Daniel de Paola

DANIEL DE PAOLA

Available

for Staff/Lead Product Designer roles and select consulting projects.

SaaS EdTech

Xello

Senior Product Designer

2024-2026

Challenge

Evolving one of the Top3 Core Features of Xello. Students use the Course Planner to create a four-year course plan that supports intentional course selections - including specialized diploma requirements. The planner includes prerequisite checking, graduation tracking, and the ability to export course requests.

Relevant data

13,636 in total schools using Xello
3,153 schools using the current version of Course Planner
5,169,270 eligible students

Old version

Known issues:

It was hard for students to plan by requirements
For students in grade 8, we identified the need of showing the planned high school
Even though the option to switch from Graduation Diploma to Specializations had a big chevron, students were not understanding the feature
The Action View was blocking the entire grid when adding a course
Students had to figure it out by themselves how to solve conflicts, and issues when adding a course to be able to submit a plan. They had no ways to connect with their educators for help

Known issues:

It was hard for students to plan by requirements
For students in grade 8, we identified the need of showing the planned high school
Even though the option to switch from Graduation Diploma to Specializations had a big chevron, students were not understanding the feature
The Action View was blocking the entire grid when adding a course
Students had to figure it out by themselves how to solve conflicts, and issues when adding a course to be able to submit a plan. They had no ways to connect with their educators for help

Objectives

STUDENT VIEW

Students use the Course Planner to create a four-year course plan that supports intentional course selections - including specialized diploma requirements.

EDUCATOR VIEW

For educators, help your students manage their plans, assign a course, apply an exemption, or optimize their plan for maximum benefit.

ENHANCEMENTS

I worked on a few enhancements for the feature with these objectives in mind: improve course plan submission, create a communication channel for student/educator collaboration, UI improvements

New version

Key changes:

We've added the planned school to the header
Changed the requirements dropdown for a tab navigation per requirement
Updated the visual of the course pills to a much lighter version
Added a legend for the icons when adding courses to the plan

Key changes:

We've added the planned school to the header
Changed the requirements dropdown for a tab navigation per requirement
Updated the visual of the course pills to a much lighter version
Added a legend for the icons when adding courses to the plan

More exploration screens

Product strategy, user research, wireframes, high-fidelity designs, interactive prototypes, design system, and developer documentation.

Feedback from the client management team

After presenting the changes and the prototype to the team responsible to sell and manage the Course Planner with schools, educators, and students, here's what they said…