Pluralsight
Pluralsight Skills is a platform for learning technical skills for both B2B and B2C learners.
Senior Product Designer May 2021-March 2024. I was responsible for design of the home page, as well as other related experiences as part of the learner platform team. In addition, I worked on various projects such as a new product offering for live instructor-led training and a project to integrate an acquired platform into the Pluralsight Skills platform.
Previous Home design
Overwhelming & cluttered
New Home design
Focused & guided
Summary
Led a redesign of the learner homepage which transformed an overwhelming, low-engagement experience into a guided workspace conducive to focused and goal-based learning.
The home page plays an essential role in user engagement and first impression of the platform. The redesign has an emphasis on guiding learners in their goals while respecting their time and attention and reducing cognitive load.
-
Interviewed existing users and stakeholders to understand pain points and needs of users and the business
-
Analyzed data for existing homepage
-
Facilitated team workshops to ensure alignment
-
Created low-fidelity solutions to the needs and requirements established
-
Conducted concept tests with existing and new users to learn if the concepts created met user needs and where improvements could be made
-
Iterated on concepts to ensure the designs met newly introduced constraints
-
Communicated and worked cross-functionally to ensure product alignment and consistency
The problem
Over time, the focus on content started as the main measure of success led to a crowded home page, which failed to meet learners' needs.
Low engagement and feedback from learners indicated the need for redesign.
I aimed to create a streamlined, intuitive home page through rigorous research and iterative design processes. My goal was to improve engagement, simplicity, and reduce cognitive load, guiding learners seamlessly through the learning journey.
Research
Analytics
When looking at the product analytics using Pendo & Adobe, almost every widget on the home page had less than 1.5% engagement.
Another notable piece of data is that 53% of B2B learners had learning assigned by their company, yet only 3% were engaging with their company learning in Pluralsight.
Learners must engage with and complete company learning, in order to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI) that motivates renewals of the platform, therefore impacting revenue.
User interviews
After gathering this initial data, I conducted user interviews in order to better understand how learners felt about the current home experience. What pain points did they have, what are their needs in order to learn? I also conducted stakeholder interviews to understand cross-functional initiatives which may impact the home experience, and to gain knowledge of others’ future visions to ensure alignment.
Research insights
User needs
After synthesizing the research, it became clear, the need for focus & guidance was key to improving the learning experience.
The previous design didn’t seem to account for the context people were learning in. Oftentimes, they’re learning in between work tasks or in a short period of time during their busy lives. This is something that couldn’t be ignored if we were to be successful in the redesign.
User needs established
I led a workshop with my cross-functional product team, consisting of engineers, a product manager, and myself. During the session, we reviewed user needs and discussed potential gaps in our understanding. Together, we reached a consensus on the specific problems we aimed to address as a team. Additionally, we clarified the roles and responsibilities of the Home page, outlining what it should and should not do.
We came up with the following "how might we?" statement:
“How might we provide a more focused and guided learning experience so that learners can reach their goals?”
Business needs
Pluralsight has a subscription-based business model. This means that in order for the business to be successful, we must retain existing customers as well as constantly be bringing in new customers. In order for any customer to renew or newly subscribe, they must see value in the product. Managers need to see that their team is learning and applying their skills, and individuals need to be engaged in the content on Pluralsight and feel that they're making progress and it is worth their time and money.
In conversations with the content team, we realized that they also were heading to a more goal-based learning approach as opposed to the current approach of a huge library of content that isn't well organized for learners. This aligned quite well with the Home redesign effort, since we also had discovered that learners want more guided, goal-based experiences.
We hypothesized that by addressing the above user and business needs, we would impact the following metrics:
-
Increase in learners continuing their content
-
Increase in learners engaging with company learning
-
Improve learner’s sense of focus
-
Learners log in more frequently to learn
Design
Based on insights and the metrics we were aiming to drive, low-fidelity concepts were created. I came up with several concepts, below is one concept that the team felt was both feasible, the best experience for the learner, and would drive the metrics we were aiming for.
Main benefits of the concept below:
-
Allowing the learner to explore as they naturally would once they first log in.
-
Company assigned learning appears in the sidebar so that the learner always knows what is required of them.
-
Once the learner has browsed and/or started content, a learning plan is generated for them. This plan dynamically becomes more focused and precise as we understand more about the learners' goals.
-
Continue learning is at the top of the page and remains the main focus so that learners can easily pick up where they left off
-
The learner may manually input information to change the output that is their learning plan.
-
Learning stats appear in the sidebar. These provide information to the learner so they can adjust their learning time compared to the previous month and see how many courses they've completed.
Due to time constraints and limited bandwidth on development teams, I began another round of iterations in order to continue moving the project forward. The new constraints required that the experience must use currently available data and have limited or no dependencies on other teams.
The iteration includes:
-
Onboarding reverts back to the current state where topics of interest are collected prior to landing on Home
-
Learners are met with some light onboarding on Home which teaches them about different learning modalities (assess, watch, practice)
-
Based on the topics of interest, learners are given a few content recommendation and are encouraged from there to browse
-
The "Up next" section still exists once we have information about a learner's goals, but the first version will not allow direct user feedback to dynamically change it. Changes will be based on the content the learner has been watching and engaging with.
Testing
I conducted concept testing with 11 participants. Six were existing Pluralsight users, and five participants had never used Pluralsight. This decision ensures improvements for existing users and validates viability with new users who are unbiased towards the current experience.
The "Up next" section had across the board positive feedback and all participants understood how to use it and what to expect to appear in the component. Company learning also proved to be useful and intuitive to participants.
Next steps
Due to a workforce reduction which impacted the design team, I was unable to complete this project. However, my next steps would have been to take the areas that indicated the need for most improvement and iterate on them and conduct further testing.
The learning modalities cards I would iterate on in order to introduce the ways to learn more gradually as it made sense. I would also test different options for learning stats to optimize for the most meaningful and motivational statistics to provide learners with.
High fidelity concept
Outcome
All of my research and design work will have an impact on the strategic direction of the homepage. In all of my work, I was able to influence the broader organization on the need for learners to have a workspace where we are aiding in focusing instead of unintentionally providing distractions. Addressing the issues and pain points I uncovered will impact the business by increasing plan renewals and therefore increasing revenue.
In a world where focus is a challenge and time is limited, simplifying the user experience and reducing cognitive load can significantly enhance learner engagement and retention.
Success is measured by the following metrics:
-
2% increase of learners continuing their content
-
4% increase in learners engaging with company learning
-
Improve learner’s sense of focus (qualitative data through user interviews)
-
Learners log in more frequently to learn