UX / UI Design
Content Made Intuitive
A redesign of Nearpod’s Content & Activity selection tool that made lesson creation more intuitive, organized, and actionable for teachers.
Year :
2022
Industry :
Education Tech
Company :
Nearpod
Project Duration :
2 weeks
Problem :
Activation rates in Nearpod’s lesson creation flow were low. The Content & Activity modal — a critical entry point — broke from industry-standard design patterns, forcing new users to learn an unfamiliar workflow. This led to confusion, friction, and in many cases, abandonment of the lesson creation process or the product altogether.
Our usability study made this clearer. With existing users, learned behaviors helped them complete tasks, but they surfaced many suggestions on how they wished the flow worked. With new users, some could complete the flow, but many struggled to add activities or understand what each activity offered. Teachers’ mental models didn’t align with the system’s structure, and unnecessary loops pulled them in and out of lesson creation just to add activities or content.
Solution :
We redesigned and re-architectured the Content & Activity modal to be organized, informative, and intuitive, guided by three product goals:
Discover: Teachers can easily browse and find Nearpod’s content and activities.
Inform: Each item included a short description, simple 2D animation, and feature list to set expectations before selection — reinforcing recognition over recall.
Intuitive: The design follows familiar patterns and key fundamentals to lower cognitive load and increase activation.
The redesigned modal was structured into three parts: clearer categorization, improved navigation and search, and progressive disclosure — surfacing activity details on hover. This approach allowed teachers to focus on their goals without relying on memory, making lesson creation smoother and more intuitive.
Challenge :
The main challenge was balancing flexibility of lesson editing loops with ease of discovery. Teachers needed to seamlessly add content mid-lesson, while also browsing a growing library of activities. Our usability study revealed:
9/10 users could complete the flow, but many skipped instructions or relied on intuition over clarity.
Category comprehension was weaker: 2/10 users were confused, and feedback called out unclear or redundant categories.
Teachers asked for simpler, more guided organization of options.
Designing a modal that supported both quick, in-flow editing and informed discovery required iterative testing and refinement of hierarchy, naming, and interactions.
Summary :
The redesigned Content & Activity Modal reimagined how teachers discover and build lessons — aligning with familiar mental models to reduce friction and accelerate content creation. By grounding decisions in usability research and leveraging modular design principles, the experience not only simplified interaction patterns but also future-proofed how Nearpod scales new content types and integrations.
Post-launch data reflected a clear impact on activation and creation behaviors:
Lesson creation: Teachers created 26% more lessons, with a noticeable lift in first-week engagement among new users.
Discoverability: Content search-to-add time dropped by 36%, allowing educators to assemble custom lessons faster and with higher confidence.
By reframing complexity into clarity, the modal empowered teachers to focus on what mattered most — creating engaging learning moments — while driving stronger product adoption across classrooms and districts.
More Projects
UX / UI Design
Content Made Intuitive
A redesign of Nearpod’s Content & Activity selection tool that made lesson creation more intuitive, organized, and actionable for teachers.
Year :
2022
Industry :
Education Tech
Company :
Nearpod
Project Duration :
2 weeks
Problem :
Activation rates in Nearpod’s lesson creation flow were low. The Content & Activity modal — a critical entry point — broke from industry-standard design patterns, forcing new users to learn an unfamiliar workflow. This led to confusion, friction, and in many cases, abandonment of the lesson creation process or the product altogether.
Our usability study made this clearer. With existing users, learned behaviors helped them complete tasks, but they surfaced many suggestions on how they wished the flow worked. With new users, some could complete the flow, but many struggled to add activities or understand what each activity offered. Teachers’ mental models didn’t align with the system’s structure, and unnecessary loops pulled them in and out of lesson creation just to add activities or content.
Solution :
We redesigned and re-architectured the Content & Activity modal to be organized, informative, and intuitive, guided by three product goals:
Discover: Teachers can easily browse and find Nearpod’s content and activities.
Inform: Each item included a short description, simple 2D animation, and feature list to set expectations before selection — reinforcing recognition over recall.
Intuitive: The design follows familiar patterns and key fundamentals to lower cognitive load and increase activation.
The redesigned modal was structured into three parts: clearer categorization, improved navigation and search, and progressive disclosure — surfacing activity details on hover. This approach allowed teachers to focus on their goals without relying on memory, making lesson creation smoother and more intuitive.
Challenge :
The main challenge was balancing flexibility of lesson editing loops with ease of discovery. Teachers needed to seamlessly add content mid-lesson, while also browsing a growing library of activities. Our usability study revealed:
9/10 users could complete the flow, but many skipped instructions or relied on intuition over clarity.
Category comprehension was weaker: 2/10 users were confused, and feedback called out unclear or redundant categories.
Teachers asked for simpler, more guided organization of options.
Designing a modal that supported both quick, in-flow editing and informed discovery required iterative testing and refinement of hierarchy, naming, and interactions.
Summary :
The redesigned Content & Activity Modal reimagined how teachers discover and build lessons — aligning with familiar mental models to reduce friction and accelerate content creation. By grounding decisions in usability research and leveraging modular design principles, the experience not only simplified interaction patterns but also future-proofed how Nearpod scales new content types and integrations.
Post-launch data reflected a clear impact on activation and creation behaviors:
Lesson creation: Teachers created 26% more lessons, with a noticeable lift in first-week engagement among new users.
Discoverability: Content search-to-add time dropped by 36%, allowing educators to assemble custom lessons faster and with higher confidence.
By reframing complexity into clarity, the modal empowered teachers to focus on what mattered most — creating engaging learning moments — while driving stronger product adoption across classrooms and districts.
More Projects
UX / UI Design
Content Made Intuitive
A redesign of Nearpod’s Content & Activity selection tool that made lesson creation more intuitive, organized, and actionable for teachers.
Year :
2022
Industry :
Education Tech
Company :
Nearpod
Project Duration :
2 weeks
Problem :
Activation rates in Nearpod’s lesson creation flow were low. The Content & Activity modal — a critical entry point — broke from industry-standard design patterns, forcing new users to learn an unfamiliar workflow. This led to confusion, friction, and in many cases, abandonment of the lesson creation process or the product altogether.
Our usability study made this clearer. With existing users, learned behaviors helped them complete tasks, but they surfaced many suggestions on how they wished the flow worked. With new users, some could complete the flow, but many struggled to add activities or understand what each activity offered. Teachers’ mental models didn’t align with the system’s structure, and unnecessary loops pulled them in and out of lesson creation just to add activities or content.
Solution :
We redesigned and re-architectured the Content & Activity modal to be organized, informative, and intuitive, guided by three product goals:
Discover: Teachers can easily browse and find Nearpod’s content and activities.
Inform: Each item included a short description, simple 2D animation, and feature list to set expectations before selection — reinforcing recognition over recall.
Intuitive: The design follows familiar patterns and key fundamentals to lower cognitive load and increase activation.
The redesigned modal was structured into three parts: clearer categorization, improved navigation and search, and progressive disclosure — surfacing activity details on hover. This approach allowed teachers to focus on their goals without relying on memory, making lesson creation smoother and more intuitive.
Challenge :
The main challenge was balancing flexibility of lesson editing loops with ease of discovery. Teachers needed to seamlessly add content mid-lesson, while also browsing a growing library of activities. Our usability study revealed:
9/10 users could complete the flow, but many skipped instructions or relied on intuition over clarity.
Category comprehension was weaker: 2/10 users were confused, and feedback called out unclear or redundant categories.
Teachers asked for simpler, more guided organization of options.
Designing a modal that supported both quick, in-flow editing and informed discovery required iterative testing and refinement of hierarchy, naming, and interactions.
Summary :
The redesigned Content & Activity Modal reimagined how teachers discover and build lessons — aligning with familiar mental models to reduce friction and accelerate content creation. By grounding decisions in usability research and leveraging modular design principles, the experience not only simplified interaction patterns but also future-proofed how Nearpod scales new content types and integrations.
Post-launch data reflected a clear impact on activation and creation behaviors:
Lesson creation: Teachers created 26% more lessons, with a noticeable lift in first-week engagement among new users.
Discoverability: Content search-to-add time dropped by 36%, allowing educators to assemble custom lessons faster and with higher confidence.
By reframing complexity into clarity, the modal empowered teachers to focus on what mattered most — creating engaging learning moments — while driving stronger product adoption across classrooms and districts.