Role: Product Design Director (player/coach)
Collaborators: UX Designer, Illustrator/Animator, Content Lead, Product Manager, Development Lead
Collaborators: UX Designer, Illustrator/Animator, Content Lead, Product Manager, Development Lead
Creating Micro-Learning Experiences
A significant number of adults struggle with managing their finances. To address this, EverFi created Achieve – a mobile-friendly platform intended to provide financial literacy learning experiences for adults. Though a great tool, some challenges needed to be addressed. Achieve was not built on a design system nor with patterns, making each module cumbersome and time-consuming to create. Additionally, for a financial literacy course, Achieve was text-heavy, lacked visual aesthetics, and desperately needed interactions and simulations to help convey certain financial concepts.
To address these issues, my team and I set out to make significant enhancements to make Achieve a more "just-in-time" micro-learning experience, creating systems, interaction patterns, and a visual library. Our goal was to make Achieve a more engaging, user-friendly tool.
We embarked on research-based findings to give Achieve a much-needed experience enhancement for our users.
Updated Design System and Interaction Patterns: I led a team of product and UX designers, animators, and illustrators to create a user-centered and visually appealing suite of dynamic learning modules. We established a fresh library of patterns, interactions, and illustration spot art library to optimize efficiency, scalability, and consistency when making new modules.
I partnered with our Principal Systems Designer to migrate the design system from Chaplin (components written in Handlebar) to React, increasing component efficiency and scalability.
Prioritizing User Needs: In collaboration with our content design leads, we were able to strategize how we'd convey clear and concise communication of complex financial concepts in a way that resonated with users in a way that didn't overwhelm cognitive load. Practices like ungated interactions and quizzes allowed them to navigate at their own pace, allowing them to take time to understand concepts instead of feeling pressured to move forward when they weren't ready.
Self-Guided Personalized Learning: Another enhancement was sub-dividing the learning material into bite-sized micro experiences, allowing users to learn concepts even if they only had a few minutes. This gave a good mix of experiences that could be as short as 3-5 minutes, or as long as 10-15 minutes. To keep the concept engaging we used interactive elements like simulations, gamification, and quizzes to help solidify knowledge retention.
The platform allows users to choose topics based on their needs and interests, fostering a more relevant and engaging experience.
Compelling and Accessible Visuals: We used illustrations, animations, and infographics to simplify complex financial concepts and make the learning experience visually appealing. EverFi prioritizes web accessibility, so our team focused on striking a balance between engaging visuals and ensuring all information could be understood by users with screen readers.
The Impact of One of EverFi's Most Prolific Products
Throughout its existence, EverFi has partnered with over 900 financial institutions to use Achieve to empower 20 million adult learners with the knowledge and skills to make informed financial decisions. It became a significant revenue generator for EverFi, contributing 25% of its ARR with a 77% renewal rate. The user-friendly interface and engaging content have received positive feedback from users, highlighting the effectiveness of the design approach. It was an honor to be part of its continuous growth.
