Project type: Enterprise Application // Employer: Discovery Education
Product: Discovery Experience
Discovery Education: Curriculum-Aligned Resources
Enhancing teacher planning by surfacing the best resources and showing how they support instruction
THE CHALLENGE
Teachers are overwhelmed. They spend hours searching for curriculum-aligned resources, and the homepage provided little structure or guidance. It lacked clear entry points, consistent UI patterns, and support for planning across devices. As a result, teachers often felt lost and struggled to confidently select materials.
Goal: elp teachers quickly find curriculum-aligned resources and understand how they fit within a lesson across desktop, tablet, and mobile experiences.
BUSINESS GOALS
Improve homepage relevance and daily planning value
Increase engagement with curriculum-aligned resources
Create consistency across district implementations
Build foundations for personalization and intelligent recommendations
MY ROLE
As Product Designer, I partnered across product, engineering, instructional design, content, customer success, and leadership to:
Defined the vision for a new curriculum-aligned homepage experience
Shaped requirements for weekly recommendations and pacing controls
Designed responsive, multi-viewport experiences across mobile, tablet, and desktop
Created flows, prototypes, and UI patterns that translated curriculum structure into usable interfaces
Partnered closely with engineering and the design systems team to ensure solutions could scale as reusable components
DESIGN APPROACH
Rather than presenting a generic content library, we grounded the experience in how teachers actually plan instruction—through mandated curriculum and structured pacing guides. We began with high-use programs in Florida, Texas, and California (CKLA, Wonders, Eureka Math, Bluebonnet K–5 RLA).
Aligned navigation to units, topics, and learning goals from each curriculum
Introduced Instructional Intent as a UI-level grouping model (e.g., build understanding, support literacy, active learning)
Designed reusable patterns for browsing, filtering, and resource presentation
Ensured layouts adapted across screen sizes to support classroom planning on desktop, tablet, and mobile
WHAT WE BUILT
Curriculum-based browsing that mirrors district materials
Instructional Intent model grouping resources by their classroom purpose
Responsive prototypes across mobile, tablet, and desktop
Side-by-side testing of curriculum-native vs. intent-based navigation models
Scalable UI patterns designed to be reused across other curriculum experiences
KEY UI ENHANCEMENTS
We rebuilt the experience around how teachers plan and teach, with a focus on clarity, hierarchy, and consistent UI patterns across devices:
Curriculum-matched browsing: Mirrors how teachers move through units and topics in their core programs
Pacing-aware recommendations: Surface resources based on where teachers are in the yearly plan
Instructional intent grouping: Quickly find what builds understanding, supports literacy, or drives active learning
Flexible UI system: Adaptable layouts and components that scale across multiple curricula and teaching contexts
DESIGN SYSTEM CONTRIBUTIONS
Extended the K–12 grade-level color system to improve curriculum differentiation
Partnered with the design systems team to explore scalable visual directions
Ensured all UI patterns met WCAG accessibility standards
Established consistent patterns for curriculum tagging, navigation, and content presentation across breakpoints
Mapping the flows.
Created user flows from onboarding to resource discovery.
Multi-viewport designs.
Mobile, tablet, and desktop design to test planning across devices.
Responsive UI.
Sample from Kindergarten Unit 1
Curriculum-aligned resources UI Design
Curriculum-aligned resources snapshot
Design System
Expanded the K–12 grade-level color palette to better support curriculum mapping
Extended Discovery Education’s brand character system for clearer grade differentiation
Explored multiple color directions with the design system team
Ensured strict compliance with WCAG accessibility standards across all new visual styles
Sample screen designs
Final Flow for Bluebonnet K-5 RLA