Product Designer
2021-2023
From 4 to 13+ over time
I helped create and co-led an initiative at Prodigy to fundamentally improve a 10 year old design from the ground up. Our goals were to create a engaging virtual playground for students could both learn and play in 11-minute sessions.
Key outcomes
Raised DAU by about 13% (~260K of ~2M), by shifting core user behaviour towards meaning interactions, it resulted in a sustainable DAU lift without relying on paid user acquisition.
~$19M+ USD generated in it's first year of rollout: raising the LTV of users through a deeper product experience, resulting in a growth loop.
Helped create a flexible process to iterate with developers in real time at Prodigy.
Created a modular design system and handoff protocol to iterate quickly with developers.
We chose the battle system as the ground zero for these designs as there is a direct correlation with the number of battles/DAU and product conversion. The previous system did not meet these goals, it failed to effectively drive player engagement across all segments of players, demonstrated by fading player engagement over time.
Working firstly with a small team at kickoff, I explored the needs of both game designers and students through early and frequent UI iterations. These early iterations were then validated and iterated upon in multiple rounds of user testing, and helped align the vision and refine game-design scope.
Our key pain point was designing for a wide range of ages and reading abilities. Through multiple iterations, we focused on creating intuitive, focused interface patterns with high visual clarity. This, along with close proximity with the development team, allowed us to refine constantly and prototype in high fidelity in real time.
The result was a project that succeeded in delivering a fundamental improvements on a per session basis to Prodigy: setting up thoroughly engaging designed experiences for kids to both enjoy and learn in. It resulted in a DAU increase in battles per session of 13% across 2M+ daily players (20M+ yearly).
Project facilitators
Led discovery to identify core needs and constraints
Prototyped early and often to define core usability needs
Co-owned user-testing through multiple rounds and iterations.
Worked alongside engineering to refine both interactions and micro interactions.
