Educator Center
Project Vision
The Educator Center is the teacher portal for My Math Academy, My Reading Academy, and My Reading Academy Español, supporting more than 670,000 classrooms worldwide. It helps educators monitor activity, review student progress, access resources, and manage classes.
Over time, low dashboard usage, teacher feedback, and recurring bugs revealed major usability issues. I led the redesign to bring classes, products, student progress, and teaching tools into one connected portal—helping teachers quickly understand student needs and take action.
Challenges
1) Teachers had to move between separate logins, products, and views. There was no single place to see all classes, student progress, and activity together.
2) Reports were difficult to understand and act on. Dense tables, color-coded data, and usage metrics made it hard to see which students or skills needed attention.
3) Important tools and actions were hard to find. Key links, classroom controls, and resources were buried across menus and different parts of the experience.
4) Student needs were not clearly prioritized. Teachers could not quickly tell who needed support, and student lists lacked strong visual cues for scanning and recognition.
5) Learning gaps were disconnected from next steps. After identifying a problem, teachers still had to search elsewhere for the right activity, resource, or support.
Research
I combined teacher feedback, product data, usability testing, and technical input to understand the main problems.
I reviewed bug reports and usage data to find repeated issues. I also observed 19 teachers completing key tasks.
The research helped define the biggest opportunities for the redesign.
Competitive Research
I reviewed educator platforms such as IXL, i-Ready, Lexia, and DreamBox.
I looked for patterns that helped teachers find information faster and move from class-level data to individual student needs.
Three patterns stood out:
-
At-a-glance information
-
Task-based navigation
-
Class-to-student drill-down
Creating the Framework
I reorganized the portal around teacher tasks instead of system structure.
The new navigation included five main areas:
CHALLENGE 1
Seeing the Complete Picture
The legacy dashboard made teachers move between classes and products to understand what was happening.
I redesigned the Overview to bring the most important information together.
Teachers could now compare products, review usage, see key progress data, and quickly identify students who needed attention.
CHALLENGE 2
Understanding Student Needs
Legacy reports were dense and difficult to scan.
Teachers had to interpret tables, status colors, and performance data on their own.
I redesigned the student and skills views to make needs easier to recognize. Teachers could quickly see who needed support and which skills were causing difficulty.
CHALLENGE 3
Moving From Insight to Action
The old experience stopped at reporting.
Teachers had to identify a problem, search for resources elsewhere, and manually share support.
I connected learning gaps directly to recommended resources.
The new flow became:
See the gap → Review suggested support → Assign it directly
This reduced the number of steps between finding a problem and helping the student.
Testing & Iteration
We tested the new low-fidelity structure with 9 educators.
The testing revealed three important improvements:
-
Faster access
Teachers wanted to reach students, classes, and resources from anywhere.
I added a persistent global search.
-
Less repetition
Teachers did not want to keep selecting the same class or product.
The portal now preserved their selections across pages.
-
Clearer context
Similar reports made it easy to lose track of the active product.
I added distinct product colors reinforced with text labels.
UI Improvements
The redesign supported more features while making the interface easier to understand.
-
Persistent navigation
Core destinations stayed visible in the left navigation.
-
Class and product contex
Selectors remained available on key pages.
-
Color + labels
Each Academy product used a distinct color and text label for easier recognition.
From Overview to Support
The new experience created a clearer path from classroom data to student support.
See who needs support
Identify students needing attention.
Find the learning gap
Understand the skill or standard causing difficulty.
Provide support
Review recommended activities and assign them directly.
Visual Design
The redesigned Educator Center brought classrooms, learning products, student progress, and teaching tools into one connected portal.
Teachers could now:
-
See activity across products
-
Identify students who needed support
-
Understand specific learning gaps
-
Access recommended resources
-
Assign support directly
-
Search across students and classes
-
Keep class and product context while moving through the portal
-
Manage classroom settings and student access
The experience moved beyond showing data. It helped teachers understand what mattered and what to do next.
