Colin Spence
Product Designer
Open for hire

Rebuilding classroom workflows fortens of millions of students and teachers

    Summary

    I worked end-to-end as a full-stack designer—UX, illustration, visual identity, UI—through frontend implementation for the student portal, teacher portal, and marketing site. Rebuilt curriculum and classroom workflows so teachers could assign and monitor faster and students stayed oriented.
    Just here for the results?

  • Client

    Typing.com

  • Role

    Senior Product Designer
    frontend development
    ux strategy
    illustration

  • Timeline

    2017 - 2020
    Full time

  • Category

    web app
    education
    administration
    product design

The Challenge

Classroom software fails when it adds friction at scale: dozens of students, limited time, constant context switching. Teachers needed faster assignment and monitoring workflows; students needed clearer progress cues to stay motivated. The challenge was reducing cognitive load without flattening the nuance of learning paths and performance signals.

    Design Approach

  • Make progress legible for teachers and students

    Improved progress visibility so teachers could spot issues earlier and students could track their own growth over time.

  • Streamline assignment and classroom workflows

    Reduced steps for creating, assigning, and adjusting curriculum work across classes.

  • Reduce navigation ambiguity

    Reworked information architecture so 'where am I' and 'what's next' were instantly clear.

  • Design for real classroom constraints

    Prioritized quick scanning, bulk actions, and resilient UI states for busy, time-pressured classrooms.

  • Before: old-sales-site
    After: new-sales-site

    Sales site redesign - before and after

Results & Impact

Assignment time cut significantly
Teachers could create, assign, and adjust curriculum work across classes with fewer steps and less context-switching.
Students stayed oriented
Progress cues and clearer navigation helped students understand where they were in the curriculum and what to do next.
Built for real classrooms
Bulk actions, quick scanning, and resilient UI states held up across high-variance, time-pressured classroom use.