The Challenge

Road to Success (RTS) is a nonprofit initiative designed to foster literacy and a love of learning among K–8 students.

The organization had an established paper-based reading tracker, but the experience was limited. Students recorded their reading time, while teachers and parents had limited visibility into progress across students and classrooms.

The goal was to turn that simple tracking system into a digital experience that could motivate students to read while giving educators, parents, and administrators useful visibility into reading behavior and progress.

The challenge was balancing the needs of very different audiences:

• Students needed motivation, progress, and a reason to keep coming back.
• Parents and teachers needed a simple way to see progress and identify students who might need help.
• School and district administrators needed visibility across classrooms, schools, and districts.
• The nonprofit needed a sustainable model that could scale beyond its initial Utah footprint.

My Role

I worked across product strategy, customer research, experience design, and iterative testing, collaborating with visual designers, front-end developers, and back-end engineers to shape the product from concept through launch and subsequent iteration.

Understanding the Ecosystem

Before designing the experience, I conducted interviews with the people who would interact with or be affected by the product:

• Students
• Parents
• Teachers and other educators
• School administrators
• Nonprofit stakeholders
• Local business owners

I also conducted competitive analysis to understand how other products approached engagement, motivation, rewards, and learning.