COURSERA  /  2017

Degree Home

A one-stop home for degree learners to find all degree-related essentials.

As the main designer, I built a customized and focused experience to help degree learners manage their coursework and all of their degree-related tasks. This was a large cross-functional effort that required teaming up with all departments in the entire company.

THE CHALLENGE

Adapting and scaling degree programs for online learning

Taking an in-person degree program already poses its own challenges, but bringing it to the virtual world is a completely different story. Converting the traditional on-campus model to the digital realm is a long, but worthwhile process. From application start to graduation, there are plenty of steps in between that require a critical amount of detail and attention.

Coursera has recently started to host online degree programs just two years ago, but the traditional MOOC (massive open online course) model didn't adapt quite well to the degree. In light of this, we would have to construct a different experience dedicated to degree learners.

Opportunity

As the number of degree students increases on our platform, we will need a custom-built experience to scale and to provide the best value for our learners.

Goals

Our goal is to create a Degree Learning Experience that enables enrolled Degree learners to: 1. Understand what they need to do in the immediate week and weeks ahead for easy planning, 2. See the progress they've made so far, 3. Understand how to catch up if they are behind, 4. View live events, and 5. know who to reach out to for help if they need it.

Who are we building this for?

Degree learners on Coursera. These learners need a specialized experience to help them succeed in all of the coursework that occur in their Degree. These learners all have different schedules, motivations, and goals that we have to account for.

THE EXPERIENCE

Degree Learner Journey

OLD EXPERIENCE

Juggling multiple platforms to find what you need

Learners often manage two platforms (sometimes even three) that are starkly different to access the same content. 

PAINPOINTS

Where today's experience causes confusion

1.  On Coursera, degree courses are intermixed with mooc courses that aren't apart of the program.
2.  There is no centralized place to see all things degree-related.
3.  It’s hard to juggle due dates for assignments across multiple courses.
4.  Learners access different tools regularly throughout their experience and can't locate them.
5.  Coursework is handled on two platforms which is cumbersome to keep track of.

APPROACH

Learn about the students, interview, test, and build.

Learn about the students and their obstacles. We quickly got to the drawing board and plenty of insightful research from the past to work with and kept in mind the personas from our degree learners. We felt the pain of our learners on their current journey and explored a variety of potential solutions. 

Insights and trends from research. We conducted user research sessions with current degree learners to have them compare to their current experience. After several rounds of research, we saw visible patterns in what users wanted. We got back to the drawing board and iterated to come up with our final concept.

OUTCOME

An experience tailored to degree learners

No more searching long and far, there's a degree home for everything you need.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

As the degree home rolled out to learners, we've been able to garner a lot of positive feedback and have felt that this was something that was vital to the degree experience. This new space provides an opportunity for us to expand its potential and house more helpful features for learners. Now students no longer have to bounce between multiple platforms and bookmark multiple sites to get to what they need. This home helps centralize everything so learners can concentrate what really matters: learning.

Rolled out to 100% of degree learners and they are loving it! 
*After I left, this product has contributed to the massive growth of the company and eventually led to helping the company IPO in 2021.