Brilliance Retail Training Platform

Digital platform connecting retail store owners with training experts

In the process of creating their custom learning management system, WhizBang! Retail Training had a "Brilliant" idea: creating a platform that hosts many courses developed by top retail training experts and delivers them directly to retail store owners. And so the Brilliance Retail Training Platform was born!

Services:
Planning & Strategy
User Experience
Design
Front-end Development
Back-end Development
Migration
Technologies:
React
GraphQL
A cup of coffee next to an open laptop showing the Brilliance course editor on the screen

Project Expertise

Modern web applications

We built this custom platform from the ground up, designed around the idea of connecting retail store owners and retail training experts. Users of this platform can buy, sell, and design their own training courses, track training progress, and earn certificates, all from their preferred device.

Custom integrations

We used several third-party services to support the development of this custom application. We used Stripe for payment processing, Hubspot for marketing and customer management, and AWS for video hosting and processing.

Project Contributors

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Mike Bopp

Senior Developer

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Haley Troyer

UX Designer

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Chase DeVries

Developer

Project Brief

After working together to create a custom learning management system for their flagship course Retail Sales Academy, WhizBang! Retail Training was eager to expand. The next phase of work centered around creating a platform that connects course creators with learners and facilitates purchases between the two. Because this was such a large and disruptive upgrade, we broke it down into four releases:

  1. Upgrading the Course Builder: building upon the course wizard to allow creators more freedom when it comes to designing their courses.
  2. Rebranding the App: applying a new design to the app based on the platform’s new name: “Brilliance Retail Training Platform.”
  3. Adding Purchasing: integrating with Stripe to facilitate the transfer of funds between learners and course creators.
  4. Course Creator Onboarding: adding functionality for course creators to onboard, create courses, track their sales, and earn money.
Before the redesign, the entire app was centered around the Retail Sales Academy course.
After the redesign, the Retail Sales Academy becomes a single course within a catalog of courses.

Before the redesign, the entire app was centered around the Retail Sales Academy course. After the redesign, the Retail Sales Academy course became a single course within a catalog of courses hosted by the Brilliance Retail Training Platform.

Release 1: Upgrading the Course Builder

We had already built a pretty sophisticated course builder in our initial development for the Retail Sales Academy app, so this phase centered around improving the user experience and adding new functionality.

Challenge

Course creators will need to be able to market and sell their courses

Solution

Expand the course builder to accommodate new marketing content

To support a public course catalog, we needed to add a few more options for creators when building their courses including marketing & designing their course sales page, adding keywords and categorization for search, and displaying information about the instructor.

Challenge

Building complex courses with lots of variable content

Solution

Allow more options when adding and organizing lessons

To improve the experience of organizing and delivering course content, we included a few new enhancements to the course outline, including a new drag and drop interface, freeform text lessons, and downloadable resources.

Challenge

WhizBang! could be liable if harmful or misleading content is delivered through the app

Solution

Put safeguards in place that protect WhizBang! from liability

We included a terms of service agreement that clearly states the rules and requirements for hosting course content on the Brilliance system. We also added a review process that prevents creators from instantly publishing courses right to the catalog. Once a course creator submits a course for review, it goes through a moderation process with feedback sent to the creator if anything is amiss. Only when it is approved will it be made public in the course catalog.
The Content step of the Brilliance Course Creator allows editors to add text and video lessons.

The multi-step Brilliance course builder allows creators to control the design and delivery of their courses. Shown here is the content step where text, document, and video lessons can be added and organized.

Release 2: Rebranding the App

While WhizBang! used the new course builder to add more courses to their catalog, we switched gears to begin updating the overall design of the app based on the new platform’s name: Brilliance Retail Training Platform.

Challenge

Branding work done by an outside agency

Solution

Working with the client and the branding agency to ensure a cohesive brand experience

Waiting for the branding team to complete their work was challenging (mostly because we were so excited to get started!) When we received the finalized brand guidelines for Brilliance, we worked together to ensure that our interpretation of the design in the context of the app was cohesive with the overall brand. As soon as we received the go-ahead from the branding agency, we instantly went to work applying new colors, fonts, and design elements to the app.

Challenge

Applying a completely new design to an existing application

Solution

Utilizing reusable components to deliver design updates across the app

Luckily, much of the app was already broken up into reusable components, which meant that updates to the design of one component were instantly applied across the app where that component was used. However, many new components had to be created from scratch or made more complex in order to accommodate the branding updates (some components were removed entirely!) The result was a modernized design which was more consistent from screen-to-screen.
The RSA Dashboard before the redesign featured cooler colors, sharp corners, and a busy layout.
The dashboard after the redesign features a warmer color palette, rounded corners, and a simplified layout.

The dashboard before and after the redesign. Cooler colors, sharp corners, and a busy layout transitioned to a warmer palette, rounded corners, and a streamlined layout.

Release 3: Adding Purchasing

This release was the most challenging of them all. Because the transfer of money was involved, we wanted to be absolutely sure that we were delivering a pleasant user experience and that we were handling transactions the correct way.

Challenge

Transferring funds between users within the app

Solution

Integrating with Stripe to handle in-app purchasing

We partnered with Stripe, a multinational payment processing platform, to create a marketplace where retailers and subject matter experts could buy and sell courses. Stripe guaranteed security while enabling us to support payments with credit card or 'buy now, pay later' options such as Klarna.

Challenge

Different courses require different purchase methods

Solution

Offering flexibility to course creators

The careful planning and extensive customer service knowledge of WhizBang! informed our development of the Brilliance marketplace. Brilliance offers one-time payments that grant access forever, and subscriptions with monthly payments. Brilliance courses also support one price for the first seat and another for any additional seats, providing even more flexibility for experts to create courses for organizations of any size.

Challenge

Course creators should be paid for each person that accesses one of their courses

Solution

Only allow people who have a "seat" to the course to access it

If a store owner purchases a course that they intend to share with all of their employees, then WhizBang! wanted to ensure that creators are compensated for each of those employees. In our checkout flow, we allow people to purchase more than one seat to a course, so we needed to also create an interface that allows the assignment of purchased seats to employees within the store owner's Brilliance account.
The course sales page displays pricing information and a course preview.
The checkout page allows users to select the number of seats they'd like to purchase.
After purchasing seats to the course, the user can assign those seats to anyone in their company.

Each course has a base price that includes one seat as well as a separate per seat price. The checkout page allows people to buy as many seats as they'd like. After successfully purchasing a course, those seats can be assigned to anyone in the purchaser's company.

Release 4: Course Creator Onboarding

With the previous three phases completed, we now could focus on the final piece which allows course creators to onboard and begin populating the course catalog. This required some special features for creators to allow them to see who has purchased their courses and how much money they’ve earned from those sales.

Challenge

Allowing people to be either a creator or a learner within Brilliance

Solution

Allow users to select their preference when onboarding and allow them to change it

Previously, everyone who onboarded into the app was designated as a “learner,” or a retail store owner who could purchase courses. To allow creators to onboard, we added a new step to our onboarding form which asked users what they’d be using the system for (learning/buying courses vs. creating/selling courses). We also created a creator “upgrade” page which allowed existing users to become creators if they wished.

Challenge

Reporting is focused on learning and assigning training

Solution

Create new creator-specific reports around sales and earnings

While learners want to know about tracking training progress, creators want to know who has purchased their courses and how much money they’ve earned. We created a reporting section just for creators so they can easily track purchases month-to-month and compare earnings over time.

Challenge

Course creators need to earn money for each course they sell

Solution

Use Stripe to handle regular payouts to course creators

A key feature of the Brilliance marketplace is rewarding experts for the hard work that goes in to creating and marketing their courses. Stripe goes above and beyond just processing payments and delivering funds by also providing it's users with dashboards and analytics, all while ensuring compliance with regulations worldwide.
Onboarding step 1 - basic profile information
Onboarding step 2 - account type - learner vs. instructor
Onboarding step 3 - company information
Onboarding step 4 - password
We trust Rapid Development Group to turn our big dreams into reality. Making complex user interactions easy is really, really hard - but the team at RDG has been amazing at creating elegant solutions for our platform. Great people, great results!
Susan Negen Co-Founder, WhizBang! Retail Training