My Role
I led the design efforts for an education tech startup called Plexuss. Among those efforts was designing an entire social platform, a mobile app, three separate brands and identities, several internal tools, digital and print marketing, physical merchandise and much more. In addition to design, I helped create a streamlined product to development process, ensured a seamless Q/A flow and made sure culture morale was up for our small but mighty team.
What did I learn?
That priorities shift endlessly but small achievements can move mountains when executed right.
Being on the same page is game changer.
Intellectual honesty: Nothing will go exactly as you envision it.
There will always be bugs.
What we built
A student platform with over 11 million students
An all in one mobile app and website for students on their college journey
Household brand in education technology
Free Homework & College Help
We noticed students were asking college admissions questions alongside homework help. After gathering feedback, we launched a dedicated space for admissions questions, along with features like college readiness reports and favorites management. It evolved into its own mini app within the platform.
Homework Help quickly became Plexuss' second most popular feature after Scholarships.
About Plexuss
Challenges
#1 Eliminating barriers instead of creating more
I focused on reducing friction in the student onboarding process by researching competitors and advocating for A/B testing. I presented Hotjar recordings, data, and real-world scenarios to highlight points of friction while supporting improvements. Changes lead to increased signups. less drop-off and significantly reduced the number of tickets.
#2 Production to development process
Early in my product role, I identified inefficiencies in our process and researched better ways to manage issues. By implementing Jam.dev for bug capturing and Linear.app for tracking, we reduced development/QA time by 33% and improved the accuracy of mockup-to-product implementation.
I wrote an article on our product to development process which goes more in depth of the hurdles and iterations.
Walnut Creek, CA