Job-focused learning platform

I led an end-to-end UX research and design process for a new library service that helps patrons learn new skills to get better paying jobs.

Partner

City of South Bend
Drucker Institute
St. Joseph County Public Library

My role

Product design and research lead
Content strategy
UX writing

IDEO project Team

Product Manager
Project Lead
Engineer

Problem

It’s hard to get a good job when the requirements are constantly changing.

To succeed in today’s knowledge economy means you can never stop learning. Studies predict that while as many as 85 million jobs may be displaced by automation by 2025, 97 million new ones may emerge. Employers seem to demand new skills faster than Americans can acquire them, leaving many behind.

The City of South Bend library partnered with the Drucker Institute and IDEO to prototype a learning program that helps their working class patrons adapt to a turbulent economy.

Approach

I led the UX research and design for a new library service that helps patrons learn new skills.

Led multiple rounds of qualitative user research, including 1:1 interviews and usability testing with working class library patrons, hiring managers, and employers.
Directed a community research program, training residents in research best practices to lead design feedback sessions with their peers.
Set and managed the agenda for the program, including weekly design feedback sessions and preparing facilitator’s guides for resident researchers.
Synthesized multiple rounds of resident feedback into actionable insights and recommendations, ranging from sketches to clickable prototypes.
Created robust wireframes of the entire eventual product and user flows.
Detailed UI design and extensive documentation for development partners at Carbon Five.

An older white man with a short white mustache and buzzed white hair talks to someone off camera. He's wearing a black, button down trades uniform that says "John" and "Honeywell." He's in a simple office, sitting in front of a desk.

Early stage research interviews with patrons and employers were focused on understanding user needs to generate product ideas.

A collage of sketches and simple website mockups

I made paper prototypes to get initial feedback from residents and employers. Later, I made high-fidelity clickable prototypes to test more refined product ideas. I collaborated closely with my product manager to prioritize the most pressing product questions.

Insights

Our research taught us that residents want to learn from a source they already trust — their neighbors.

Most of the residents we spoke with weren’t super comfortable using smartphones or computers. We explained how to accept and troubleshoot taking mobile payments. Residents found the prototypes with trends in education technology, like gamification or animated videos, more condescending than helpful for learning something new. In the words of one resident, those features insulted people who “aren’t taken seriously enough to begin with.”

The sources that patrons did trust? Real people in their community. One patron told us, “So many people here are untapped resources.” Patrons felt they had so much to learn from each other, yet were disconnected. To deliver an educational product that worked for them, we knew we needed it to be radically easy to use, and be more about showcasing their own knowledge than pushing flashy content.

Three people sit around a table in a dimly lit room studying a packet in front of them. A light skinned brown man speaks and gestures to someone outside of the frame. A Black woman and man sit next to him.

I equipped residents to lead biweekly design feedback sessions with their peers. I structured the sessions and incorporated their feedback into actionable insights and a new round of prototypes.

RESULTS

We delivered a product called Bendable. On Bendable, people who have real-life experience doing what you want to learn make recommendations for what to read, watch, and listen to.

Bendable is personal playlists of favorite learning resources (classes, TED Talks, podcasts, books, etc.) on a particular subject put together by South Bend residents.

Since launch, over 75,000 people have used Bendable. It’s available in over 80 libraries across the U.S, and is being used in workforce development pilots in places like western Tennessee and San Diego County. It also received an Anthem Webby Award for social impact in 2024.

A grid of colorful, editorial pages featuring photos of local South Bend residents. The page titles ranges from "How to get started in computer coding" to "How to buy your first house in South Bend"

I collaborated with staff at the St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend to recruit and curate collections with residents. The playlists included at launch covered subjects ranging from navigating the public school system and having healthier conversations.

Job-focused learning program