User Research
The systematic study of target users to understand their behaviors, needs, and motivations to inform design decisions.
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Exploratory Research for a State Social Studies Resource Website
A UX exploration phase for a state social studies resource website that combined competitive analysis with three co-design methods to produce a feature framework and prototype connecting historical archives with classroom instruction.…
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Co-Design: Building Learning Experiences Together
This article has moved into Homegrown Learning. The story of the PLC sessions and what they taught me about designing with people rather than for them now opens the Design phase of…
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Applying User Research Principles to Improve Online K-12 Professional Development
A UX research project that traced a spike in Canvas help tickets to platform-wide quality issues rather than onboarding, leading to a two-tiered course framework built around two distinct educator personas.
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Prototyping and Piloting Learning Experiences
This article has moved into Homegrown Learning. The Demonstrate phase of the book covers prototyping in more depth than the original article did, and the material on piloting with real learners now…
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Life-Centered Design in E-Learning
Power-hungry AI applications are being folded into educational technology, and into the design process itself, faster than most of us can evaluate them. Wherever you land on that, two things are true:…
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Needs Analysis is Always Needed
This article has moved into Homegrown Learning, where the material on building personas from patterns rather than demographics now lives in the Define phase alongside the rest of the context-mapping work. You…
