it out, script it and formalise it into an official course. 

I always say everyone has that one person in their team who makes you think, ‘if they left tomorrow, we’d be absolutely screwed’. UGC protects you, making sure knowledge is shared across the business and not kept in silos.

Why not let people share what they know, in their own words, where and when it works for them? People trust UGC more than official content. It’s more authentic, passionate, and it’s in a language the learner understands. 

So what can an LXP let end-users do? THRIVE will let people post questions, videos, files, links, photos, quizzes, write articles and even set up events and create their own pathways of content. But not everyone will be ready. You could start by letting people ask questions for example and build up from there.

Data and analytics 

LMSs are all about tracking compliance and completion. LXPs will track that, of course, but are also very interested in engagement. Every view, like, share, comment, post, thought is tracked. And for good reason. 

• This is more of a technology thing –  LXPs are newer systems, built in a time when data processing is much more understood. 
• An LXP is a consumer based product. Our clients need data that measures whether their users like it and how they can improve it. With an LMS, you’re generally telling people they have to go there to complete their learning. An LXP, you want them to go there of their own volition.