HOMESCHOOL+
UX/UI
Responsive Design
Accessibility
OVERVIEW
Homeschool+ is a customized learning platform supporting home educators. The product was newly launched and needed to establish itself in a competitive homeschooling market. I was responsible expanding the product website beyond the landing page, helping home educators make informed decisions. Through creating a user-centered, research-driven educational resource, my designs increased the conversion rate by 300%.
PROBLEM
How might we help home educators make informed decisions in a saturated market?
After 6 months on the market, Homeschool+ only had a rudimentary text-heavy product page available to home educators and was struggling to gain traction in a saturated market. Here are some of the issues we addressed:
BREAKDOWN OF THE PROBLEM
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Home educators needed more digestible information about the product to make informed decisions.
Long text-heavy pages were the only information available for users to parse through.
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Providing value through educational resources and building credibility.
Choosing a curriculum is a high-stakes investment for home educators. Users needed to see evidence of educational value.
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Tailoring the user journey for diverse user needs.
The existing experience didn't account for different user paths (ex. the first-time home-schooler vs. the experienced one looking to switch tools).
SOLUTION
We expanded the experience from a text-heavy product landing page into a research-driven educational resource for home educators, increasing the conversion rate by 300%.
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Learn about the Homeschool+ research-backed curriculum.
The information on grades, subjects, and courses available within Homeschool+ were given a refreshed experience that was easy to digest.
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Find resources by educational experts to navigate homeschooling.
We built a blog with articles that helped home educators with a range of relevant resources such as "How to Teach a Struggling Reader" and "Homeschooling Laws in different states".
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Tailored for a diverse user base looking for information.
We built user pathways for both beginner homeschoolers and more experienced home educators by targeting the most searched-for queries.
STRATEGIC APPROACH & DESIGN PROCESS
In order to reach home educators and stand out in an oversaturated homeschooling space, our goals were to provide real educational value to home educators while clearly communicating the benefits of Homeschool+ as a tool. Our target users are making critical decisions about their child's learning, which required trust, clarity, and relevance.
In collaboration with SEO, my approach was a user-centered strategy of a content-rich website designed to support home educators through their decision-making journey.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
To position ourselves effectively, I conducted a competitive analysis of other learning curriculum websites geared towards home educators. This helped identify opportunities to provide the most value for time-crunched users, streamline the experience for today's digitally savvy homeschoolers, and also bring more joyful design sensibilities to the existing corporate-leaning visual language.
TRANSLATING INSIGHTS INTO KEY DECISIONS
Text-only information about the curriculum's grades, subjects, and courses was difficult to parse through for users. I refreshed the experience to be more easily digestible and added more joyful design.
Collaborating with SEO and curriculum experts, I built out and designed content-rich resources that accounted for different user pathways and needs.
An unobtrusive sidebar banner was utilized instead of interrupting users with marketing.
The banner also contained useful buttons leading to the most relevant information.
NAVIGATING CHALLENGES/ROADBLOCKS & CONSTRAINTS
This project required navigating unique roadblocks and constraints typical of a new product in a rapidly evolving environment.
➔ Design Limitations
No established style guide and a limited approved design asset library meant I had to simultaneously define a visual language and design the experience.
All design and content decisions had to go through rigorous review by stakeholders and legal.
I focused on the simplest, most effective ways to achieve user goals. This meant content-focused solutions that were faster to build and easier to maintain.
➔ A product in constant flux
As a brand new product, core aspects of the product, including pricing and feature plans, were constantly changing.
I moved fast and adapted designs efficiently by being proactive with communication.
➔ Technical Limitations
Engineering constraints due to a limited proprietary code meant interactive elements became major development tasks.
Our resources were also constrained due to minimal engineering support because of lack of staff.
I made deliberate decisions about which design features to cut to preserve the core user experience.
Instead of treating these as blockers, I treated them as design parameters. Even with limited resources we were able to achieve significant results.
I designed and collaborated with my team to build an experience that answered critical homeschooling questions, provided research-backed resources to build trust, and clearly demonstrated the unique benefits of Homeschool+ as a tool.
SOLUTION
Final Outcome: Homeschool+
Homeschool+ is a customized learning platform supporting home educators.
Find research-driven information that you need as a home educator and utilize Homeschool+ as a tool for your customized learning needs.
REFLECTION:
MY THOUGHTS ON THIS PROJECT + LESSONS LEARNED
Key takeaway: New products are always in flux, but designers can still provide value to users even with limited resources.
Homeschooling is a very saturated market and Homeschool+ was still a very new product. Through resourcefulness, I was able to elevate the experience of the Homeschool+ product pages by targeting what information home educators needed most.
