SQE2 platform redesign
BARBRI
Senior Product Designer · 2024–26 · D2L → EPP · 2 designers, 2 product managers, 12+ stakeholders & SMEs
Context
BARBRI delivers SQE2, the practical skills stage of England & Wales’s solicitor qualifying exam, delivered through a D2L/Brightspace LMS: six practice areas blending self-study, tutor-marked practice assessments, and mocks.
Before this work, student satisfaction sat at 5.2/10; the redesigned cohort went on to an 83% pass rate against an 81% national average. At the same time, BARBRI was building EPP, its own purpose-built platform, built to replace D2L entirely, so every design decision had to carry forward rather than be thrown away at migration.
Problem
Students couldn’t find what mattered. Support access failed for 50% of participants, buried inside accordions. SQE1 carry-over material sat behind hidden navigation. The course schedule was a wall of text, and an oversized banner consumed a quarter of the screen.
The constraints were strict: a live cohort mid-programme that couldn’t be disrupted, a platform that strips CSS and JavaScript, and the central strategic call: test and prototype for EPP, not for D2L. D2L’s quirks weren’t where the course was headed.
Approach
Two stages of moderated usability testing with six qualified SQE2 graduates, think-aloud protocol, binary pass/fail task scoring, satisfaction measured across six dimensions. A 60-minute focus group with seven alumni of the January 2026 sitting fed the April cohort’s experience on a six-week turnaround.
The research settled into principles: compact over exhaustive (every A/B test favoured the denser layout), surface support, don’t bury it, and colour as a stress lever. In preference sessions, green layouts consistently read calmer than red to these exam-anxious students, so red was reserved for genuine priority flags only.
Solution
First, ship inside the constraint: the compact banner students preferred (67%), a tabbed schedule (83% preference), Support elevated into persistent navigation, traffic-light priority labels, and a WCAG AA pass, all inline-CSS only. Then, design for what’s next: the EPP experience below, built on the BARBRI Design System with two designers, two product managers, and twelve-plus stakeholders and legal subject-matter experts.
Finding work, choosing work. The assignment list defaults to this week, the compact, recommended route, while filters let students cut across the entire course by practice area and type. Agency without a wall of text.
One clear next action. Every practice & feedback activity opens with what it is, how long it takes, when it’s due, and exactly one primary button. Booking guidance and contact details sit on the page, not three accordions deep.
Four submission formats, one pattern. SQE2 assessment spans typed answers, live video, pre-recorded advocacy, and timed handwritten notes, 65 assessments in total. Each format follows the same rhythm: clear state, visible progress, and no dead interactive elements.
The tutor’s side of the screen. Freelance tutors are paid per assessment, so marking speed is a stakeholder cost. The marking interface puts the rubric beside the student’s work, keeps professional-judgement guidance visible, offers pre-approved editable feedback phrases, and records video feedback in place, before submission, on the same screen.
Impact
Measured against the same testing programme, student satisfaction moved from 5.2/10 to 7.8/10 and task success reached 82%. The gap to the old, better-liked SQE1 platform closed, and the validated patterns became the design foundation for EPP.
The modelled EPP attendance system projects ~90% less manual data entry and 80+ hours saved per term, design estimates, flagged as such until the platform is fully live.
7.8/10
Satisfaction, up from 5.2
82%
Task success across both testing stages
“I like the next steps section because it tells you exactly what you need to do next... definitely better than it was before.”
83%
Preferred the tabbed schedule redesign
~60%
Reduction in exam-related anxiety using green over red