UX Designer
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Integrating SEL with Academics
UX Strategy + Design | EdTech Concept | Bridging Academic & Social Skills
Top 3: Michigan Virtual EdTech Pitch Competition, 2022
95% Teacher Satisfaction Rating
92% Student Satisfaction Rating
The Challenge
Educators nationwide reported that students were disengaged, struggling to communicate, and socially withdrawn following their return to in-person school post-COVID. At the same time, academic catch-up was a top priority. We needed to design a way to integrate interpersonal development into the tools teachers already use—without disrupting instruction.
Project Details
Timeline
10 weeks
Role
UX Researcher, Product Designer, Co-founder
I led research synthesis, wireframing, high-fidelity prototype development, and developed the MVP app
Team
2-person founding team
Client
Self-initiated / Michigan Virtual EdTech Pitch Competition
Tools
Figma, Google Meet, Miro, Maze
Deliverables
Research synthesis, wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, pitch deck, MVP app
My Role
I co-founded Selective, an EdTech platform designed to address the sharp decline in students' interpersonal skills after COVID-19. Our tool integrates social-emotional learning (SEL) directly into academic practice by layering collaborative, conversation-based activities onto the digital tools teachers already use.
I led all UX research and product design efforts—from framing the problem and defining the user journey to building prototypes and delivering a winning pitch. We validated our solution with educators, administrators, and students, and placed top three in the 2022 Michigan Virtual EdTech Pitch Competition.
Approach
User Research + Validation
Our problem was one that desperately needed solving.
Design + Prototyping
Ours was the only product to add interpersonal activities to already existing content- practice platforms.
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Realizing our vision
Selective integrated with content practice tools.
User Research + Validation
I conducted two rounds of interviews with stakeholders including teachers, principals, superintendents, and parents to clarify the scope of the problem and identify integration points with academic tools. Every interviewee expressed concern over students' interpersonal skills.
I also analyzed competitors and found a gap: no existing tools focused on interpersonal communication within content practice platforms.
100% of the interviewees expressed concern about the interpersonal skills of students!
I am most concerned with student apathy. They are withdrawn, difficult to reach, hard to get ahold of ... The anxiety and depression increase is apparent."
High School Principal
They need their hand held ... before they were much more autonomous ... They don't know how to interact with each other."
Middle School Spanish Teacher
[My biggest concern is] social-emotional learning and trauma-based, relative to the pandemic and the community."
Assistant Superintendent
Define
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The affinity map based on our interviews led to six key themes and four priority insights we wanted to address.
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How Might We questions narrowed the focus of our solution.
Affinity Map
My competitor analysis verified we had identified a gap in the market.
Priority Insights
One
Student mental health was a major concern.
Two
Students lacked the will and ability to interact with their peers.
Three
Teachers were under enormous pressure to close the learning and interpersonal gaps.
Four
There was a decrease in attention span and focus.
Ideation
Using stakeholder feedback and insight from our research, I led ideation and built the initial user flow, architecture, and prototype for a new platform.
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Features:
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Teacher Flow: From login to creating a "Selectivity" activity, grouping students, and assigning work.
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Suite of Selectivities: Designed varied collaborative activity templates to be layered over academic tasks.
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Modular Structure: Enables pairing with platforms already in use, like IXL or Google Classroom.
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Teacher user flow: activity creation and assignment
This flow takes the user from login through choosing an academic platform to creating the Selectivity, grouping students, and assigning it.
Design + Prototyping
I created wireframes, and mid- and high-fidelity prototypes, and the final homepage design with simplified navigation and accessible visuals.
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Wireframes
I created this rough wireframe and a lo-fi prototype to explore our concept through the teacher user flow.
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Initial mockups
For our initial mockups, we chose a calming blue theme. These mockups follow the lo-fi wireframes closely.
Final Homepage Mockup
This final design combines all critical functions in the header for improved usability.
Branding + MVP Focus
To build credibility and cohesion, we partnered with a professional marketing team to develop a polished visual identity. This branding system helped position the product as a trustworthy, modern educational tool and informed our final UI designs.
As we transitioned to development, we prioritized a minimum viable product to validate the concept quickly. Rather than build out the full feature set, we focused on core functionality: a simple mobile app that let teachers browse a small set of Selectivities to use in classroom activities.
Final Iteration of our MVP
A simple flashcard app to continue to validate the concept
Impact
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Won third place at the Michigan Virtual EdTech Pitch Competition (2022)
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92% student and 95% teacher satisfaction (field testing of low-tech prototypes)
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MVP design completed; project concluded before development phase
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Secured early advisor and stakeholder interest, including from SEL-focused educators
Reflection
This project sharpened my skills in communicating value to both users and business audiences. I learned how to:
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Translate abstract problems (like student disconnection) into actionable design opportunities
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Rapidly iterate and pitch to stakeholders across education and startup spaces
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Build and test low-tech versions to validate a product before investing in high-tech development