Cisco Learning Map Design
From Complexity to Clarity: structuring and Simplifying Complex Training Catalogs for Guided Learner Journey
Project Overview
This work is sponsored by the org’s OKR effort, the goal is to build easily navigable learning content journeys, from entry to expert. Each learning journeys will have distinct skills focus: AI, Security, Network Modernisation. This learning would be relevant for anyone, including existing experts, looking to further build job relevant skills in the aforementioned areas.
My Role
Key Contributions & Deliverables:
Impact of the Work
As the UX Designer, Researcher, and Facilitator for this project, I serve as the connector across the three vertical technology Product Managers, Content Development teams, and the Marketing UX team.
Conducting Market Research: I investigated the IT skills taxonomy and performed competitive analysis of adjacent learning platforms’ catalog strategies to establish a solid foundation for our learning journey design.
Developed the Learning Journey Framework: I created the initial framework that structures the learner’s path from entry-level to expert, ensuring clarity and progression.
Delivered Interactive Learning Map Prototypes
I developed interactive prototypes for domains including AI & AI Infrastructure, Security & Cybersecurity, and Network Modernization.
Learning Maps - Visual artifacts
User Impact
The maps provide learners with a clear, guided continuous learning path, which flattens the learning curve to start training with Cisco
Business Impact:
The content maps help teams quickly spot content gaps, update portfolios, manage maintenance and end-of-life processes, and plan future content releases.
bridge knowledge gaps between content subject matter experts and the Marketing UX design team.
The data contained in the learning maps will be used to enhanced content metadata tagging for improved search and recommendation capabilities on the Cisco U. learning platform
Project Background
Current Problems - Why do we need this?
Learner Experiences
Internal Content Development Challenges
Bridging the knowledge gap between Marketing and Content SMEs
From the learner’s perspective, the current training catalog feels like an overwhelming buffet with too many options and no clear guidance on where to start or what to do next. This complexity hinders learners from easily navigating their professional development.
There is no coherent, unified content release strategy across technical verticals. Each vertical operates somewhat independently, resulting in an unbalanced portfolio and lack of structured learning paths. Content development is fragmented, driven by a mix of internal initiatives and customer requests, which complicates planning and consistency
The platform’s recommendation engine currently lacks synchronization with the curated content priorities defined by PMs and SMEs. This disconnect causes learners to encounter inconsistent or irrelevant suggestions, undermining the learning experience.
Aligning to the Business Strategy Shift
Crafting a learning centric narrative - from entry to expert
The current certification-centered narrative positions certifications as key milestones or final destinations. This approach lacks sufficient incentives for learners to engage continuously with Cisco’s products.
As the organization shifts its strategy to "Learn with Cisco," the goal is to reposition Cisco as a lifelong learning partner—from entry-level to expert—supporting learners whether they are starting in IT, changing careers, or advancing expertise. The challenge is to build a clear, continuous "entry to expert" learning journey that moves beyond one-time certification stops to foster ongoing engagement.
Design Approach & Process
Problem Scoping
Define the project scope; Frame the core problem; Establish measurable success criteria
Translating project vision into design requirements
To kick off the project, I facilitated a project scoping and alignment workshop with all stakeholders, including L1 leaders and their respective team members. The workshop aimed to elicit the team's understanding and vision for this initiative, align on what constitutes an "entry to expert content journey," and establish success metrics.
Initial discussions revealed divergent perspectives, with thoughts and ideas scattered across multiple directions. To structure the conversation, I applied co-design workshop methods, facilitating a silent ideation session where participants identified items within project scope, out-of-scope elements, and success criteria. The team then engaged in affinity diagramming to surface emerging themes before opening the floor for structured discussion.
As conversations began to converge, then team did a round of dot voting to identify items that aligned with the team's shared vision. By the workshop's conclusion, we achieved approximately 80% consensus on project scope and a list of success criteria.
Based on the project scoping workshop outcomes, I translated the vision into design "How Might We" (HMW) problem statements. These HMW statements served as a guide to identify design requirements, ensuring intentional design choices and alignment with the project's end goals.
Designing for external learners — How might we design an entry to expert content journey so the learners feel guided through their learning journey, can easily identify “where to start” and know “where to go next”?
Internal teams — How might we design an entry-to-expert content journey so that Content PMs and leaders can easily visualize portfolio distribution across technology verticals, identify gaps in our content offerings, and make informed decisions about content releases and end-of-life planning?
“Entry to expert": clearly define the stages learners progress through from entry to expert level
“Where to start” & “where to go next”:
Provide clear descriptions of entry points for each stage, including relevant job roles and skill level requirements
Define exit criteria for each stage, including potential job prospects and skill outcomes
Offer guidance at every stage to reduce barriers created by unfamiliar technical concepts and course title jargon
“Easily navigable”: Provide limited, curated content paths rather than overwhelming learners with comprehensive content dumps
“Learning journey”:
Design flexible, non-linear journeys that accommodate different learning needs and career trajectories
Create visuals that clearly show path divergences and options while maintaining clarity and avoiding learner overwhelm
“Visualize portfolio distribution”:
The content journey must provide a clear visual overview with flat hierarchy, enabling stakeholders to quickly assess the entire portfolio at a glance without excessive navigation, clicking, or zooming
Content journeys across all technology verticals should maintain consistent structure and data elements to enable direct comparison, facilitate gap identification, and support balanced portfolio planning
Foundational Research
Good design grounds in good research.
Building upon Established Theoretical Framework
After defining the design requirements, I conducted foundational research on existing frameworks and definitions of learning progressions from “entry to expert” to serve as the basis for designing the content journey map.
The team adopted the five-stage Dreyfus model as our foundation, customizing the terminology to align with our existing training and certification metadata: Entry, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert.
Source: Silva Mangiante, Elaine M.; Peno, Kathy; Northup, Jane, eds. (2021). Teaching and learning for adult skill acquisition: applying the Dreyfus and Dreyfus model in different fields. Adult learning in professional, educational, and community settings. Charlotte, NC: INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-64802-500-6.
This approach ensured consistency across our content ecosystem while maintaining the pedagogical rigor of the established framework.
To clearly define skill progression between stages, I collaborated with Content Development SMEs to integrate Bloom's Taxonomy principles with our training development standards and leadership's articulated vision for the entry-to-expert journey. This collaborative approach resulted in the following skill definitions:
Entry: Building IT literacy to fluency
Beginner: Establishing junior-level job-ready skills; ability to configure and operate simple IT solutions
Intermediate: Diving deeper into specialized domains and building domain-specific expertise
Advanced: Mastering advanced IT solutions and operating complex business systems
Expert: Designing and architecting new systems
Addressing UX Challenging via Intent-Based Content Navigation
Once we have established the foundational skills acquisition framework, we needed a way to guide learners through our content portfolio easily.
I drew inspiration from adjacent technology training platforms, and my past research work, and adopted an intent-based content navigation strategy. This approach was mainly inspired by a previous research and design project where I created a digital toolkit containing 100+ ethics-focused methods (Link) shared similar user experience challenges:
Example of intent-based content discovery
Content Accessibility: Method names in the ethics toolkit required domain expertise to understand, mirroring how Cisco's training content titles demand technical fluency and specialized knowledge.
Cognitive Overload: The substantial volume of available content in both contexts could easily overwhelm users, creating barriers to engagement and discovery.
Goal-Oriented Content Discovery Behavior: Users in both scenarios typically approached content with specific intentions—whether seeking ethics methods for particular contexts or pursuing skills and certifications for career advancement.
To address these challenges, I implemented a layer of abstraction that translated technical jargon into user-friendly language, providing learners with intuitive entry points aligned with their goals.
Intent-Based Framework: Learning goals were structured using intention statements beginning with "I am..." and "I want to..." to directly reflect current starting point, and learning motivations.
Designing the content journey framework
The Skeleton
Non-Linear Journey Design
Collapsible Drawers: Added expandable sections at each skill level to reveal specialization options without cluttering the main pathway
Flexible Pathways: Enables learners to diverge into specialized tracks (security, AI, networking) and return to core progression as needed
Visual Hierarchy: Maintains focus on primary journey while keeping specialized content discoverable through intentional interaction
Project Mid-term Feedback
The content journey framework received positive feedback from key stakeholders and team members. It was praised for bringing clarity and direction to the project, translating ambiguous ideas into clear visuals, and fostering greater alignment within the team.
Data Collection and Content Mapping
Using the content journey framework as a guiding lens, technical PMs and content SMEs worked separately to draft their respective learning paths. My role during this stage was to serve as both connector and visual translator—responsible for extracting their technical expertise, understanding their vision for how training content interconnects to form coherent journeys, and translating their input into unified visual representations of each content journey.
The progression below demonstrates how the maps evolved across the three different technical groups.
Initial Content Mapping - Raw input from technical teams
Technology: Network Modernization V0
Technology: Security & Cybersecurity V0
Technology: AI & AI Infrastructure V0
Framework Application - Applying content journey framework
Technology: Network Modernization V1
Technology: Security & Cybersecurity V1
AI & AI Infrastructure V1
Collaborative Refinement - Working with the three technical teams to iterate the content mapping
Technology: Network Modernization V2
Technology: Security & Cybersecurity V2
AI & AI Infrastructure V2
Visual Translation -
Design iterations and refinement
Technology: Network Modernization Final Version
Technology: Security & Cybersecurity - Final Version
AI & AI Infrastructure - Final Version
Team Feedback and Reflection
The final deliverable exceeded the initial expectation, and the learning maps have received very positive.
Key Learning Moments:
When we began, the team had no clear picture of what the final outcome should look like, and there was a strong sense of pressure to meet leadership’s expectations. In this environment of uncertainty, I learned something deeply personal: the best way forward is not to wait for perfect clarity, but to start. Start researching, start mapping the problem, and allow yourself to step into the chaos with faith that a moment of insight will arrive.
Through this process, I reaffirmed my passion for design research and visual storytelling—skills that allow me to translate ambiguity into clear, tangible artifacts. I’ve seen firsthand how powerful visual storytelling can be: it transforms abstract ideas into accessible visuals, sparks conversations, and creates a shared understanding that bridges disciplines. These artifacts became rallying points for the team, enabling us to align our expertise and collectively shape a coherent vision.