Education.com
Process
I was the sole designer on the Parent Teacher Team at Education.com, focusing on Premium features available exclusively to paying subscribers. I collaborated with a PM, three engineers, and a UX researcher who worked across all teams.
Context
Education.com provided worksheets and games to students, parents, and educators, serving nearly 35 million users across more than 20 countries, with 10,000 new members joining every day.
Improving the Premium Experience
One of the most popular Premium features was the ability for parents and educators to bundle worksheets and games into assignments for students. This feature was crucial for product adoption and retention, directly contributing to Education.com’s value proposition of personalized learning.
Identifying Problems
Through a Slack channel called #cstechhelp, where the customer success team relayed questions and complaints, I noticed recurring issues with the assignments feature. One particularly frustrated customer wrote,
"Why are my students locked out of math, reading, and typing? They cannot access it. PLEASE CONTACT ME; I NEED HELP. EITHER THAT OR CONTACT ME SO I CAN GET A FULL REFUND. THIS IS RIDICULOUS."
Recognizing a pattern, I reviewed all the messages related to assignments and discovered that while users saw the value in the feature, they struggled with how to get started and use it effectively.
Driving Change
Over the holidays, I conducted user testing to uncover specific issues with the assignments feature. I then created a redesign and advocated for it with my PM and the team, using qualitative research to demonstrate that personalization was a key driver of engagement for both parents and teachers.
Result
Following the redesign, the head of customer success shared,
“The update you made to the assignments page, clearly distinguishing between mandatory and optional tasks, has completely resolved the issues we were facing. We haven't had any problems since.”
She added,
“The previous workflow was difficult to navigate and not intuitive at all. The simple addition of the clickable lock made the process incredibly smooth and easy!”
As a result, customer support tickets related to the assignments feature dropped to zero.
