• Improving UX Flows

    For much of 2019 and 2020, my full-time role was a Content Designer for various online learning platforms. I grew from assisting editors and project managers to leading a small content team of digital curriculum designers.

    Team 1: Peterson's (Denver, CO)

    Team 2: Amplifire (Boulder, CO)

    Date: Oct 2019 - Dec 2020

    Role: Lead Content Designer

     

    Managed: Team of 3 Curriculum Designers

    Collaborated With: Editors and Subject-Matter Experts, Director of Content, Client Stakeholders, UX/UI Designer, Front-end Developers
    Tools Used: Brightspace LMS
    HTML/CSS, InVision

    Challenges:

    • Content Design: Design and manage user-focused online curriculum for multiple clients at a time, considering content structure and architecture, SME input, client priorities, instructional design principles, and LMS capabilities.
    • UX Writing: Create user-focused microcopy for app in development, including onboarding screens and UI elements
    • Manage created courses and iterate content to better fit user needs and client requests

     

    Deliverables:

    • Course content architecture outlines for each curriculum
    • Course mapping of all interactive elements used in lessons
    • Online Content Style Guide for the company, as well as ensuring curriculum designers follow client-specific style guides
    • UI/UX microcopy for online learning app

  • Individualized User Paths:
    Design Challenge Workflow

    One design challenge that Peterson's faced with a large client was a request to create individualized learning paths for each of their users. This client had over 5k users they wanted to enroll but the users, who were working full time concurrently, were often hesitant to participate due to time constraints and the considerable size of the course.

     

    Much of the content was from a high school curriculum and could be considered a refresher course for many but completion rates were low due to users getting lost in the amount of content available.

  • 1

    Background / Challenge

    Business Goals:

    • Create individualized user learning paths (Client's request)
    • Reduce our expenses by utilizing the LMS's main capabailities rather than add-on packages
    User Goals:
    • Provide a more personalized learning experience for users
    • Reduce repetitive or unnecessary learning units to save time for users
    2

    Approach / Solution

    • After researching release conditions offered natively within our LMS, I developed an onboarding pretest for users
    • Each question on the pretest was paired with a particular content topic
    • A certain percentage of questions answered incorrectly would result in the related content unlocking for users
    • After the onboarding pretest was complete, the system automatically released individualized content based on those user responses
    3

    Data / Results

    • Clients satisfied with individualized learning paths for their users
    • After implementing the learning paths, the number of enrolled users increased significantly
    • The number of users completing the entire course also increased as they were only required to complete sections they most needed based on the pretest
    • Saved our company $20k by using options available rather than upgrading add-on packages

  • App Onboarding Copy:

    Design Challenge Workflow

    The development team at Peterson's was tasked to create an in-house app for their e-learning platform by company execs. There wasn't a specific app dev team, rather those of us with particular skills were pulled over to assist with the apps design and development in addition to our other projects.

    As the only one on the team with UX writing experience, I took over the onboarding screens as the first part of the project uplift. The app would be used by a wide range of clients, including academic and military, and the language had to be inclusive for all learners that chose to use the mobile app over the desktop version. However, the first users would be active military members and had very specific needs from the app that the microcopy needed to reflect.

  • 1

    Background / Challenge

    Business Goals:

    • Craft a simple, concise, and inclusive onboarding experience that spoke to all clients but stayed in tune with company branding and voice
    • Promote unique features to users in an organic way to demonstrate the company's adherance to current educational trends
    User Goals:
    • Explain the basic uses and features of the app in a succinct onboarding experience
    • Showcase the features the app offered that were not available in desktop
    2

    Approach / Solution

    • Because the app would be unrolled to one client before others, we had to choose language that those specific client's users would understand that would also be accessible and understandable to a wider audience once the app unrolled for all clients
    • The main users of the app would be utilizing it when their computers were unavailable, therefore we had to quickly educate users on the unique mobile features that would make their learning experience seamless between the two
    • The app wasn't quite capable of offline syncing so we had to come up with a positive way to explain the gap to learners
    • Since users were on the go and often only had a little time available to study, I chose the second screen after "Welcome" to highlight the microlearning feature; this way users would be more comfortable knowing they could squeeze app use in even when they only had a few minutes to learn
    • As the offline feature was only available as a downloadable package, I chose very specific wording in the third screen to explain this but still show it as a positive to users who might be without wifi for long periods of time but who still wanted to progress their studies
    • The execs wanted to entice users to learn more actively while the clients wanted measurable results for learning progess, so our team decided to highlight the gamification features such as badges and certificates in the final onboarding screen to meet both of those needs while keeping onboarding short for users
    3

    Data / Results

    • Clients expressed satisfaction with the succinct onboarding process
    • Execs were pleased that we highlighted two major features: the microlearning and the gamification
    • Marketing also used those same feature highlights for the app store descriptions
    • App was launched in March 2021 and has had over 100 downloads on the Google Play Store (July 2021)

  •  

    Scroll through the images below to view delivered course architecture, style guides, and app screens.

  • By the numbers:

    $20k

    Saved for the company by
    redesigning available resources

    5k

    Users enrolled in redesigned course

    4.7 stars

    Average rating on both Google Play & Apple App Store

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