PWMI Academy
Project description
The main design challenge of our project was to create a digital platform that improves knowledge sharing, onboarding, and collaboration for PWMI, a client focused on social impact initiatives. We researched user needs and best practices for learning management and community platforms to design a scalable, user-friendly solution. The platform needed to connect people, projects, and organizations in a clear and engaging way. Through user interviews, stakeholder feedback, competitor analysis, and usability testing, we explored how to support both internal and external communication. Our goal was to translate these insights into an interactive prototype aligned with PWMI’s values—practical, inclusive, and community-driven—and support the future development of the PWMI Academy.
Context
PWMI brings together students, educators, and field partners to work on real-life societal challenges. These challenges focus on topics like equal opportunities, basic skills, mental and physical health, and community livability, particularly in the Woensel-Zuid neighborhood of Eindhoven. PWMI is a collaboration between Fontys, Summa College, T+HUIS, and Lumens. Learning happens both in classrooms and directly within the community, aiming to prepare students for active roles in society.
The current way of sharing knowledge and organizing materials through Microsoft Teams is not ideal, especially for onboarding and collaborating with external partners. That’s why there is a need for a centralized platform that supports onboarding, documentation, training, and communication across different roles. The platform should reflect PWMI’s values: being inclusive, practical, collaborative, and future-oriented. Our project directly supports this mission by exploring and designing a digital solution to structure and scale these efforts through a learning management system.
Results
We built and coded a working version of the platform for PWMI that helps with knowledge sharing, onboarding, and collaboration. The platform includes different dashboards based on user roles (students, teachers, partners), a content library, mobile-friendly design, and options for tracking learning progress and reflections. We tested the platform with students, teachers, and partners. Based on their feedback, we made several changes like improving the navigation, adding role-based access, and making it easier to manage content. We also looked at other platforms during our research and made sure to include features that match PWMI’s way of working.
The platform is already usable and has been tested in practice. It’s more than just a design, it’s a working solution that can be improved and scaled further.
This project gave PWMI a real tool to support their learning goals and helped them take the next step toward developing the PWMI Academy.
About the project group
Our project group consisted of 4 students from the ICT & Media Design program at Fontys. We worked together for 5 weeks on a real-world assignment. We collaborated both online and on-site, using tools like Figma, Microsoft Teams, and GitHub. Tasks were divided equally among team members based on our skills and interests. We received regular feedback from our teachers and stakeholders throughout the process. We also tested our prototype with users and made several iterations based on feedback from teachers, users, and the client to improve the final result.
