The Challenge
Teachers were spending significant time navigating through dense lesson builders and static worksheets, with little flexibility or insight into how assignments aligned to curriculum standards.
The existing tool forced educators through a cumbersome, linear creation flow that required too many manual steps and offered no intelligent guidance around grade-level objectives.
Educators had no way to preview the student-facing experience before publishing — leading to misaligned assignments, wasted class time, and low confidence in the tool.
Assignment creation was entirely disconnected from classroom performance data, making it impossible for teachers to act on what they were seeing in student results.
The Solution
What We Designed
We designed a streamlined AI-assisted creation flow that guides educators from intent to published assignment in three steps. The interface surfaces curriculum-aligned math challenges automatically, with a full preview of the student experience before publishing.
What We Built
The Assignment Creator integrated directly with the Mathstroverse standards database and AI recommendation engine, surfacing grade-appropriate challenges instantly. Real-time difficulty previews and one-click curriculum alignment removed the biggest friction points for educators.
What Made It Unique
- AI-suggested math challenges aligned to grade-level curriculum standards automatically
- Live student-experience preview before publishing — no more post-publish surprises
- Sub-5-minute assignment creation from start to publish
- Direct integration with the Performance Dashboard for closed-loop insight
- Flexible customization: mix ready-made and AI-suggested challenges in a single assignment
The Process
Discovery & Teacher Research
Weeks 1–3Conducted contextual interviews and observation sessions with classroom educators to map their existing assignment creation workflow and identify the highest-friction moments.
Jobs-to-be-Done Analysis
Weeks 3–4Synthesized research into core teacher jobs: build fast, align to standards, preview the student experience, and track results. Each became a design success criterion.
Conceptual Design & Flows
Weeks 4–7Designed and iterated on the core creation flow, from browsing the challenge library to customizing and publishing. Explored AI surfacing patterns to minimize teacher effort.
Prototyping & Educator Testing
Weeks 7–11Built interactive prototypes and tested with 15 classroom teachers. Iterated on the library browsing experience, standard-tagging UI, and preview mode based on direct feedback.
High-Fidelity Design
Weeks 11–15Delivered final designs for the Assignment Creator, including empty states, error handling, mobile responsiveness, and integration touchpoints with the Performance Dashboard.
Launch & Iteration
Weeks 15–18Launched to a pilot cohort of 50 educators, monitored time-to-publish metrics, and iterated based on in-app feedback and support tickets.
What We Built
A comprehensive solution covering strategy, design, development, and growth.
Product Strategy
Defined the educator portal roadmap, scoped the Assignment Creator MVP, and established success metrics around time-to-publish and curriculum alignment rates.
UX Research
Contextual interviews, usability testing with 15 educators, and jobs-to-be-done analysis to ground every design decision in real classroom needs.
UX & UI Design
Full Assignment Creator flow: challenge library, AI recommendation UI, customization panel, curriculum alignment tagging, and student preview mode.
AI Integration Design
Designed AI recommendation surfacing patterns — ensuring suggestions felt helpful, not overwhelming, and were easy to accept, modify, or dismiss.
Systems Design
Contributed reusable components to the Mathstroverse design system: assignment cards, standard tags, difficulty indicators, and preview states.
Growth Optimization
Post-launch analysis of time-to-publish funnels and iteration based on pilot cohort performance data.
The Results
Real metrics that demonstrate the impact of strategic design and engineering.
Down from a 20+ minute baseline
Usability validated with real classroom teachers
As Lead Product Designer on the platform
Assignment Creator, Performance Dashboard, Student Portal
Automatic standard-tagging reducing manual effort
Eliminates post-publish rework for educators
“The Assignment Creator transformed how our teachers work. What used to take 20 minutes now takes under 5, and the curriculum alignment is automatic. Teachers finally feel like the tool is working for them, not against them.”
Tech Stack
Modern, scalable technologies chosen for performance and developer experience.
Design
Research
Platform
Tools
Why It Worked
Teacher-Centered Research
Every design decision started with real educator input. Contextual research surfaced pain points that no internal team had previously mapped.
AI as a Collaborator, Not a Gimmick
The AI recommendation engine was designed to reduce effort, not impress. Surfacing relevant challenges automatically removed the biggest time sink in the creation flow.
Closed-Loop Design
Connecting assignment creation directly to the Performance Dashboard meant teachers could see the impact of their assignments and improve over time.
Iteration with Real Classrooms
Testing with 15 active educators — not internal testers — meant the final product reflected real classroom constraints and workflows.