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11 Inspiring UX Case Studies That Every Designer Should Study

A UX case study is a sort of detailed overview of a designer's work. They are often part of a UX designer's portfolio and showcase the designer's skill in managing tasks and problems. From a recruiter's perspective, such a UX portfolio shows the skill, insights, knowledge, and talent of the designer.

Therefore, UX case studies play an important role in the recruitment and demand for designers.

What Makes a Powerful Case Study

Building a UX case study includes showing the design process through compelling stories. They will use plain language to demonstrate how they handled key design issues, offering a comprehensive view of their process. Well done case studies often include:

• A  problem statement and solutions with real applications.
• Relevant numbers, data, or testimonials to demonstrate the work and efforts.
• A story that directly connects the problem to the solution.

Any competent UX professional will know that creating a stunning UX case study is about the little details.

11 Best UX Case Studies for Designers

The best way to understand what a good case study looks like is to go over other examples. Each of these UX case study examples shows a designer's insights, basic skills, and other designers' lessons learned through their experience.

1. Promo.com web editor

For this video-creation platform , UX designer Sascha was brought on to revamp v2.0, adding new features that could work alongside the existing UX design. The point was to work on interface details that would help create a user friendly platform, and that users could find simple enough to use.

User personas mapped by the UX designer revealed the most common confusion to be the process of inserting particular features into the video, such as subtitles. The designer's goal, therefore, was to create a platform with improved editor controls.

The designer then used a common text-editor layout to include top and side navigation bars that made it easy to access and implement text editing.

Key Learnings from Promo.com

This case study focuses on addressing a particular problem that customers were currently facing. Its main theme is to show a problem, and how the product designer addressed this problem. Its strength points include:

• clearly highlighting the problem (i.e. inaccessible and limited video-text editor options)
• conduction research to understand the nature of the problem and the kind of solutions customers want
• implementing research insights into the redesign to create a platform that actively served customer needs

2. Productivity tracker app

The main concept behind this UX case study is to address a pre-existing problem through the design of the app. Immediately from the start, the study highlights a common pain point among users: that of a lack of productivity due to device usage.

This UX case study example addressed some of the main problems within existing productivity apps included:a poor UI and UX that made navigation difficult

• a poorly-built information architecture
• limited functions on the mobile application

Key Learnings from the Productivity app case study

The case study highlights the simple design process that was then used to build the app. Wireframes were created, a moldboard developed, and finally, individual pages of the app were designed in line with the initial goals.

3. Postmates Unlimited

This case study clearly identifies the improvements made to the Postmates app in a simple overview before jumping into greater detail. The redesign goal, which it achieved, was to improve the experience and other interface details of the app.

The problems identified included:

• usability that led to high support ticket volume.
• technical app infrastructure issues that prevented scalability.
• lack of efficient product management, such as batching orders.

A UX research course can help understand the kind of research needed for a case study. The app redesign involved bringing couriers in and running usability testing on improvements. The final model, therefore, had input from real users on what worked and what caused issues.

Key Learnings from Postmates

The Postmates redesign works as a great UX case study for the simple way it approaches problem-solving. Following an overview of the work, it addresses the problems faced by users of the app. It then establishes research processes and highlights how changes were made to reduce these issues.

4. TV Guide

Addressing the fragmentation of content across channels, this case study sought to redesign how people consume media. The key problems identified included:

• the overabundance of content across various TV and streaming platforms
• the difficulty in discovering and managing content across all platforms

To deliver on the key goals of content personalization, smart recommendations, and offering cross-platform content search, the design process included conducting interviews, surveys, and checking customer reviews.

The design of TV Guide enables users to get custom recommendations sourced from friends' and family's watchlists.

Key Learnings from TV Guide

Like previous UX design case studies, this one tackled the issue head-on. Describing the research process, it goes into detail regarding the approach used by the UX designers to create the app. It takes readers on a journey, from identifying pain points, to testing solutions, and implementing the final version.

5. The FlexBox Inspector

Designer Victoria discusses how she developed the investigator tool for the Mozilla Firefox browser. Surveys into understanding the problems with the existing CSS Flexbox tool revealed a need for a user-friendly design. Interviews with a senior designer and other designers helped developers understand the features design-focused tools ought to have. A feature analysis revealed what most users look for in such tools.

The final result of the development process was a design that incorporated several new features, including:

• a new layout
• color-coded design
• multiple entry points to make workflow management efficient

Key Learnings from the Flexbox

This UX design case study starts with a clear goal, then addresses multiple user needs. It clearly defines the design process behind each feature developed by the time, and the reasoning for including that feature. To give a complete picture, it also discusses why certain features or processes were excluded.

6. The Current State of Checkouts

This Baymard UX design case study looks into the checkout process in over 70 e-commerce websites. Through competitive analysis, it isolates problem points in the UX design, which, if addressed, could improve the customer's checkout process.

The study found at least 31 common issues that were easily preventable. The study was designed and conducted on a large scale, over 12 years, to incorporate changing design patterns into the review.

Recommendations based on findings include:

• prominent guest checkout option
• simple password requirements
• specific delivery period
• price comparison tool for shipping vs store pickup

Key Learnings from Checkout Case Study

Each identified issue is backed up by data and research to highlight its importance. Further research backs up each recommendation made within the case study, with usability testing to support the idea. As far as UX case studies go, this one provides practical insight into an existing, widely used e-commerce feature, and offers practical solutions.

7. New York Times App

Using a creative illustration website, the designers proposed a landing page feature "Timely" that could counter the problems faced by the NYT app . Its major issues included too much irrelevant content, low usage, and undesirable coverage of content.

The goal behind Timely was to improve user incentives, build long-term loyalty, and encourage reading. Design mapping for the app covered:

• identifying the problem
• understanding audience needs
• creating wireframes
• designing and prototyping

The end result was an app that could help readers get notifications regarding news of interest at convenient moments (at breakfast, before bed). This encouraged interaction and improved readability with short-form articles.

Key Learnings from NYT App

The UX case study proposes a problem solution that works with an existing information architecture, instead adding custom graphics to the mobile app. It leads from a simple problem statement to discuss the project that could address these issues without changing was customers already loved.

UX case studies focused on redesign include the FitBit redesign, which started off by understanding personas and what users expect from a fitness tracker. Developing use cases and personas, Guerilla usability testing was employed to assess pain points.

These pain points were then ranked based on their importance to users and to app performance. They were addressed through:

• Highlighting essential parts and features of the app
• Changing easily missed icons to more recognizable icons
• relabelling tracking options to guide users better to its usage

Key Learnings from Fitbit

While the case study maps user experiences and offers solutions, it does not begin with an intensive research-based approach. The prototype is successful in testing, but problem factors are not identified with research-based statistics, meaning key factors could have been ignored.

9. Rating System UX

The designer behind the rating system UX redesign sought to solve issues with the 5-star rating system. Highlighted issues included:

• the lack of subjective accuracy of a 5-point rating system
• the issue of calculating the average of a zero-star rating
• average ratings are misleading

Better alternatives include:

• 5-star emoticon rating that relates the user experience
• Like/dislike buttons that make approval/disapproval simple

The final design incorporated both these styles to make full use of the rating system.

Key Learnings from Rating System UX

The UX case study stemmed from insight into the limitations of the existing rating system. The new design addressed old issues and incorporated better efficiencies.

The Intuit redesign was focused on making content readable, more engaging, and accessible. Looking into product personalization, the content was found to be lacking aesthetic value, as well as being hard to find. The goal was to create content that was easy to find, clear, and consistent.

The implemented solutions included:

• increased readability with increased body text and header spacing
• table of contents on the sidebar for easier navigation
• visible and prominent search bar
• illustrations and designs for pretty visuals

Key Learnings from Intuit

The Intuit case study approaches the problem from a practical point of view. It begins with isolating problems with the interface, in particular with the content. This is an example of a case study that breaks down problems into broader categories, and solves each problem with a practical solution.

This UX case study about a social platform tackles a commonly-faced problem from existing platforms. It addresses the issue of recognizing non-monetary user engagement, to help creators identify their user base.

The case study addresses the problem statement and establishes the design process (building wireframes and prototypes) as well as conducting user testing. The final result is to develop "Discover" pages, engaging layouts, and animated interactions to increase usability.

Key Learnings from Jambb

The study goes into detail regarding problem identification, then moves on to propose solutions that take into account the perspective of all stakeholders involved. It then explains why each design decision was made, and proves its efficacy through testing and prototyping.

Key Takeaways

Developing good UX case studies examples is as much about the details you include as the ones you leave out. Going over UX courses can give you a better understanding of what your case study should look like. A good case study should provide an overview of the problem, include numbers and statistics, and offer practical solutions that directly address the problem. The above-discussed UX case studies provide a good example of the dos and don'ts of a well-structured UX design case study that should be part of every UX portfolio .

Additional Resources

Check out these resources to learn more about UX case studies:

8 UX Case Studies to Read

UX Design Case Study

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5 Remarkable UX Design Case Studies (2024 Insights)

Prerna Bagree

The foundation of successful apps and platforms in the modern digital era is outstanding user experience (UX) design.

A product that just works or one that excites users and encourages engagement and loyalty can be distinguished by its well-designed user experience (UX).

This article explores five outstanding UX design case studies that have revolutionized their respective industries.

This blog around UX design case studies illustrates how cutting-edge UX design can revolutionize user interactions and propel success in a variety of industries, including travel, music streaming, language learning, and educational apps.

Let’s learn the innovative design techniques and features with the help of UX case studies that will set these applications apart in 2024!

5 Remarkable UX Design Case Studies

A prime example of a UX design case study that exemplifies the union of elegant functionality and functionality is ProCreator’s ZebPay case study .

ProCreator was tasked with developing a platform that benefits both novice and experienced cryptocurrency traders, thus they improved ZebPay ‘s user interface to make it more approachable for a range of skill levels.

A personalized quiz to customize user experiences, an easy-to-use navigation system, and a dark mode user interface to reduce eye strain and increase energy efficiency were all included in the redesign in recognition of the wide range of users.

In a user experience case study where clarity is crucial, rounded icons and the Lato typeface were deliberate decisions meant to minimize visual clutter and guarantee readability.

Furthermore, over 10,000 screens are supported by ProCreator’s integration of strong processes and an extensive design system, guaranteeing a smooth and uniform user experience.

ProCreator’s ZebPay has several cutting-edge features, such as

• Real-Time Order Tracking, which gives users the ability to keep an eye on their transactions in real-time, improving control and transparency over their trading activity.
• Personalized Portfolio Management: This feature allows users to create a portfolio that is specifically tailored to their own financial objectives and risk tolerance. It makes investing more personalized.
• Strategic Trading Tools: Provides traders with sophisticated tools to aid in their decision-making, such as automated trading systems and predictive analytics.

ZebPay’s conversion to a user-centered platform demonstrates a deep comprehension of UX principles, making it a useful UX case study for companies hoping to improve their digital products in 2024.

The ProApp learn design is an example of how ProCreator may revolutionize educational technology through user-centric design, as this ProApp UX design case study goes into detail.

ProApp, which caters to younger learners, needed a design that was not only aesthetically pleasing but also user-friendly and simple to use in order to engage a tech-savvy audience that was used to high-end digital experiences.

ProCreator addressed the fundamental requirements of excellent user experiences by selecting a dark mode color scheme with a calming blue as the main color to improve readability and visual comfort.

This decision was made after conducting extensive user research.

Among the cutting-edge functions incorporated into ProApp.

• Dark Mode Colour Palette : This makes learning more comfortable by using a calming blue as the main color to improve readability and lessen eye strain.
• Montserrat Typography: Selected for its contemporary and minimalist design, which helps young learners find the information readable and engaging.
• Bite-Sized Learning Modules: Classes are divided into digestible chunks that correspond with the adaptable learning styles of contemporary users.
• Sturdy Design System: Consists of more than 250 screens, guaranteeing a unified and cohesive user experience throughout the application, improving usability and user contentment.

Alongside this reorganization, a strong design system that spans more than 250 screens ensures coherence and uniformity across the app.

ProApp’s UX case study portfolio, created by ProCreator, demonstrates their methodical approach to developing captivating learning environments.

Ed Tech features ought to be incredibly useful, motivating, and thrilling for young students, and establish a new benchmark for Ed-Tech user experience design.

Spotify ’s UX design case study showcases how understanding user needs and integrating social features can transform an app.

Spotify’s goal is to help people listen to any music they want, anytime, anywhere, legally and accessibly.

Spotify has 574 million monthly active listeners as of 2024. Out of which 226 million are its premium subscribers.

To enhance user engagement and app retention, Spotify focused on improving its social features.

Spotify’s UI/UX journey began with extensive user and market research.

This included analyzing demographics, market trends, and user experiences with Spotify’s social capabilities. Their findings led to several strategies to meet user needs.

• Personalization & Recommendation: Features like “Discover Weekly” and “Release Radar” use user listening patterns to create tailored playlists, keeping users engaged and continually discovering new music.
• Simplicity & Accessibility: Spotify’s straightforward interface and consistent design across platforms make it easy for users to navigate and enjoy the app. The accessibility factor is not a feature anymore, with an increase in the easy availability of the internet, it can come under examples of good user experience.
• Engagement & Interactivity: A dark interface reduces eye strain, while a visually appealing design enhances the listening experience.
• Combines listening preferences of two users, creating a unique playlist that reflects both users’ musical tastes. This feature enhances shared music experiences and introduces users to new tracks they might enjoy together.
• Spotify Wrapped: A personalized year-in-review recap that highlights users’ top songs, artists, and genres from the past year. This engaging feature not only celebrates users’ music habits but also encourages sharing on social media, fostering a sense of community and nostalgia.
• Collaborative Playlists : Allows users to create and share playlists with friends, making music discovery a social activity. Users can add, remove, and rearrange tracks collaboratively, turning playlist creation into a fun and interactive experience.
• Spotify’s user-centered design highlights the importance of simplicity, personalization, and innovative features, making it a standout example of good user experience in the UX case study portfolio.

4. Duolingo: Gamifying Language Learning

The UX design case study from Duolingo demonstrates how gamification can completely transform user interaction with learning applications.

Since its 2011 launch, Duolingo has amassed over 500 million downloads and 40 million monthly users, making it the most downloaded educational app.

It succeeds by making language acquisition enjoyable and compulsive.

To keep users interested, Duolingo combines gamification and machine intelligence. The onboarding process for the app is efficient and fast, allowing users to begin their first lesson right away without having to sign up.

This strategy makes sure users see the app’s worth before downloading it.

Because it provides individualized and engaging learning experiences, the app stands out. Its curriculum consists of speaking, listening, and vocabulary activities backed by AI-driven suggestions.

Novel Qualities: 1. Lingots: A currency obtained in-game via a variety of activities that promotes constant use. 2 . Streaks: Increases retention by rewarding users for practicing every day. 3. Experience Points (XP) : Offers a feeling of advancement and accomplishment. 4. Leaderboards : Users are ranked, which encourages a competitive attitude. 5. Achievement Badges : Encourage users by recognizing their accomplishments.

A compelling case study for educational platform redesign, Duolingo’s integration of gamification and personalized learning showcases excellent user experience.

5. Airbnb: Revolutionizing Hospitality

An example of how a user-centered strategy can revolutionize an industry is Airbnb ‘s UX design case study.

When Airbnb was first established in 2008, its basic goal was to assist tourists in finding reasonably priced lodging while giving homeowners a way to make money off of their extra space.

Today, with a substantial market share in the vacation rental sector, Airbnb is a global community that links visitors with authentic experiences and local hosts.

The secret to Airbnb’s success is its emphasis on human-centered design, which prioritizes the requirements and preferences of both hosts and guests. This strategy has upended the conventional hotel paradigm by providing a variety of unique, customized, and real lodging options.

The user-friendly Airbnb platform makes it simple for customers to identify and book lodging by streamlining the booking and check-in procedures.

Innovative Features

• User-Friendly Platform: Facilitates quick and simple bookings by streamlining the booking procedure.
• Customisation & Personalisation: Provides a vast array of exclusive lodgings and experiences based on user preferences.
• Community Building: By using user ratings and reviews, this platform promotes communication and trust.
• Localization: Stresses the importance of remaining in residential areas to get a genuine sense of the culture.
• Adaptability: To meet changing customer preferences, Airbnb consistently rolls out new features like Airbnb Plus and Airbnb Experiences. This feature for Airbnb would be one of the great examples of a good user experience.

Airbnb stands as a notable UX case study and an excellent example of strong user experience due to its emphasis on community development, personalization, and user experience.

Airbnb has transformed travel and hospitality by utilizing technology and human-centered design, setting a new benchmark for the sector.

The transformational impact of user-centered design across multiple industries is demonstrated by these five case studies of UX design. Each case study demonstrates how careful UX design can improve user satisfaction and business success.

These platforms have raised the bar for excellence by emphasizing user demands, streamlining interfaces, and adding cutting-edge capabilities.

These illustrations of excellent user experiences provide us with useful motivation as we develop products that connect with consumers and dominate the market.

Love our insights on UX design case studie s? Share your thoughts and suggest topics for future blogs in the comments! Need help with your website’s UX? Check out Procreator Design, the leading UI UX Design Agency . From HealthTech to AdTech , we’re here to elevate your digital presence!

1. How do you start a UX research case study?

Begin a UX research case study by identifying the problem, setting objectives, conducting user research, gathering data through interviews or surveys, and defining user personas to guide the design process.

Why are UX case studies important?

UX case studies showcase practical applications of design principles, demonstrate problem-solving skills, and provide insights into user-centered design processes, helping professionals learn and improve their own projects.

How to structure ux design case study?

Structure a UX design case study with these sections: Introduction, Problem Statement, Research Methods, Insights, Design Process, Solutions, Challenges, Results, and Conclusion. Include visuals and data to support each step.

I’m Prerna Bagree, a self-assured Lead UI/UX Designer at ProCreator with a solid background in Product Quality Analysis. With over 4 years of experience, I specialize in UI/UX Design, Graphic Design, Project Management, and Usability Testing. My passion lies in crafting visually appealing designs and delivering exceptional user experiences through AI technologies. I’m committed to nurturing the next generation of designers, unlocking their potential through mentorship and cutting-edge technologies. My expertise includes AI in Design, User Experience, Data-Driven Design, Interface Design, and Design Leadership. Let’s collaborate to create impactful, intuitive design experiences that positively influence users’ lives.

Make your mark with Great UX

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How to Write Instructional Design Case Studies for Your Portfolio

by Connie Malamed

One aspect of a portfolio that can make yours stand out is to provide the proper context for every work sample. You can achieve this by adding instructional design case studies to your portfolio. Case studies are an opportunity to add depth and insight to your demonstrated skills.

In this article, I hope to clarify what a portfolio case study is and what to include in one. For more on portfolios in general, see How to Build an Instructional Design Portfolio .

What is a case study for an instructional design portfolio?

Start by thinking of yourself as a designer. In design fields, it’s typical for practitioners to supplement the visual examples of their work with summary descriptions. A portfolio case study refers to this supplemental description. The case study adds background and depth to your work. It reflects the process and thinking you use to design a solution.

What To Include In A Portfolio Case Study

The people who review your portfolio are often pressed for time. So, you’re walking a tightrope between sufficiently explaining your project while keeping your description concise. Below is a suggested list of topics to include in your explanation. Because you need to keep it brief, select the topics that are most important for highlighting your talents and the message you want to convey.

• Project Title and Org Name: Title of the product you created and name of the company, organization or industry
• Date: Time period when you worked on the project
• Image of the solution: This will lead to a short demo or a series of screen captures of the solution. You may want to add documentation (analysis, design and storyboards) if it looks clean and professional.
• Problem you solved: Focus on performance improvement, changes in attitude, skills developed
• Your role: Specify your role if you were part of a team
• Challenges you overcame: For example: diverse audience groups; short timeline; uninterested learners, poor tech infrastructure, etc.
• Solution to the problem: Explain and demonstrate the solution
• Design Strategies: Your process, instructional strategies you chose and why
• Results/Impact: Metrics used to measure effectiveness of the solution or how performance improved. You can report data, discuss impact, anecdotal evidence or preliminary hunches.

Case Study Formats

Two types of case study formats are typical: the outline format and the story approach. Pick one consistent approach for your portfolio to make it as easy as possible for a reviewer to understand your work.

• Outline Format: The outline format is essentially a simple list of the key points or topics of your case study and a concise explanation of each topic. The advantage of the outline format is that it is easy to quickly skim and gather the key points. Organize it in a way that makes sense for your work and the aspects you want to highlight. See the example below. There is room for creativity by using your own wording for topic titles.
• Story Format:  In this approach, you write a few paragraphs describing the case study. The advantage to the story format is that well-written stories could be more likely to draw in a reader. Stories may also demonstrate your writing skills. For more detail on writing story-based case studies, see User Experience Case Studies .

Examples Of Instructional Design Case Studies For Portfolios

Outline format example.

• First Aid Bot
• Industry: Health Care
• Problem to Be Solved : Many people are not prepared to provide first aid in an emergency situation while they wait for professional help to arrive. They may forget what they learned or have never been trained in the first place.
• Challenges: The two challenges of providing first aid care in an emergency are: 1) people need to get the information quickly and 2) the person giving first aid may be too busy assisting the person in need to search for information.
• Solution: First Aid Bot is a chatbot that responds to the human voice. Users open the app and type or use voice commands to identify the emergency. The bot then responds with audio instructions for caring for the individual.
• Learning Design Strategies: I created a performance support solution for people to use while completing a first aid task. It is not meant to be a learning intervention, but rather to fulfill an immediate need during an emergency. The first aid instructions are clear and simple to avoid overloading the user’s memory as they complete the task at hand.

Story Format Example

When my daughter’s scouting troop asked if I could develop a course to onboard volunteer parents, I jumped at the chance to help. Many volunteers aren’t aware of the responsibilities they are taking on as Scout Assistants. Many haven’t considered the ethical issues that may arise from time to time. The biggest challenge in this effort was how to sufficiently engage the volunteers so they would complete the online training.

I solved this problem by creating five short game-based scenarios that would pique their curiosity enough to carry them through to completion. Each scenario presents the parent with a sticky problem that could come up during a scouting event. The user earns points for making choices that demonstrate care and concern for the scouts. Volunteer parents report that they enjoy the training and so far, 85% of the volunteers have completed the course. 

If Your Samples Are Not From Actual Work Projects

If you are trying to break into an instructional design career or if you want to demonstrate a wide range of solutions, these may not come from work projects. Simply mention in your description, that you created the sample because you wanted to solve a particular problem. Neither of the examples above mention that the work was done as an employee or from a paid client.

Finding The Best Writing Tone

As you write case studies, you may want to explore the best writing tone for your portfolio. Tone conveys the mood and emotion of your writing. It shows how you want to address the reader and portray yourself in this context. For professional purposes, you may choose to convey a formal tone or you may prefer a casual one. You might adopt a serious tone or one that is friendly. Choose the tone that best reflects your authentic work self. Then keep the tone consistent.

Learn From Other Industries

You can learn a lot from how other industries create portfolio case studies. Borrow the ideas you like and apply them to learning design. Here are a few places to look:

• UX Portfolio Case Study template (plus examples from successful hires)

All About Process: Dissecting Case Study Portfolios (oriented toward graphic design)

10 Exceptional Product Design Portfolios with Case Study Breakdowns

Where’s my portfolio?

By the way, although I often help people with their instructional design portfolios, I actually don’t have one of my own. My career was already in high gear when portfolios became important and I haven’t had a need to make one. If a client asks, I walk them through my work with a screen share.

Build a Portfolio Course

I’ve created a self-paced course on building an instructional design portfolio. It’s included as part of your membership at Mastering Instructional Design .

Click the image below to get a summary of the seven steps for building a portfolio. Plus you’ll get The eLearning Coach newsletter once a month with articles, resources and freebies.

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5 Benefits of Learning Through the Case Study Method

• 28 Nov 2023

While several factors make HBS Online unique —including a global Community and real-world outcomes —active learning through the case study method rises to the top.

In a 2023 City Square Associates survey, 74 percent of HBS Online learners who also took a course from another provider said HBS Online’s case method and real-world examples were better by comparison.

Here’s a primer on the case method, five benefits you could gain, and how to experience it for yourself.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is the Harvard Business School Case Study Method?

The case study method , or case method , is a learning technique in which you’re presented with a real-world business challenge and asked how you’d solve it. After working through it yourself and with peers, you’re told how the scenario played out.

HBS pioneered the case method in 1922. Shortly before, in 1921, the first case was written.

“How do you go into an ambiguous situation and get to the bottom of it?” says HBS Professor Jan Rivkin, former senior associate dean and chair of HBS's master of business administration (MBA) program, in a video about the case method . “That skill—the skill of figuring out a course of inquiry to choose a course of action—that skill is as relevant today as it was in 1921.”

Originally developed for the in-person MBA classroom, HBS Online adapted the case method into an engaging, interactive online learning experience in 2014.

In HBS Online courses , you learn about each case from the business professional who experienced it. After reviewing their videos, you’re prompted to take their perspective and explain how you’d handle their situation.

You then get to read peers’ responses, “star” them, and comment to further the discussion. Afterward, you learn how the professional handled it and their key takeaways.

HBS Online’s adaptation of the case method incorporates the famed HBS “cold call,” in which you’re called on at random to make a decision without time to prepare.

“Learning came to life!” said Sheneka Balogun , chief administration officer and chief of staff at LeMoyne-Owen College, of her experience taking the Credential of Readiness (CORe) program . “The videos from the professors, the interactive cold calls where you were randomly selected to participate, and the case studies that enhanced and often captured the essence of objectives and learning goals were all embedded in each module. This made learning fun, engaging, and student-friendly.”

If you’re considering taking a course that leverages the case study method, here are five benefits you could experience.

5 Benefits of Learning Through Case Studies

1. take new perspectives.

The case method prompts you to consider a scenario from another person’s perspective. To work through the situation and come up with a solution, you must consider their circumstances, limitations, risk tolerance, stakeholders, resources, and potential consequences to assess how to respond.

Taking on new perspectives not only can help you navigate your own challenges but also others’. Putting yourself in someone else’s situation to understand their motivations and needs can go a long way when collaborating with stakeholders.

2. Hone Your Decision-Making Skills

Another skill you can build is the ability to make decisions effectively . The case study method forces you to use limited information to decide how to handle a problem—just like in the real world.

Throughout your career, you’ll need to make difficult decisions with incomplete or imperfect information—and sometimes, you won’t feel qualified to do so. Learning through the case method allows you to practice this skill in a low-stakes environment. When facing a real challenge, you’ll be better prepared to think quickly, collaborate with others, and present and defend your solution.

3. Become More Open-Minded

As you collaborate with peers on responses, it becomes clear that not everyone solves problems the same way. Exposing yourself to various approaches and perspectives can help you become a more open-minded professional.

When you’re part of a diverse group of learners from around the world, your experiences, cultures, and backgrounds contribute to a range of opinions on each case.

On the HBS Online course platform, you’re prompted to view and comment on others’ responses, and discussion is encouraged. This practice of considering others’ perspectives can make you more receptive in your career.

“You’d be surprised at how much you can learn from your peers,” said Ratnaditya Jonnalagadda , a software engineer who took CORe.

In addition to interacting with peers in the course platform, Jonnalagadda was part of the HBS Online Community , where he networked with other professionals and continued discussions sparked by course content.

“You get to understand your peers better, and students share examples of businesses implementing a concept from a module you just learned,” Jonnalagadda said. “It’s a very good way to cement the concepts in one's mind.”

4. Enhance Your Curiosity

One byproduct of taking on different perspectives is that it enables you to picture yourself in various roles, industries, and business functions.

“Each case offers an opportunity for students to see what resonates with them, what excites them, what bores them, which role they could imagine inhabiting in their careers,” says former HBS Dean Nitin Nohria in the Harvard Business Review . “Cases stimulate curiosity about the range of opportunities in the world and the many ways that students can make a difference as leaders.”

Through the case method, you can “try on” roles you may not have considered and feel more prepared to change or advance your career .

5. Build Your Self-Confidence

Finally, learning through the case study method can build your confidence. Each time you assume a business leader’s perspective, aim to solve a new challenge, and express and defend your opinions and decisions to peers, you prepare to do the same in your career.

According to a 2022 City Square Associates survey , 84 percent of HBS Online learners report feeling more confident making business decisions after taking a course.

“Self-confidence is difficult to teach or coach, but the case study method seems to instill it in people,” Nohria says in the Harvard Business Review . “There may well be other ways of learning these meta-skills, such as the repeated experience gained through practice or guidance from a gifted coach. However, under the direction of a masterful teacher, the case method can engage students and help them develop powerful meta-skills like no other form of teaching.”

How to Experience the Case Study Method

If the case method seems like a good fit for your learning style, experience it for yourself by taking an HBS Online course. Offerings span eight subject areas, including:

• Business essentials
• Leadership and management
• Entrepreneurship and innovation
• Digital transformation
• Finance and accounting
• Business in society

No matter which course or credential program you choose, you’ll examine case studies from real business professionals, work through their challenges alongside peers, and gain valuable insights to apply to your career.

Are you interested in discovering how HBS Online can help advance your career? Explore our course catalog and download our free guide —complete with interactive workbook sections—to determine if online learning is right for you and which course to take.

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How to Write Great Case Studies for Your UX Design Portfolio

Well, the answer is really simple: write your UX case studies like stories. You see, when you present your case study as a story, you’ll find it far easier to give it a satisfying structure and captivate your reader. What’s more, you’ll make it easy for recruiters to imagine what it’s like to work with you, as they get to understand how you work. This makes your case study powerful and increases your chances of getting your first interview. Let’s take a closer look at what makes story-based case studies so impactful.

Since your case studies first and foremost serve to help you get an interview in your job application, they should answer the following questions (grouped into three categories, based on you as a person, your skill set and the way you do things):

Who are you? What drives you and what’s your background?

What UX skills do you possess?

How do you approach and solve a problem? How do you work with others?

As it turns out, when you tell a narrative through your case studies, you answer these questions effectively. Here are the 3 main reasons why you should write your UX case studies like stories and how this helps you stand out from other applicants.

Because Stories Allow Recruiters to Imagine What it’s Like to Work with You

“Narrative imagining—story—is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining.” —Mark Turner, cognitive scientist and author

When a recruiter reads your case study, they want to find out if you’ll be a great addition to their team. They want to know not only if you have the right skills and attitude, but also whether they’d enjoy working with you.

When you tell a story, you make it intuitive for a recruiter to imagine what it’s like to work with you . That’s because we use stories to learn and imagine all the time—in fact, people have since the dawn of human history. Therefore, recruiters will find it easier to look into the future and predict if they’d like to work with you when they read a story-based case study. They’ll find it easier to understand who you are and how you solve a problem.

Since the dawn of human history, we have used stories to imagine and learn about our world. Help recruiters understand you by telling a story about your design process .

© Mike Erskine, Fair Use

This sentiment is echoed by Sarah Bellrichard, Senior Vice President of Wholesale Internet Solutions & UX at the American bank Wells Fargo. She shared her tip on case studies and interviews:

“My tip would be, tell stories. When designers present a flat portfolio it doesn’t tell me about how they approach the work they do and how they deal with the ebbs and flows of design. Tell me how you navigate from start to end of a project.” —Sarah Bellrichard, SVP of Wholesale Internet Solutions & UX, Wells Fargo

Because Stories Give Your Case Studies Structure

“Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.” —Jean Luc Godard, French-Swiss film director

If you’ve worked on a design project before, then you’re painfully aware of just how messy life can be. Deadlines change, project goals shift, and new findings can fundamentally alter design specifications .

Stories will give your past experiences form and make your case studies better organized . You can re-arrange your experience into a meaningful sequence of events—i.e., progress—towards your results. Otherwise, your case study will likely seem chaotic.

The arc of a story—introduction, middle, conclusion—is the perfect order to tell your messy progress towards a project’s final results. Let’s illustrate:

In the introduction :

You set up the context of your project, for instance through a design brief .

You introduce your team’s main goals and some of the main obstacles you faced

In a classic story, this is where we meet the heroes and learn about the venture/goal they’re reaching for and why they’re not satisfied with their current lives.

In the middle :

You illustrate your approach to solving the problem.

You bring your reader through your journey of how you used industry standard practices to tackle the problem. It’s important that you describe what you did and what your team members did, so the recruiter knows what skills and knowledge you possess.

In a classic story, this is where we follow our heroes struggling to conquer the beasts, villains and problems as they strive to reach their goals.

Finally, in the conclusion :

You showcase the final product and the results you and your team achieved.

You reflect upon what you’ve learnt and recount any follow-up tweaks you’ve made to the product.

In a classic story, this is where the heroes reach their goals―they experience personal growth , reap the rewards of their hard work and live happily ever after.

See how nicely it all fits into a story arc?

When you arrange your case study in a story arc, your journey becomes more ordered and meaningful.

© Teo Yu Siang and the Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

There’s more! You’ll also find it easier to write your case study when you arrange it like a story. You see, the introduction-middle-conclusion structure of a story forms a skeleton for you to fill in the “meat” of your journey. On top of that, recruiters who read your case study will also find the familiar arc of a story satisfying. Talk about a win-win situation!

Because Stories Captivate

“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” —Native American proverb

Okay, your case study will most likely not live in your recruiter’s heart forever, but your story-based case study will definitely stand out from other purely fact-based case studies, as your story will engage and captivate your recruiter. You see, a narrative is more engaging and provides a better reading experience than a dry, factual account ever could. It naturally makes the reader feel involved in the story and weaves a common thread throughout the case study.

UX recruiters are incredibly busy. They’ll typically spend only 5 minutes scanning your case studies because they have so many applicants to process. Given that, you have a much better chance if you can capture your reader’s attention for the whole 5 minutes.

And there’s no better way to captivate someone than through a story.

Let’s demonstrate that in an ultra-brief case study―yours should be more detailed and in-depth. Below, you’ll find the same journey told in two ways: first in a factual manner, then in a narrative fashion. See which version you find more engaging.

Factual : User interviews were conducted with 12 people to evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype . The main finding was that the assumption that users shopped based on their weekly nutritional needs was invalid. This finding was used to create a new iteration of the product, which was tested and found to be 50% more successful than the previous version.

Narrative : We conducted interviews with 12 people to evaluate if our prototype was effective. Our finding threw a giant spanner in the works. We realized our assumption—that users shopped based on their weekly nutritional needs—was dead wrong. Undefeated, we scrambled to create a new iteration, and ran another round of tests. This time, it worked—the success rate shot up by a whopping 50%!

You probably find the narrative version way more interesting—and so will your recruiters.

Notice in the factual version how flat and lifeless the account is? Sure, the figures are there, but it looks as if you’re reporting on what someone else did. This tells a recruiter that you’re distant and non-engaged—that you didn’t take ownership in what you’re talking about.

So, embrace the liberating and captivating format of a story. Go ahead and describe how your finding proved you dead wrong and how you scrambled upon meeting a temporary setback.

Best practice:

Convey your emotions and write in an active, engaging tone of voice .

Include the team’s frustrations, problems you faced and new insights you learnt.

Include people: write “we”, “I” and “our team”.

This way, you’ll give your case studies flavor . Furthermore, you’ll reveal who you are and how you work―and your recruiters will come back for more.

Stories naturally captivate us—use that power to captivate your recruiters, too.

© Prasanna Kumar, Fair Use

Turn Your Case Studies into Stories

Of course , we’re not saying that you should write a novel to explain what happened in your project. Your case studies should still be short and sweet, but they also should be punchy and engaging.

In fact, when we sat down with Stephen Gay, Design Lead at Google’s AdWords, to ask him about the importance of a portfolio, he explained that he sees UX case studies as stories about the applicants.

• Transcript loading…

To a recruiter like Stephen Gay, case studies are stories that tell him about the applicants. Author / copyright holder: The Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

As Stephen astutely pointed out, we UX designers regularly use the power of stories in our work. So, use this same storytelling approach in your case studies, too!

The Take Away

The best way to write a case study is to tell it like a story. This way, your case studies become a vessel through which recruiters can imagine a future working with you, since they get to experience and understand exactly how you solve a design problem. Your recruiters will also enjoy the familiarity and structure of a story arc, and they’ll find the reading experience much more engaging. So, go ahead—inject humanity, color and passion into your case studies. Be a storyteller.

References and Where to Learn More

You can find Sarah Bellrichard’s tip on case studies in this article by Justinmind, which gathers tips and insights on how to do well in interviews.

Hero image: © Rawpixel, Fair Use.

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What is design thinking?

Discover what is design thinking and why it’s important, including the five stages of design thinking. Deep dive into a few case studies and learn how to apply design thinking.

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Design thinking is a mindset that breeds innovation. While it’s based on the design process, anyone in any profession can use it when they’re trying to come up with creative solutions to a problem. 

In this guide, we’ll walk you through what design thinking is and why it’s important, including the five stages of design thinking. Then we’ll present a couple of design thinking case studies and wrap up with a primer on how to apply design thinking. And don’t worry, this guide is broken down into easily digestible chunks, as follows:

Let’s get started!

What is design thinking? A definition

Design thinking is an approach used for problem-solving. Both practical and creative, it’s anchored by human-centred design.

Design thinking is extremely user-centric in that it focuses on your users before it focuses on things like technology or business metrics. 

Design thinking is also solution-based, looking for effective solutions to problems, not problem-based, which looks at the problem itself and tends to focus on limitations. 

Design thinking is all about getting hands-on with solutions. The aim is to quickly turn your ideas into testable products so you can see what works and what doesn’t.

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Why is design thinking important? 

Design thinking is important because it challenges assumptions and fosters innovation. While many ways of thinking rely on the habits and experiences we’ve formed, they can limit us when it comes to thinking of design solutions. Design thinking, however, encourages us to explore new ideas. 

It’s an actionable technique that allows us to tackle “wicked problems,” or problems that are ill-defined. For example, achieving sustainable growth or maintaining your competitive edge in business count as wicked problems, and on a broader scale, poverty and climate change are wicked problems too. Design thinking uses empathy and human-centred thinking to tackle these kinds of problems.

Who uses design thinking?

The short answer? Everyone! Design thinking can help you in whatever your role or industry. People in business, government, entertainment, health care, and every other industry can benefit from using design thinking to come up with innovative solutions. 

The most important thing design thinking does is help people focus on their customers or end users. Instead of focusing on problems to fix, design thinking keeps things user-centric, which boosts customer engagement. 

What are the 5 stages of design thinking?

According to the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (known as d-school), the five stages of design thinking are: 

Although these stages appear to be linear, following one after the other, design thinking isn’t a linear process. Stages are often run in parallel or out of order, or repeated when necessary.

Phase 1: Empathise 

Your goal here is to research your users’ needs to gain an empathic understanding of the problems they face. You’ll get to know your users and their wants and needs so you can make sure your solutions put them front and centre. This means setting aside your own assumptions and getting to know your users on a psychological and emotional level. You’ll observe, engage, watch and listen. 

Phase 2: Define

Here you state your users’ needs by compiling the information you gathered during the Empathise phase and then analysing it until you can define the core problem your team has identified. 

You do this by asking questions like: what patterns do you see in the data? What user issues need to be resolved? The conclusion of this phase comes when you’ve figured out a clear problem statement that is defined by the users’ needs. For example, “Bank customers in Glasgow need…”

You can learn more about how to write a problem statement in this guide.

Phase 3: Ideate

In this phase, you’ll generate ideas and solutions. You and your team will hold ideation sessions where you can come up with as many ideas as possible. No idea is too silly for this stage. The important thing is getting all ideas out on the table. There are a variety of techniques you can use, like brainstorming and mind mapping, to come up with solutions. This phase ends when you’ve managed to narrow down your ideas to just a few of the best ones.

Phase 4: Prototype

Your goal in this phase is to find the best solution to the problem by prototyping —that is, producing scaled down versions of the product or its features found in the previous phase. You’ll put each solution to the test by improving, redesigning, accepting, or rejecting it.

Phase 5: Test

Here you’ll try out the solutions you arrived at in the previous phases by user testing them. However, while this is the final stage of design thinking in theory, it’s rarely the final stage in reality. Design thinking often includes going back to previous phases to find other solutions or to further iterate or refine your existing solution.

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Design thinking examples and case studies

Now that you understand the theory and process of design thinking, let’s look at some examples in action where design thinking had a real-world impact.

Case Study 1: American Family Insurance’s Moonrise App

American Family Insurance, a company that offers life, business, auto, and home insurance, came to design company IDEO with the goal of innovating in a way that would help working families. 

Stages 1 & 2: Empathise and Define

While American Family thought their customers might benefit from budgeting tools, IDEO found from their research in the Empathise phase that, actually, people needed a way to build up their savings against unforeseen needs.

They noticed a lot of people had meticulously planned budgets, which made budgeting tools a moot point. But they were living just within their means and an extra expense, like a doctor’s visit or kid’s basketball uniform, could throw their budget off. These people didn’t want to take on debt though, they wanted extra work so they could have a cushion.

Stages 3 & 4: Ideate and Prototype

IDEO took that idea and ran with it, creating Moonrise, an app that matches people looking for work with extra hours and income. Today’s businesses depend on on-demand work but the temp agencies they work with tend to want permanent placements. Moonrise does things differently. It enables companies to find people who are already employed elsewhere for short-term work through a simple text message interface. The employers can list shifts on the platform and workers are paid as soon as they finish their shifts.

Stage 5: Test

To test the app, 11 Moonrisers, six employers, and a team of designers and programmers were assembled for a one week period to work out the kinks in the platform. 

Based on the test’s success, American Family Insurance now owns the startup Moonrise, which launched in Chicago in 2018 and has since expanded to additional states. In 2018, over 7,000 shifts have been fulfilled and over $500,000 has been earned by people on the app.

Case Study 2: GE Healthcare’s Scanning Tools

GE Healthcare has cutting-edge diagnostic imaging tools at its disposal, but for kids they’re an unpleasant experience. 

“The room itself is kind of dark and has those flickering fluorescent lights…. That machine that I had designed basically looked like a brick with a hole in it,” explained Doug Dietz , a designer who worked for GE. How could they make the experience better for kids?

The team at GE began by observing and gaining empathy for children at a daycare centre and talking to specialists who knew what paediatric patients went through. The team then recruited experts from a children’s museum and doctors from two hospitals. This gave them a lot of insight into what children went through when they had to sit for these procedures and what could be done to lessen the children’s stress.

Stages 3, 4 & 5: Ideate, Prototype, and Test

The first prototype of the new and improved “Adventure Series” scanner was invented. Through research and pilot programs, the redesign made imaging machines more child-friendly, making sure they have other things to focus on than the scary looks and sounds of the machine. For example, the Coral City Adventure in the emergency room gives children an underwater experience where they get into a yellow submarine and listen to the sound of harps while their procedure takes place.

Patient satisfaction scores increased to 90% and children no longer suffer such anxiety about their scans. The children hold still for their procedures more easily, making repeats of the scans unnecessary. There’s also less need for anesthesiologists, which improved the bottom line for those hospitals that used the scanning machines because more patients could get scanned each day.

How to apply design thinking 

If you want to apply design thinking in your own work, follow these steps and best practices:

• Improve design thinking skills. Use training to explain, improve, and practically implement the phases of design thinking. You can do this in several ways such as workshops, online courses, or case studies shared with your team.
• Identify the correct problem. Listen to users and ask them unbiased questions in order to understand their perspectives. Engage with everyone and stay open-minded, so you can identify the correct problem, not the problem you or your organisation thinks users are having. 
• Have more debriefs. Be open about what went right and what went wrong in your process. Openly discuss why things succeeded or failed and why. View failure as learning, not as an excuse to give up.
• Iterate and iterate some more. The goal of design thinking is finding the best answer possible—and that probably won’t come in the first round of iteration. You’ll need to test and iterate as much as possible with new ways to solve the problem.

Design thinking is so popular—and so effective—because it places the user’s needs front and centre. For more user-centric design tips, learn how to incorporate user feedback in product design , get to grips with user research ethics , and learn how to conduct effective user interviews .

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What the Case Study Method Really Teaches

• Nitin Nohria

Seven meta-skills that stick even if the cases fade from memory.

It’s been 100 years since Harvard Business School began using the case study method. Beyond teaching specific subject matter, the case study method excels in instilling meta-skills in students. This article explains the importance of seven such skills: preparation, discernment, bias recognition, judgement, collaboration, curiosity, and self-confidence.

During my decade as dean of Harvard Business School, I spent hundreds of hours talking with our alumni. To enliven these conversations, I relied on a favorite question: “What was the most important thing you learned from your time in our MBA program?”

• Nitin Nohria is the George F. Baker Jr. and Distinguished Service University Professor. He served as the 10th dean of Harvard Business School, from 2010 to 2020.

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Making Learning Relevant With Case Studies

The open-ended problems presented in case studies give students work that feels connected to their lives.

To prepare students for jobs that haven’t been created yet, we need to teach them how to be great problem solvers so that they’ll be ready for anything. One way to do this is by teaching content and skills using real-world case studies, a learning model that’s focused on reflection during the problem-solving process. It’s similar to project-based learning, but PBL is more focused on students creating a product.

Case studies have been used for years by businesses, law and medical schools, physicians on rounds, and artists critiquing work. Like other forms of problem-based learning, case studies can be accessible for every age group, both in one subject and in interdisciplinary work.

You can get started with case studies by tackling relatable questions like these with your students:

• How can we limit food waste in the cafeteria?
• How can we get our school to recycle and compost waste? (Or, if you want to be more complex, how can our school reduce its carbon footprint?)
• How can we improve school attendance?
• How can we reduce the number of people who get sick at school during cold and flu season?

Addressing questions like these leads students to identify topics they need to learn more about. In researching the first question, for example, students may see that they need to research food chains and nutrition. Students often ask, reasonably, why they need to learn something, or when they’ll use their knowledge in the future. Learning is most successful for students when the content and skills they’re studying are relevant, and case studies offer one way to create that sense of relevance.

Teaching With Case Studies

Ultimately, a case study is simply an interesting problem with many correct answers. What does case study work look like in classrooms? Teachers generally start by having students read the case or watch a video that summarizes the case. Students then work in small groups or individually to solve the case study. Teachers set milestones defining what students should accomplish to help them manage their time.

During the case study learning process, student assessment of learning should be focused on reflection. Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick’s Learning and Leading With Habits of Mind gives several examples of what this reflection can look like in a classroom: 

Journaling: At the end of each work period, have students write an entry summarizing what they worked on, what worked well, what didn’t, and why. Sentence starters and clear rubrics or guidelines will help students be successful. At the end of a case study project, as Costa and Kallick write, it’s helpful to have students “select significant learnings, envision how they could apply these learnings to future situations, and commit to an action plan to consciously modify their behaviors.”

Interviews: While working on a case study, students can interview each other about their progress and learning. Teachers can interview students individually or in small groups to assess their learning process and their progress.

Student discussion: Discussions can be unstructured—students can talk about what they worked on that day in a think-pair-share or as a full class—or structured, using Socratic seminars or fishbowl discussions. If your class is tackling a case study in small groups, create a second set of small groups with a representative from each of the case study groups so that the groups can share their learning.

4 Tips for Setting Up a Case Study

1. Identify a problem to investigate: This should be something accessible and relevant to students’ lives. The problem should also be challenging and complex enough to yield multiple solutions with many layers.

2. Give context: Think of this step as a movie preview or book summary. Hook the learners to help them understand just enough about the problem to want to learn more.

3. Have a clear rubric: Giving structure to your definition of quality group work and products will lead to stronger end products. You may be able to have your learners help build these definitions.

4. Provide structures for presenting solutions: The amount of scaffolding you build in depends on your students’ skill level and development. A case study product can be something like several pieces of evidence of students collaborating to solve the case study, and ultimately presenting their solution with a detailed slide deck or an essay—you can scaffold this by providing specified headings for the sections of the essay.

Problem-Based Teaching Resources

There are many high-quality, peer-reviewed resources that are open source and easily accessible online.

• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at the University at Buffalo built an online collection of more than 800 cases that cover topics ranging from biochemistry to economics. There are resources for middle and high school students.
• Models of Excellence , a project maintained by EL Education and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has examples of great problem- and project-based tasks—and corresponding exemplary student work—for grades pre-K to 12.
• The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning at Purdue University is an open-source journal that publishes examples of problem-based learning in K–12 and post-secondary classrooms.
• The Tech Edvocate has a list of websites and tools related to problem-based learning.

In their book Problems as Possibilities , Linda Torp and Sara Sage write that at the elementary school level, students particularly appreciate how they feel that they are taken seriously when solving case studies. At the middle school level, “researchers stress the importance of relating middle school curriculum to issues of student concern and interest.” And high schoolers, they write, find the case study method “beneficial in preparing them for their future.”

Using Case Studies to Teach

Why Use Cases?

Many students are more inductive than deductive reasoners, which means that they learn better from examples than from logical development starting with basic principles. The use of case studies can therefore be a very effective classroom technique.

Case studies are have long been used in business schools, law schools, medical schools and the social sciences, but they can be used in any discipline when instructors want students to explore how what they have learned applies to real world situations. Cases come in many formats, from a simple “What would you do in this situation?” question to a detailed description of a situation with accompanying data to analyze. Whether to use a simple scenario-type case or a complex detailed one depends on your course objectives.

Most case assignments require students to answer an open-ended question or develop a solution to an open-ended problem with multiple potential solutions. Requirements can range from a one-paragraph answer to a fully developed group action plan, proposal or decision.

Common Case Elements

Most “full-blown” cases have these common elements:

• A decision-maker who is grappling with some question or problem that needs to be solved.
• A description of the problem’s context (a law, an industry, a family).
• Supporting data, which can range from data tables to links to URLs, quoted statements or testimony, supporting documents, images, video, or audio.

Case assignments can be done individually or in teams so that the students can brainstorm solutions and share the work load.

The following discussion of this topic incorporates material presented by Robb Dixon of the School of Management and Rob Schadt of the School of Public Health at CEIT workshops. Professor Dixon also provided some written comments that the discussion incorporates.

Advantages to the use of case studies in class

A major advantage of teaching with case studies is that the students are actively engaged in figuring out the principles by abstracting from the examples. This develops their skills in:

• Problem solving
• Analytical tools, quantitative and/or qualitative, depending on the case
• Decision making in complex situations
• Coping with ambiguities

Guidelines for using case studies in class

In the most straightforward application, the presentation of the case study establishes a framework for analysis. It is helpful if the statement of the case provides enough information for the students to figure out solutions and then to identify how to apply those solutions in other similar situations. Instructors may choose to use several cases so that students can identify both the similarities and differences among the cases.

Depending on the course objectives, the instructor may encourage students to follow a systematic approach to their analysis.  For example:

• What is the issue?
• What is the goal of the analysis?
• What is the context of the problem?
• What key facts should be considered?
• What alternatives are available to the decision-maker?
• What would you recommend — and why?

An innovative approach to case analysis might be to have students  role-play the part of the people involved in the case. This not only actively engages students, but forces them to really understand the perspectives of the case characters. Videos or even field trips showing the venue in which the case is situated can help students to visualize the situation that they need to analyze.

Accompanying Readings

Case studies can be especially effective if they are paired with a reading assignment that introduces or explains a concept or analytical method that applies to the case. The amount of emphasis placed on the use of the reading during the case discussion depends on the complexity of the concept or method. If it is straightforward, the focus of the discussion can be placed on the use of the analytical results. If the method is more complex, the instructor may need to walk students through its application and the interpretation of the results.

Leading the Case Discussion and Evaluating Performance

Decision cases are more interesting than descriptive ones. In order to start the discussion in class, the instructor can start with an easy, noncontroversial question that all the students should be able to answer readily. However, some of the best case discussions start by forcing the students to take a stand. Some instructors will ask a student to do a formal “open” of the case, outlining his or her entire analysis.  Others may choose to guide discussion with questions that move students from problem identification to solutions.  A skilled instructor steers questions and discussion to keep the class on track and moving at a reasonable pace.

In order to motivate the students to complete the assignment before class as well as to stimulate attentiveness during the class, the instructor should grade the participation—quantity and especially quality—during the discussion of the case. This might be a simple check, check-plus, check-minus or zero. The instructor should involve as many students as possible. In order to engage all the students, the instructor can divide them into groups, give each group several minutes to discuss how to answer a question related to the case, and then ask a randomly selected person in each group to present the group’s answer and reasoning. Random selection can be accomplished through rolling of dice, shuffled index cards, each with one student’s name, a spinning wheel, etc.

Tips on the Penn State U. website: https://sites.psu.edu/pedagogicalpractices/case-studies/

If you are interested in using this technique in a science course, there is a good website on use of case studies in the sciences at the National Science Teaching Association.

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Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

• Case Based Learning

What is the case method?

In case-based learning, students learn to interact with and manipulate basic foundational knowledge by working with situations resembling specific real-world scenarios.

How does it work?

Case studies encourage students to use critical thinking skills to identify and narrow an issue, develop and evaluate alternatives, and offer a solution.  In fact, Nkhoma (2016), who studied the value of developing case-based learning activities based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of thinking skills, suggests that this approach encourages deep learning through critical thinking:

Sherfield (2004) confirms this, asserting that working through case studies can begin to build and expand these six critical thinking strategies:

• Emotional restraint
• Questioning
• Distinguishing fact from fiction
• Searching for ambiguity

What makes a good case?

Case-based learning can focus on anything from a one-sentence physics word problem to a textbook-sized nursing case or a semester-long case in a law course.  Though we often assume that a case is a “problem,” Ellet (2007) suggests that most cases entail one of four types of situations:

• Evaluations
• What are the facts you know about the case?
• What are some logical assumptions you can make about the case?
• What are the problems involved in the case as you see it?
• What is the root problem (the main issue)?
• What do you estimate is the cause of the root problem?
• What are the reasons that the root problem exists?
• What is the solution to the problem?
• Are there any moral or ethical considerations to your solution?
• What are the real-world implications for this case?
• How might the lives of the people in the case study be changed because of your proposed solution?
• Where in your world (campus/town/country) might a problem like this occur?
• Where could someone get help with this problem?
• What personal advice would you give to the person or people concerned?

Adapted from Sherfield’s Case Studies for the First Year (2004)

Some faculty buy prepared cases from publishers, but many create their own based on their unique course needs.  When introducing case-based learning to students, be sure to offer a series of guidelines or questions to prompt deep thinking.  One option is to provide a scenario followed by questions; for example, questions designed for a first year experience problem might include these:

Before you begin, take a look at what others are doing with cases in your field.  Pre-made case studies are available from various publishers, and you can find case-study templates online.

• Choose scenarios carefully
• Tell a story from beginning to end, including many details
• Create real-life characters and use quotes when possible
• Write clearly and concisely and format the writing simply
• Ask students to reflect on their learning—perhaps identifying connections between the lesson and specific course learning outcomes—after working a case

Additional Resources

• Barnes, Louis B. et al. Teaching and the Case Method , 3 rd (1994). Harvard, 1994.
• Campoy, Renee. Case Study Analysis in the Classroom: Becoming a Reflective Teacher . Sage Publications, 2005.
• Ellet, William. The Case Study Handbook . Harvard, 2007.
• Herreid, Clyde Freeman, ed. Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science . NSTA, 2007.
• Herreid, Clyde Freeman, et al. Science Stories: Using Case Studies to Teach Critical Thinking . NSTA, 2012.
• Nkhoma, M., Lam, et al. Developing case-based learning activities based on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy . Proceedings of Informing Science & IT Education Conference (In SITE) 2016, 85-93. 2016.
• Rolls, Geoff. Classic Case Studies in Psychology , 3 rd Hodder Education, Bookpoint, 2014.
• Sherfield, Robert M., et al. Case Studies for the First Year . Pearson, 2004.
• Shulman, Judith H., ed. Case Methods in Teacher Education . Teacher’s College, 1992.

Quick Links

• Developing Learning Objectives
• Creating Your Syllabus
• Active Learning
• Service Learning
• Critical Thinking and other Higher-Order Thinking Skills
• Group and Team Based Learning
• Integrating Technology in the Classroom
• Effective PowerPoint Design
• Hybrid and Hybrid Limited Course Design
• Online Course Design

Consult with our CETL Professionals

Consultation services are available to all UConn faculty at all campuses at no charge.

How to Use a Design System – A Practical Case Study

Design systems are structured collections of reusable components that help teams build digital products in a consistent, efficient way. But what exactly are they and how do you use them? In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through a practical case study on implementing a design system from start to finish.

What is a Design System?

A design system is a set of documented standards and modular, reusable components used to create digital products. It typically includes:

• Style guide: Color palettes, typography, iconography, spacing/layout rules
• Components library: Buttons, inputs, navigation, modal windows, etc.
• Code framework: HTML/CSS frameworks, React components, code documentation
• Voice and tone guidelines: Rules for writing interface copy and content
• Accessibility guidelines: Standards for accessible, inclusive design

Design systems help teams build consistent, high-quality user experiences across platforms. They boost productivity by eliminating redundant work and fostering collaboration between designers and developers using a shared set of tools.

Benefits of Using a Design System

Some key benefits of using a design system include:

• Consistency: Creates a familiar interface for users across platforms
• Efficiency: Greatly reduces design and development work
• Collaboration: Aligns teams to a single source of truth
• Maintainability: Easier to update styles and features
• Scalability: Supports growth into new platforms and products

Established companies like IBM, Shopify, and Apple have published their design systems to promote consistency and unity across their massive product ecosystems. But even smaller teams can benefit greatly from the modular approach enabled by design systems.

Next, let’s walk through a hands-on example of building a marketing website design with an open-source design system.

Case Study: Implementing the Material Design System

To see how design systems work in practice, we’ll work through a real-life example: Using Google’s Material Design System to build the homepage design for a fictional startup app called Novus .

Google‘s Material Design system has 1000+ premade components

Step 1: Select a Design System

Hundreds of free and paid design systems exist to choose from. Popular options include:

• Material Design (Google)
• Fluent UI (Microsoft)
• Carbon Design System (IBM)
• Atlassian Design System

We’ll use Material Design because it’s mature, well-documented, and provides a wide selection of components suitable for marketing site designs.

After browsing the Material homepage and documentation, we gain familiarity with:

• Design principles and goals
• Layout grid recommendations
• Hundreds of premade components like buttons, cards, icons, etc.
• Code frameworks (React, Angular, Vue) for implementation

Now we understand Material’s capabilities. Next we’ll plan the site design using its lego-like building blocks.

Material Design offers premade user interface components

Step 2: Map Site Sections to Components

Based on initial Planning&Discovery Documents for Novus, we know the homepage design requires:

• Hero section – Eye-catching header with branding, tagline and call to action
• Features section – Showcase key app capabilities with icons
• Reviews section – Show ratings, testimonials, or awards
• Pricing section – Compare pricing tiers at-a-glance
• Contact section – Email signup and social media links

We analyze these sections and make initial component selections from the Material library:

This equips us with specific Material building blocks tailored for the project needs. Next we’ll wireframe the layout.

Component mapping complete

Step 3: Construct Layout and Wireframes

Now we sketch rough wireframes for our mobile and desktop homepage layouts using Material’s 8-point grid system for guidance.

We arrange shapes representing our planned components onto artboard canvases. This visualizes information hierarchy and positioning on the page.

Early mobile homepage wireframe draft

Through quick iteration, we decide on an initial responsive layout showcasing key homepage sections.

Satisfied with the wireframes for now, we proceed to open Figma to build an interactive high-fidelity prototype.

Step 4: Build Mobile Screens

Inside Figma, we create 1440px wide artboards for desktop and 375px wide iPhone mobile frames.

Following our wireframes, we reconstruct the mobile homepage layout using Material components.

We drag, drop and edit elements from the Figma Material UI Kit like cards, icons, buttons and hero banners onto our canvas. Customizing colors, text and assets along the way.

Building mobile screens with Material Design components

Within a couple hours, we transform wireframes into high-fidelity interactive prototypes for mobile.

Completed mobile homepage prototype

Step 5: Build Desktop Screens

Next we tackle the desktop layout, duplicating mobile frames as starting points. We stretch components wider and rearrange elements to match desktop wireframe plans.

More time is invested detailing data tables, creating coupon code chips, exposing menu navigation and adding hovers to buttons.

Building the desktop homepage prototype

After several hours of polish, visual hierarchy improves and desktop screens take shape.

Finished desktop homepage prototype

Step 6: Connect Prototype Screens

To demonstrate how users will navigate the experience, we add clickable links between artboards. Homepage buttons now navigate to interior pages.

Together the artboards form a clickable prototype that simulates real app usage flows. This sell the experience to stakeholders for feedback.

Linking multiple screens into a prototype

Step 7: Export and Share Deliverables

Finally, we export production-ready deliverables to share with developers:

• Interactive prototype – for simulating app flows
• Component library – Isolated resuable elements
• UI Kit – Contains layouts, color variables, text styles
• Image asset folder – Logos, custom graphics

These handoff assets empower developers to efficiently code the frontend. They also serve as lasting team resources for current and future projects.

Pro Tip: For extra polish, record a Prototype Demo Video to share with stakeholders!

Exported deliverables help kickstart development

Key Takeaways and Next Steps

And with that, we‘ve created a prototype for Novus‘ marketing site design leveraging Google‘s Material design system as reusable building blocks.

This exercise demonstrates how design systems enable consistency and efficiency designing digital experiences. Let‘s recap learnings:

Benefits realized:

• Professional branding and visuals
• 5x faster design process
• Pixel perfect measurements and correct spacing
• Clickable prototype to demonstrate interactions
• Exportable component library and UI kit as development accelerators
• Promotes consistency across current and future projects

Next step is developers will code the site using exported HTML/CSS frameworks and component libraries as reference. Changes are simplified by tweaking existing styles and elements.

Design systems boost team velocity, allowing us to invest more time innovating rather than executing repetitive tasks. They are clearly integral for crafting exceptional products at scale.

Adopting design systems yields tremendous dividends for organizations over the long run. Hopefully this tutorial provided valuable perspective into leveraging them effectively!

Dr. Alex Mitchell is a dedicated coding instructor with a deep passion for teaching and a wealth of experience in computer science education. As a university professor, Dr. Mitchell has played a pivotal role in shaping the coding skills of countless students, helping them navigate the intricate world of programming languages and software development.

Beyond the classroom, Dr. Mitchell is an active contributor to the freeCodeCamp community, where he regularly shares his expertise through tutorials, code examples, and practical insights. His teaching repertoire includes a wide range of languages and frameworks, such as Python, JavaScript, Next.js, and React, which he presents in an accessible and engaging manner.

Dr. Mitchell’s approach to teaching blends academic rigor with real-world applications, ensuring that his students not only understand the theory but also how to apply it effectively. His commitment to education and his ability to simplify complex topics have made him a respected figure in both the university and online learning communities.

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ML and LLM system design : 450 case studies to learn from

Navigation tips. You can play around with the database by filtering case studies by industry or ML use case. We added tags based on recurring themes. This is not a perfect or mutually exclusive division, but you can use the tags to quickly find:

• Generative AI use cases. Look for tags “generative AI” and “LLM” to find examples of real-world LLM applications.
• ML systems with different data types: computer vision (CV) or natural language processing (NLP).
• ML systems for specific use cases. The most popular are recommender systems, search and ranking, and fraud detection.
• We also labeled use cases where ML powers a specific user-facing "product feature": from grammatical error correction to generating outfit combinations.

Enjoy the reading! And if you find the database helpful, spread the word.

Maintained by the team behind Evidently , an open-source tool for ML and LLM evaluation and observability.

Real-world ML and LLM systems

Selection criteria. Here is how we selected the case studies to include: 

• It is a blog, paper, or article about a machine learning system or LLM application created in-house (not by a vendor that sells or implements ML solutions for others).
• It has sufficient detail on the use case and implementation: who the application is for, the AI product design, evaluation criteria, deployment architecture, etc. The more, the better. 
• It covers a real-world ML or LLM system that is used in production.
• It describes one particular ML or LLM use case. There are only a few exceptions that detail multiple projects at once — about causal ML or generative AI, for example.

Did we miss some great ML and LLM case studies? Let us know! Our Discord Community with 2500+ ML practitioners and AI Engineers is the best place to share feedback.

Get Started with AI Observability

• Study Protocol
• Open access
• Published: 28 August 2024

ALLin4IPE- an international research study on interprofessional health professions education: a protocol for an ethnographic multiple-case study of practice architectures in sites of students’ interprofessional clinical placements across four universities

• Annika Lindh Falk 1 ,
• Madeleine Abrandt Dahlgren 1 ,
• Johanna Dahlberg 1 ,
• Bente Norbye 2 ,
• Anita Iversen 2 ,
• Kylie J. Mansfield 3 ,
• Eileen McKinlay 4 ,
• Sonya Morgan 4 ,
• Julia Myers 4 &
• Linda Gulliver 4  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  940 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

The global discourse on future health care emphasises that learning to collaborate across professions is crucial to assure patient safety and meet the changing demands of health care. The research on interprofessional education (IPE) is diverse but with gaps in curricula design and how IPE is enacted in practice.

Purpose and aims

This research project will identify. 1) how IPE in clinical placements emerges, evolves, and is enacted by students when embedded in local health care practices, 2) factors critical for the design of IPE for students at clinical placements across the four countries.

A study involving four countries (Sweden, Norway, Australia and New Zealand) using the theory of practice architectures will be undertaken between 2023 and 2027. The project is designed as an international, collaborative multiple-case ethnographic study, using the theoretical framework of practice architectures (TPA). It will include four ethnographic case studies of IPE, one in each country. Data will be collected in the following sequence: (1) participant observation of students during interprofessional placements, (2) interviews with students at clinical placement and stakeholders/professionals, (3) Non-clinical documents may be used to support the analysis, and collection of photos may be use as memory aids for documenting context. An analysis of “sayings, doings and relatings” will address features of the cultural- discursive, material-economic, social-political elements making up the three key dimensions of TPA. Each of the four international cases will be analysed separately. A cross case analysis will be undertaken to establish common learning and critical IPE design elements across the four collaborating universities.

The use of TPA framework and methodology in the analysis of data will make it possible to identify comparable dimensions across the four research sites, enabling core questions to be addressed critical for the design of IPE. The ethnographic field studies will generate detailed descriptions that take account of country-specific cultural and practice contexts. The study will also generate new knowledge as to how IPE can be collaboratively researched.

Peer Review reports

The global discourse on future health care emphasizes interprofessional collaborative capability as being crucial to meet changing demands on health care systems. These demands are the result of aging populations, increasing inequities in health care outcomes, the increasing number of those with complex health conditions and shortage of health care personnel [ 1 , 2 ]. The World Health Organisation (WHO) [ 2 ] states interprofessional education (IPE) “occurs when students from two or more professions learn about , from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes” (p. 10), signalling that IPE involves interaction between students in learning activities. When the students understand the value of collaborative practice, they are better prepared to become a member of the collaborative practice team and provide better health services. The rationale for IPE, according to WHO [ 2 ] is that health professions should strive to design IPE activities to develop and optimize students’ collaborative competences to prepare them for the above challenges in their future working life [ 2 ], something that is also emphasized in the Winterthur/Doha declaration of Interprofessional. Global 2023 [ 3 ].

Efforts to explore IPE from the international research community are rapidly growing [ 4 ]. Meta-analyses and scoping reviews of IPE initiatives indicate a diverse picture of IPE programmes [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Vuurberg et al. [ 8 ], in their review of research studies on IPE between 1970 and 2017, point to a paucity of research regarding the influence of collaborative work on the development of professional interpersonal skills. In recent years it has been argued that there is a potential to offer IPE in clinical placements thus providing authentic learning opportunities for students in the context of complex health care practices [ 9 ]. Interprofessional learning during clinical placements is a step forward to develop and strengthen students’ interprofessional competencies, professional identity, and confidence [ 10 , 11 ].

Several reviews regarding students’ perceptions about IPE in clinical placements mostly report positive experiences, e.g., increased communication skills and increased knowledge of each other’s roles [ 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Results also indicate increased abilities with regard to working within a team and improved communication [e.g., 15 – 16 ]. Longer periods of IPE activities seem to strengthen students’ professional identity formation and overcome traditional hierarchical prejudices that can exist in interprofessional teams [e.g., 17 – 18 ]. On the other hand, it has also been suggested [ 19 ] that the lack of attention to power and conflict in the IPE literature might indicate a neglect of the impact of organizational, structural and institutional issues; and thereby might veil the very problems that IPE attempts to solve.

Published examples of IPE activities in clinical placements have covered a wide range of types of activities as well as numbers of hours and days. Initiatives have been developed that extend over a few hours or a day. Students taking responsibility for a team round in clinical placement [ 20 ] or structured interprofessional workshops about falls prevention [ 21 ], are both examples of formal activities arranged during clinical placement periods. A workplace-driven, informal, arrangement where students on uni-professional clinical placement were engaged in interprofessional teamwork for one day [ 22 ] is another example. Interprofessional activities where students practice together for a longer period have been developed and implemented during the past 25 years. Interprofessional training wards where students work together, often for a period of around two weeks, with the overall responsibility for patients’ care, have been a successful activity developed worldwide [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. The heterogeneity of activities, educational approaches, and outcome measures, makes it difficult to compare between programmes, both at national and international levels [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. To overcome this, the importance of international collaborative efforts to research interprofessional education practices has been emphasized [ 31 ] but to date, such collaborations are scarce. In particular, there is a need for theory-based research and observational methods to discover and understand the basis of interprofessional actions and interactions [ 7 , 32 ]. Moreover, multiple site studies are needed to inform IPE educational design, since the heterogeneity of learning activities and practices varies with the different health care systems. Visser, et al. [ 33 ] in their systematic review, described barriers and enablers of IPE at an individual level but also at a process/curricular and cultural/organizational level of the educational programmes, while Pullon et al. [ 34 ] discussed the importance of paying attention to both individual and contextual factors for sustainable collaborative practice. This indicates a need for research approaches that allow broader perspectives considering not only the experiences of the individual, but also those of the local contexts where IPE is occurring. Recent theories on research on professional learning emphasize the importance of considering the complexity and dynamics of the practices and contexts, i.e., the social and material conditions under which the learning takes place [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. A scoping review highlighted the use of socio-material approaches as a theoretical lens to understand professional learning practices in IPE and interprofessional collaboration (IPC) [ 38 ]. Using a socio-material perspective makes it possible to gain a deeper understanding of how IPE practices emerge within a clinical setting, and furthermore, to develop an understanding of complex situations such as power relationships, human resource shortages in health care, patient safety and more.

In this study, the focus is on identifying how interprofessional collaboration and learning emerge when embedded in clinical practice placements designed for such purposes. The study is designed as an international, collaborative multiple-case ethnographic study. It will involve four sites of health care clinical practice situated locally in Sweden, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand. The multiple case study ethnographic research design [ 39 ] will be used in combination with Kemmis’ theory of practice architectures (TPA) [ 40 ]. This approach will make it possible to identify similarities and differences across the four countries and different sites of IPE.

Context of study

Each country has endorsed the WHO’s global call for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (IPECP) in different ways, which has been influenced by their national and local health care organization [ 2 ]. The local experience of teaching IPE, how the learning experience is designed, and for how long the students have an IPE clinical placement, varies between the four universities. Linköping University (Sweden) has long-standing experience of an IPE-curriculum including all health education programmes. UiT The Arctic University of Norway has a long history of IPE and builds on selected interprofessional learning activities including 13 health – and social programmes at the most. The University of Otago (New Zealand) has centrally organized IPE with a staged implementation strategy for all health and social services students to undertake IPE learning activities, while the University of Wollongong (Australia) is at an early phase of developing and implementing IPE across a variety of health and social programmes. The different contexts and establishment of IPE at the four sites make up a natural variation suitable for multiple case study research [ 39 ]. A summary of key contextual issues provides a background to each country (Table  1 ).

Theoretical framework – theory of practice architecture (TPA)

We will use a theoretical framework based on Kemmis’ TPA [ 36 , 40 ] (see Fig.  1 ). The TPA is increasingly being used to understand professional practice and the potential to learn in new ways. [ 36 , 37 , 40 ]. The theoretical framework uses the three recognized practice architecture dimensions of cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political, along with their associated elements. The cultural-discursive dimension includes the interactions, discourses, and words (‘sayings’) which make the professional practice understandable; this reveals what to say and think in or about a practice, and what it means. The material-economic dimension enables and constrains how people can act and interact in physical and material space (‘doings’); this reveals the different types of activities and work performed by the professionals within a physical environment and the way these ‘doings’ influence others in the same practice. The social-political dimension describes the relationships that form between individuals and groups (‘relatings’); this reveals how relationships between certain arrangements of professionals develop, their roles, and whether and how relations continue to exist or not [ 44 ]. The emphasis is therefore on the relationships between material arrangements and human actions and what these produce [ 37 ], and that these relationships are more, or less likely to happen, in certain circumstances [ 45 ].

Kemmis´ theory of practice architectures (TPA) [ 40 ] p.97. (with permission from the author)

According to TPA, IPE in clinical placements can be viewed as an organized set of actions and interactions embedded in a professional practice. This means that both human and non-human factors are considered. The focus of the study is the students’ sayings, doings and relatings with fellow students, patients, supervisors, and staff, in the complex dynamic and relational dimensions of practice, i.e. the social and material conditions under which the clinical placement or learning activity is arranged.

The aims of this research project are to identify:

how IPE in clinical placements emerges, evolves, and is enacted by students when embedded in local health care practices,

factors critical for the design of IPE for students at clinical placements across the four countries.

Four research questions (RQ) will be explored:

How do interprofessional clinical placements enable students collaborative learning activities? RQ2. How do students’ sayings, doings and relatings in practice shape interprofessional collaboration and learning?

What challenges do interprofessional clinical practice placements bring to established health care practices?

What lessons from the case studies can inform the global discourse on interprofessional educational practice?

Case study site selection

Each case study site has been purposively selected within each country and across the four countries (see Table  2 ). Purposive selection has been used to ensure maximal variation [ 46 ].

Data collection

Methodology.

Four case studies will be undertaken, one each by the local research groups based in Sweden, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand and using a common ethnographic methodology.

An ethnographic approach focuses on understanding the social processes and cultures of different contexts [ 47 ], and usually comprises a range of qualitative methods. It is recognized as a suitable research method for acquiring knowledge about how practices are arranged and interrelated within naturally occurring physical and social environments, and about the contexts in which activities and knowledge-sharing can take place [ 45 , 48 ].

The initial site visits by each respective country’s local research team will take place in late 2023 and early 2024. At each case site the researcher(s), all connected to health profession education, will use the case study observational research (CSOR) method where non-participant observation guides data collection. In the CSOR method, the direct observations of participants’ behaviours and interactions are given priority and precedence over self-reported forms of data collection, and collection of non-observational data is informed by the analysis of the observational data to enable further investigation of observations [ 49 , 50 ].

Direct observation allows the researcher to see what is occurring rather than having participants describe what they do through interviews. Observations of students will follow the naturally occurring rhythm of interprofessional activities during the day. Examples of such activities are the students planning together their daily work, encounters with patients, deliberations following their work on what seems to be proper treatment and advice for the patient in question, students interactions with staff and supervisors, and their daily reflections on how they have been working together and what they have learned. Each case site is different, and the IPE learning activities is of different length and with different learning outcomes. In each case site, researchers will act as observers of interprofessional students in action and write detailed fieldnotes or record audio memos on the interactions and their context. Field notes will also incorporate the researcher’s reflections “including feelings, actions and responses to the situation” [ 39 ]. Brief informal conversations with students may be conducted during or immediately after the observations if clarity is needed about what has been observed, and these will be recorded in the field notes [ 47 ]. Non-clinical documents may be used to support the analysis, and photographs may be collected for documenting context and to aid recall. These comprehensive observations will facilitate the systematic collection of data while still acknowledging the influence and interpretations of the researcher in the data collection process. The CSOR method will make it possible to gain access to observed actions, interactions and discussions that take place between students (sayings, doings and relatings), and between students and patients, staff, and others.

In each case, the observational data and field notes (and if needed non-clinical documentation and/or photographs for context) will be immediately circulated to the local research team and reflexive feedback provided for inclusion in the analysis. Following this rapid analysis of observational data and guided by what further data is needed or needing to be corroborated, formal interviews will be booked as soon as possible with students, patients, clinical tutors, IPE teachers and others, Formal interviews (audio recorded) will be guided by a template of core questions developed by the research project team. This common template will be augmented by other questions informed by each initial case analysis. Data will be transcribed either selectively or fully; English language translation will occur where data are being analysed for comparative analysis.

Theoretical approach

Data analysis will use TPA [ 40 ] including an analysis “tool kit” [ 51 ]. The tool kit is a theory and method package to investigate practices by the systematic interpretation of the case study data. A “zooming in – zooming out” methodological approach [ 51 ], will make visible details in a specific local practice; “zooming in” allows getting close to the practices being observed (to answer RQ1 and RQ2) and then “zooming out” allows the researcher to expand their scope and look for connections between different practices (RQ3 and RQ4). The connections between practices in the research study will be identified through focusing on the three dimensions of practice architectures: the cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political. The agreed tool kit approach will include a layered, purposeful constant comparative analysis [ 52 ], comprising three phases of individual and collaborative activities, using English as the common language. First the systematic collection and analysis of observations and field notes of those observations and other qualitative data by each local research team, will be guided by the theoretical perspective on how students interact in relation to social and material arrangements. Second, the data in each of the four case study sites will be analysed by each local research team and verified locally and collectively; this will lead to site-specific findings. Third, comparisons will be made between the four different sites by cross-checking and developing and refining the interpretations of all the data.

Practical approach

Each country will follow the data collection and analysis process outlined in the methods for their case site and each case site will be analysed separately. Each local research team will have regular meetings to ensure that a reflexive, but uniform approach is undertaken as data is collected. These meetings will also include workshops for collaborative data analysis. Monthly meetings will also be held between the four countries’ project research teams as case data collection and analysis progresses and a similar reflexive process used. This will ensure the analyses of each case follows the same process and will provide assurance of mutual understanding across sites. To enable this, anonymized observational data (and fieldnotes), interview data and photographic or document extracts will be shared, analysed and reviewed in workshops. Following completion of each case study in the four different countries, a cross-case process [ 39 ] will be undertaken. Each local research teams will first have undertaken the primary analysis, combining data from fieldnotes and interview transcript generating preliminary themes to identify the sayings, doings and relatings are emerging and connected in the efforts of collaborate around the patient. As the findings are first collated, observed aspects from students’ sayings, doings and relatings, projects and dispositions will be revealed. As a second layer of analysis, the findings will analytically be connected to practice architectures, such as the cultural-discursive, the material-economic and the socio-political arrangements. The use of a common scheme for how to document the analysis is important for comparative reasons and indicate points for shared analyses across the research teams to consider the respective results, identify similarities and differences across the four sites, and explore any learning principles that might apply to IPE internationally. It is intended for each country to use the same processes to anonymize, catalogue and code the transcribed data. The research agreement also includes a process to enable sharing of selected portions of data and coding software databases using password-protected systems [ 53 ].

Ethical approval and consent

The research group in each country will be responsible for (1) seeking ethical approval for their respective case, (2) gaining consent from each local site to undertake the respective case study, (3) establishing rules for storage of the data. The following countries have received ethical approval to proceed: Sweden (Dnr 2023-02277-01), Norway (No.889163), New Zealand (No. H23/035), Australia (underway).

Establishing trustworthiness

The following processes and definitions proposed by Korstjens and Moser [ 54 ] based on Lincoln and Guba [ 55 ] will be used to ensure trustworthiness in the implementation of this study (Table  3 ).

A timeline for the research project has been established (Table  4 ).

This research project is innovative as it takes an international approach to a globally identified educational challenge regarding methods to design and implement IPE in clinical practice settings. The approach, using case studies in four different countries, will explicitly acknowledge that educational phenomena and learning are contextually bound and situated and that although each country involved is different, common learning can be gained.

It is hoped that the four case studies will lead to new understanding and conceptualization of how IPE can be arranged within and across diverse contexts, languages, and local conditions. Furthermore, the cases may establish some of the challenges interprofessional clinical placements for students may bring to existing or established health care practices.

It is recognized however that while each country’s case will lead to new understanding for that country, it may be challenging to establish cross country learning as the context of each may be very different. Although English language will be adopted for communication, there may be subtle differences in how language is used and understood between English and non-English speaking countries, as well as between English speaking countries.

Taking account of local context as well as developing joint findings will be a challenge. The TPA will give opportunities to identify and analyse how students´ interprofessional clinical activities are embedded in the complex practice of routine health care at a local level within each country, and between countries. The theory will make it possible to capture how the students act in practice and how they relate to each other in clinical placements. It is hoped it will also show how clinical and interprofessional practices are influenced through the three different dimensions (cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political) and if these may construct, enable, or constrain practice work and knowledge-sharing. Possible examples may include: (1) the influence of a discipline’s language or discourse; the way of speaking that forms the framework for understanding themselves and others, (2) the arrangement of a health care setting; the way the environment influences where students can meet and work together (e.g. patient care rooms, rooms used for ward rounds and corridors), and (3) the development of relationships; the way social norms and political influences impact on relationships between different disciplines and groups [ 40 , 45 ]. It is possible when the analysis progresses that the three dimensions referred to above may show nuanced differences between countries which previously have been difficult to articulate and account for.

Undertaking this international collaborative research is important for IPE research going forward. International collaborative research projects in IPE are rare but have been recommended for the consolidation and growth of the IPE research knowledge base [ 31 ].

The design of IPE in clinical placements should be informed by evidence and best practice. This includes using theoretical approaches which can be replicated or further developed, such as the TPA.

This research will advance a model of IPE based on TPA. It will provide new understanding and conceptualization of how IPE can be arranged across diverse contexts and local conditions, but with a common aim to provide collaborative practice-ready graduates able to respond to the increasing healthcare demands of the future.

Therefore, the broader impact of the proposed study is expected to contribute to: (1) the local and international educational IPE community regarding design of IPE in clinical practice, and (2) the international IPE research community regarding how IPE in practice can be collaboratively researched.

Data availability

Selected data will be reported in the Results section but will not be available as datasets.

Abbreviations

Case Study Observational Research

Interprofessional Education

Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice

Interprofessional Collaboration

Theory of Practice Architectures

World Health Organisation

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Acknowledgements

The research team gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the advisor: Nick Hopwood, Professor of Professional Learning, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Open access funding provided by Linköping University. This study is funded by the Swedish Research Council: 2022–03210. The funder had no role in the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of the data; writing of the protocol, or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Open access funding provided by Linköping University.

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Contributions

ALF, MAD, JD, BN, AI, KM, EM & LG contributed to the conception and design of the overall study. ALF is the overall Principal investigator (PI) and PI of the Swedish case study; AI is the PI of the Norwegian case study, KM is the PI of the Australian case study, EM is the PI of the New Zealand case study. ALF, MAD & JD developed the analysis plan. JD drafted the initial protocol. ALF, MAD, JD, BN, AI, KM, EM, LG, SM & JM revised the protocol critically for important intellectual content and read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.

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Correspondence to Annika Lindh Falk .

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Ethical approval.

Sweden: Approved by Swedish Ethical Review Authority. Dnr 2023-02277-01. Each participant will be asked to give signed consent to take part in the case study.

Norway: Approved by Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research, reference number: 889163. Each participant will be asked to give signed consent to take part in the case study.

Australia: Ethical approval is underway.

New Zealand: Approved by the University of Otago Ethics Committee reference number H23/035. Each participant will be asked to give signed consent to take part in the case study.

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Lindh Falk, A., Abrandt Dahlgren, M., Dahlberg, J. et al. ALLin4IPE- an international research study on interprofessional health professions education: a protocol for an ethnographic multiple-case study of practice architectures in sites of students’ interprofessional clinical placements across four universities. BMC Med Educ 24 , 940 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05902-4

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Received : 28 November 2023

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05902-4

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