Michael Clifford
Prodigy Education
Company Vision
“We want to help students around the world to love learning.”
About
A fast-growing education startup that has grown organically to capture 50% of the US and Canadian market. Prodigy is a popular math based game for students in Grades 1-8 offering companion web-based apps for parents, teachers, and school administrators and also offers online tutoring.
my role
I led a team of three Product Designers working across several different applications, growth initiatives, and the Prodigy design system. Designed an entirely new educational product from concept to validated product market fit. I also helped shape a new online tutoring product which established a new revenue model for the company.
THE CHALLENGE
School administrators have very little time and limited access to reliable data about their students without intrusive testing, and also bear the responsibility of educating hundreds of children every year.
With this in mind, the challenge was to present multiple layers of complex data that allowed users to gain powerful insight with little effort. Administrators could look at data from multiple schools down to individual classrooms and students.
A clear and adaptive information architecture was key to enabling the discovery of these insights as well as allowing the product to scale effectively as new features were added.
TECHNICAL constraints
Aggregating data from hundreds of students while ensuring the app loaded quickly was the biggest challenge to overcome. This required deep collaboration between design, product, engineering, data and our algorithm teams to define what data would be most useful for our users and how to present it.
research
I met with Principals, Math Coaches and Directors to understand their needs, validate hypotheses and test feature concepts. Generative research was essential in understanding how they work and leverage data, and communicate with peers within the school system and ultimately produced our biggest wins for the product.
School administrators' busy schedules proved to be a challenge when it came to access for interviews. My team and I developed multiple creative recruiting strategies including partnering with a group specializing in research within the industry to recruit expert user panels.
solution
The vision for the school administrators' product was to create an intuitive experience that takes complex data and generates meaningful insights that admins can use to improve educational outcomes for students.
We built a product that was adaptive to different user types and their use cases. Math Coaches and Directors now had the tools available to dive deep into the data, while Principals that needed high-level insights could access them quickly and easily.
results
New feature development resulted in my team growing the user base 10x and increasing engagement by 127%.
Admins now had access to new data in real time and the reports addressed their two biggest concerns that arose during my research – which students need help and where in the curriculum do they need it. This allowed them to make the adjustments to meet students' educational needs earlier and more effectively.
Wave
Company Vision
“We’re on a mission
to empower entrepreneurs.”
About
Wave is a successful award-winning fin-tech startup that equips millions of small businesses with easy to use financial tools. Wave’s platform includes accounting, invoicing, payroll and payments processing.
my role
I managed the onboarding and growth initiatives at Wave, including designing the onboarding flows for new accounts as well as the Invoicing and Payments products. I redesigned the Payments platform to incorporate multiple payment methods, and collaborated on the new Wave design system which involved building major components.
New Account Onboarding
There were two problems with how users previously onboarded onto Wave when setting up an account.
- Dropping off during the registration process largely due to extraneous form fields.
- Unsure of where to start due to the amount of options presented to them in the app navigation.
research
User testing uncovered issues that were causing users to abandon the process, such as asking for their business address which could easily be delayed until they were actively using the product. Through surveys and analytics I determined that over 90% of users joined Wave to perform one or more of 3 main tasks – invoicing, accounting or payroll.
solution
I created a focused onboarding experience for new users by minimizing the information required upfront and removing any distracting UI. This allowed users to jump directly to one of the three main tasks they signed up for and discover the value of Wave immediately.
results
Invoicing Onboarding
research
While collaborating with a data analyst, I learned that users who customized their invoice template were much more likely to continue using the product and ultimately process payments which was Wave’s primary revenue driver.
solution
The experience was created so that users could choose an invoice template, drop in a logo and customize their invoice on their first use of the invoicing product. Previously, these features were buried within settings and rarely utilized.
results
The number of users sending their second invoice increased by 63%, which is a leading indicator of overall app retention. Over 80% of users engaged with the tool to customize their invoice.
Wave's Payments Platform Redesign
the Challenge
Wave Payments was initially designed to only display credit card transactions. With the addition of direct bank payments which were much more complex, the product needed a major overhaul.
While credit card payments are relatively simple and failures are apparent immediately to the payer, bank payments by comparison are much more complex. There are a myriad of ways they can fail, and that failure could happen at any time before the payment lands in the recipient's account. Those failures needed to be surfaced in a way that they could be tracked easily and addressed properly.
research
As this was a complex project spanning multiple teams at Wave, a lot of research needed to be done. A clear understanding of the business viability of this new payment method was required along with terminology that would resonate best among users across multiple countries.
I collaborated with the Product Manager to create a detailed inventory of possible failure points and edge cases when processing bank payments. Testing was essential for ensuring the variety of scenarios and use cases were easily understood so users could take the right action to correct the situation.
solution
As complexity increased, the interface had to provide the clarity and ease of use to help the user address any issues. Rather than one list with all transactions as in the previous version, refunds and chargebacks were placed into separate tabs. Failed payments and refunds also received their own tabs. Related transactions were linked to each other, and all transactions were linked with the business’ invoice for reference.
results
The introduction of bank payments increased the value of the payments platform to business owners as their customers now had another way to pay their invoice. Businesses that were previously hesitant to sign up because of the higher 2.9% transaction fee for credit cards now had a low cost option at 1% for bank payments.
The updates to the UI also made it easier for all Payments users to track down transactions, manage refunds and view associated invoices.
EMEX
Company Vision
“Deliver first-class procurement solutions and simplified energy services to organizations of every size and industry.”
About
EMEX is a Houston, Texas based energy auction platform that enables large purchasers of electricity to lower their total energy cost through a competitive auction process where energy suppliers bid for their business.
my role
I was responsible for all design research and execution at EMEX, from redesigning the customer facing app and the auction platform for energy suppliers to the marketing and affiliate websites.
Usability testing with energy suppliers uncovered a number of issues that slowed down the bidding process and made it difficult to follow other competitors' bids. Technical limitations also needed to be addressed to enable a real time experience for both suppliers and buyers.
research
I met with many customers to get their feedback on the process before, during, and after an auction. I also spoke with each member of our internal sales team to understand their perspective and what they hear from buyers most. Customers loved the competitive aspect to the auction, but the app wasn't updating in real time which took away from the experience.
Through user interviews I learned that suppliers bidding on the contract also enjoyed the competitive aspect of the auction process but needed a clear interface to see where they stand in relation to their competitors.
solution
I created a new interface for customers that matched the excitement of the auction as competing bids moved up and down the standings in real time.
The interface for suppliers needed to show a lot of information about the buyer and their contract, multiple term lengths, as well as all competitor bids. With the number of bids coming in during the 5 minute auction, the supplier needed to be able to act quickly. The new, simpler interface met the complex needs of suppliers and allowed them to bid on any number of terms at once.
results
In follow up interviews, suppliers noted that they felt more in control of the process and were able to react more confidently. Buyers also felt the updated experience gave them a clearer picture of the auction process which increased the appreciation of their overall energy savings.