The problem surfaced in usability testing
Imagine you're a Grade 7 teacher browsing for lesson ideas on a Sunday evening. You discover an engaging collection of hands-on science activities that would be perfect for tomorrow's class. The only problem? There's no way to save them for later. By Monday morning, you're back to searching from scratch.
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This was a common experience for educators using the platform. Beyond the inability to save resources, teachers struggled to quickly find content aligned with their grade level or curriculum and had no easy way to track outreach requests without contacting support. While a navigation update temporarily improved content discovery, it addressed only one symptom of a much larger experience problem.
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Rather than designing another isolated feature, I wanted to understand the entire educator experience. I mapped the end-to-end user journey, from discovering resources, to evaluating and saving content, to returning and engaging with the platform over time. This holistic view revealed where friction accumulated and why educators were disengaging before they could realize the platform's value.
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The journey map uncovered several opportunity areas that extended well beyond navigation. To ensure these insights reflected real organizational and user needs, I collaborated with Insights and Program Leads to validate the findings, prioritize the opportunities, and identify where the greatest impact could be made.
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Three problems, one connected system
After validating the opportunity areas with stakeholders and reviewing educator feedback from usability testing, I moved into the first design iteration. One insight stood out consistently: educators wanted quicker access to resources that were immediately relevant to the classes they taught, without having to repeatedly filter through unrelated content.
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To address this, I introduced a personalized experience powered by information collected during registration. An educator's selected grade level became the foundation for tailoring the platform, surfacing STEM events, projects, and teaching resources most relevant to their classroom.
For example, a Grade 3 teacher would automatically see content curated for Grade 3 learners, reducing the time spent searching and increasing the likelihood of discovering useful material.
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Recognizing that teaching assignments can change from year to year, I also ensured educators could update their grade level at any time through their account settings, allowing the platform to adapt alongside their evolving needs.
Sharing, bookmarking and saving for later
Usability testing surfaced a clear pattern: educators wanted to save resources for later, share them with colleagues, and quickly judge whether a resource was worth their time, seeing at a glance: how long an activity would take, how much prep it required, and whether it matched their provincial curriculum.
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To solve for this, I designed a bookmarking feature that surfaces the key decision-making information at a glance - estimated time, prep level, and curriculum relevance, so educators can judge fit before clicking in, rather than digging through a resource to find out. I also added a lightweight social proof signal, showing how many educators had engaged with a resource that week, to help teachers gauge quality and relevance quickly when browsing unfamiliar content.
Status Request Updates
Usability testing also revealed that educators had no visibility into the status of their outreach requests once submitted, and the only way to check progress was to email customer service directly and wait for a reply, often leaving educators uncertain whether their request had even been received.
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To solve for this, I designed a real-time notification system that surfaces status updates directly within the dashboard, removing the need for educators to leave the platform or wait on email. This also benefited customer service staff, who could update a request's status directly and have that change reflected instantly for the educator — closing the communication loop for both sides rather than just one.
Technical reality shaped the design
During the development of MVP 1.0, ahead of usability testing with educators, several technical constraints emerged that influenced the final implementation. Drupal was not consistently populating content card data, resulting in incomplete or unreliable resource previews. At the same time, integration challenges between Canvas LMS and the third-party LMS application created permission conflicts, preventing course progress from being surfaced as originally intended.
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Rather than delaying the release, the team and I reassessed the scope of the MVP. I designed fallback states to ensure the experience remained functional despite missing data and worked with stakeholders to identify which features should be deferred to a future iteration. These constraints ultimately helped shape the MVP, balancing technical feasibility with the core user needs we had identified through research.
Navigating stakeholder tension
During internal stakeholder testing, another important challenge surfaced. Because the dashboard was built as a separate Drupal application, accessing it required users to leave the main website, creating a disconnected experience. Stakeholders expressed concern that this would interrupt the educator journey, reduce traffic to the primary site, and ultimately weaken engagement with other platform content.
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This feedback exposed a key product tension: while the dashboard needed its own interactions and functionality, stakeholders also wanted a seamless experience that maintained a single login, consistent branding, and continuity with the main website. Rather than treating these as competing priorities, I documented them as design constraints to inform future iterations, where tighter integration and a more cohesive cross-platform experience would become key objectives.
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Outcome: validated by users, paused by stakeholders
When evaluated with educators, the MVP received positive feedback and validated many of the core design decisions. Educators responded well to the personalized experience and found the concept valuable for discovering and returning to relevant STEM resources.
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However, stakeholders did not yet have sufficient confidence to move forward with a public launch. Given the MVP's limited scope and the technical constraints identified during development, they felt additional refinement was needed before the experience could be released at scale.
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Rather than viewing this as a setback, the team treated it as a deliberate iteration point. Feedback from both educators and stakeholders is now informing Version 2, with a focus on resolving the original technical limitations, strengthening platform integration, and expanding the feature set to better support both user needs and business objectives.
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