Content Design and Writing
Designlab
Creating content that's helped over 2000+ people achieve their design careers
Role
team
Visit WebsiteLearning Content Designer
product Manager
Curriculum Strategist
Graphic Designer
Learning Content Designer (2)
Curriculum Strategist
Graphic Designer
Learning Content Designer (2)
Designlab is a UX/UI design education company based in the US. It empowers those transitioning their careers to UX and UI design through 12-30 week long bootcamp-style design courses.
As a distanced learning education company, almost 50% of its students and 300+ mentors are based outside of the US. They range from working professionals to university graduates. For 2 years, I was a key contributor in the content creation and design of Designlab's core products: Their UX/UI Foundations and Academy courses.
Before this role, I was a UX instructor with Designlab for 1 year. My knowledge of the course delivery to students was influential in shaping my perspectives on creating high-quality, engaging content.
Joining the tight-knit Learning Content Experience team, I was a key decision-maker in every part of the planning, organization, research and creation of course content. The process carried out for each of these products is similar in structure.
Summary
For 2 years, I worked on Designlab's core products: Academy and Foundations.
Contributing to large curriculum changes and updates, I carried out multiple planning and user research initiatives in collaboration with the Learning Experience Team.
I wrote over 100 content pieces, including content outlines, design projects and quizzes. I created graphic assets to support the design team with the final versions. On each content release, I worked closely with the community engagement and marketing teams on the outreach and update messaging.
Contributing to large curriculum changes and updates, I carried out multiple planning and user research initiatives in collaboration with the Learning Experience Team.
I wrote over 100 content pieces, including content outlines, design projects and quizzes. I created graphic assets to support the design team with the final versions. On each content release, I worked closely with the community engagement and marketing teams on the outreach and update messaging.
Being in a fast-paced, sprint-focused startup, there were several tradeoffs made to shorten release deadlines. During planning phases, 20-30% of initially planned changes are postponed into staggered releases for a more sustainable content creation process. These tasks have been backlogged as far as 6 months after to prioritize more essential content and general maintenance tasks.
When I lead the Academy Capstones project, a beta validation round was cancelled to meet the release deadline. Instead of launching new content to a small group of students and mentors, it was launched to everyone. I negotiated a compromise to send follow-up surveys to the new student cohort so they could easily share their feedback directly to the Learning Experience Team.
When I lead the Academy Capstones project, a beta validation round was cancelled to meet the release deadline. Instead of launching new content to a small group of students and mentors, it was launched to everyone. I negotiated a compromise to send follow-up surveys to the new student cohort so they could easily share their feedback directly to the Learning Experience Team.
1
Launch Day
The last stage of a course revamp process is the launch day.
Both exciting and relieving, this is where the Learning Experience Team collaborates closely with Community and Marketing teams to launch the updates as smoothly as possible.
The work does not stop after everything goes live. Tracking course engagement analytics is an ongoing task that supports future content changes.
The work does not stop after everything goes live. Tracking course engagement analytics is an ongoing task that supports future content changes.
My role at this stage is to inform mentors by creating a release overview
Consisting of a 1-page summary with Loom videos, I send them off to the launch team who will package them for outreach to the mentors via emails and Discord.
Launch Announcements (Click for more images)
2
Launch Takeaways
At minimum, course analytics continues for at least 12 weeks (1 cohort) before any new large changes are made.
My colleagues and I continue to maintain the content by keeping the content typo-free, bug-free and updating outdated resources. We respond to Community queries on a regular basis and record all feedback.
After an updated course has run at least 2 cohorts (24 weeks), the team comes together with leadership for a post-mortem that details what's working and what's not. Relying on our research and analytics tools, we start roadmapping goals for the next quarter.
Foundations Stats
35%
43%
+10%
Weekly on-time Completion
Weekly on-time Completion
Metrics for 3 cohorts (Sep - Nov) were measured after launch, focusing on weekly on-time completion.
Projects that were previously regular blockers saw faster completion rates, bumping the overall on-time completion rates.
Projects that were previously regular blockers saw faster completion rates, bumping the overall on-time completion rates.
Follow-up questions
- Is there an increase of student engagement with updated content?
- What new challenges and opportunities have been created by the new content?
- Are there marked improvements on previous pain points?
- Have the pain points been appropriately addressed?
- Is there any data point that stands out?
- Are there any new lagging indicators created by the changes?
- Are the changes meeting OKRs set out for the quarter/half?
- In hindsight, are there any postponed or backlogged items that should have been prioritised for this release?
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Anura
