CASE STUDY
How I helped LinkedIn avoid millions in unnecessary development costs
LinkedIn Learning's internal content production platform, Milton, had grown into 200+ screens of FileMaker-based complexity, and a critical migration risked simply rebuilding all of it. I mapped real usage against system architecture, found that roughly 17% was dead weight, and turned a high risk migration into a focused roadmap that saved several million dollars before a line of new code was written.
- 200+
- Screens audited
- ~17%
- Obsolete system parts identified
- 110+
- Active users affected
“The system was successfully migrated and now powers one of the largest content creation pipelines in the industry. Clemens’ groundwork was a meaningful part of why that was possible.”
— Thomas Lauter, Senior Product Manager, LinkedIn
Project Deep Dive
From Interface Bloat to Structural Clarity
Auditing 200+ screens before migration
Instead of starting with UI improvements, I treated the system as an Information Domain. I conducted a quantitative and qualitative audit to cross-reference feature availability with actual operational necessity. This revealed a significant gap: the product had evolved over many years through acquisitions, legacy systems, and continuous feature additions. Rather than being intentionally designed as a unified experience, it had become a patchwork of overlapping functionality and inconsistent workflows.
Identifying obsolete functionality
By tracking usage patterns and interviewing power users across different groups, I pinpointed features that were either redundant, broken, or bypassed by manual workarounds. Eliminating this 17% before migration wasn't just about "cleaning up" — it was a strategic move to reduce the future maintenance burden and simplify the mental model for over 100 active users.
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Reduction in Total
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Reduction per Section
Reducing migration risk with evidence
Migration projects often stall due to fear of breaking unknown dependencies. My work translated fragmented user input into decision-relevant artifacts like System Maps and Gap Analyses that made the invisible visible. The goal was not just documentation but decision clarity: giving engineering and leadership a shared, evidence-based foundation to authorize radical architectural simplification with confidence.
“His ability to interpret all the incoming data from this group and elegantly rework it into a new, modern design gave me great confidence in the build and ultimate migration process.”
— Josh Olenslager, Director, LinkedIn Learning
Reducing friction at team handovers
I initiated and led “Cross-Functional Deep Dives” focused exclusively on the handover points between departments (e.g., Contracting, Production, Editing). By visualizing the end-to-end lifecycle and aligning teams around shared operational artifacts, I re-established collaboration and significantly optimized the delivery pipeline, reducing friction and information loss during internal handovers.
Building stakeholder confidence
Working on-site at the Carpinteria campus allowed for high-bandwidth alignment with US-based stakeholders. I translated fragmented operational input into decision-relevant artifacts, providing the Director-level confidence needed to authorize radical architectural simplifications and ensure the new architecture supported long-term business goals.
From research to interaction model
The structural analysis was not the endpoint — it was the foundation. Based on the research findings, I redesigned the interaction model for the core workflows: new screen architectures, consolidated user flows, and interaction patterns rebuilt around how work actually happened rather than how the system had assumed it happened.
This work was developed iteratively with the affected teams — and led in collaboration with three designers I onboarded and guided through the project, including on-site research sessions at the LinkedIn Learning campus. The result was not a redesign handed down from the outside, but one built from inside the operational reality of the teams using the system.
Read another case study
This isn't the only example of my work. Explore another case study to see how I helped organizations tackle different challenges through strategic thinking, cross-functional collaboration and evidence-based decisions.
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- COST AVOIDED
- COMPLEXITY REDUCED
Building a product-led UX organisation across three motorcycle brands
UX specialists were assigned on demand, without clear ownership, prioritisation or a strategic voice. I transformed the setup into a scalable, product-aligned UX organisation across KTM, Husqvarna and GASGAS.