Outschool Homepage Redesign

Key Metrics
Conversion, New Buyers, Bounce Rate, Session Time, Sign up Rate

Company
Outschool

When
June - August, 2023

Team
Growth team

Collaborators
5 engineers, 1 PM, legal, UXR, & marketing

Why I chose this project: This project highlights how sometimes a role can extend beyond its traditional boundaries, allowing you to tap into unexpected skills and life experiences. With the rise of generative AI, designers now have the chance to explore new possibilities and become versatile problem solvers, rather than focusing solely on specific UI/UX tasks. The product design role is shifting from being more specialist to more generalist. This case study embodies that shift.

Problem and context: In 2023, Outschool’s homepage was the highest trafficked page for new buyers. My product manager and I saw a big opportunity to optimize the top of the funnel by addressing user problems on the page. The biggest issue with the homepage was that it failed to position Outschool as a real solution for parents. As a result, our intended value proposition was not coming through effectively, which caused aimless browsing and high bounce rates.

Parents want goal-based learning experiences

Before addressing our homepage and other growth projects, I worked with UX research to re-evaluate our families' needs, focusing on their core job-to-be-done (JTBD). We interviewed a diverse group of parents in our target market with varying educational goals for their kids. While different parent personas emerged, a common theme became clear: all parents wanted learning to be intrinsically motivated by the learner and goal-oriented. Outschool’s true JTBD, therefore, was to support kids in their journey toward specific goals, shifting from our previous focus on fostering a 'love of learning’ - which lacked a clear focus and outcome.

Redefining our value proposition

To effectively resonate with our parent user base, I undertook a deep exploration of our value proposition with the help of the UX Research team, transitioning from the broad theme of "freedom of learning" to a more targeted, goal-based message: empowering children to achieve and pursue their passions. Recognizing that our existing users appreciated the platform's diversity and range of learning options, the challenge lay in harmonizing this with our new focus. Through iterative design and concept testing, I converged on the idea of centering our messaging around exploring kids' dream jobs, seamlessly blending the value parents currently receive with our aspirational goal of fostering goal-based learning.

Concepts & iterations…

A vision realized with generative AI

I set out to design a compelling hero image and message for Outschool, highlighting our value proposition to engage parents, ending with a CTA search bar. After extensive ideation, I developed a concept featuring a rotating animation of students in various career uniforms, symbolizing Outschool's role in helping kids realize their dreams. Initially, I considered using brand-approved photo collages, but cost and legal hurdles made this impractical. Instead, I leveraged Midjourney AI’s photorealistic capabilities to create brand-aligned visuals in days instead of months. With legal approval, the vision came to life. As AI use raises concerns, I prioritized quality control to ensure accuracy. Though asset design isn't my core expertise, advances in AI enabled me to apply my visual skills efficiently to create these assets.

Choosing the right call-to-action

Choosing the right CTA was crucial to delivering the best homepage experience, and reaching our KPA goals. Previously, the CTA took users to a generic browse page, that didn’t serve any specific job-to-be-done.

I wanted to focus on an CTA destination that not only had high engagement and conversion rates, but also followed through with the narrative from our value prop and JTBD: We help your kid build to their dream job. I worked with my PM and the Data team to find which surfaces had the highest conversion/engagement rates. I found that our search feature would serve as a perfect conclusion to our homepage messaging - while also driving our KPI’s.

Optimizing for SEO vs. User Experience

During this time, the growth team had an initiative to boost SEO to reduce reliance on paid ads. While the strategy made sense, it often prioritized SEO tactics over meaningful UX improvements. The homepage became a point of debate, as some wanted to add more internal links higher on the page for SEO, but I argued this would worsen value communication issues and be a less effective way to achieve our goals. To align the team, I highlighted that improving UX—reducing bounce rates and increasing session times—would actually have a greater and long-lasting impact SEO. We reached a compromise by focusing the homepage on key category linking that supported parents' needs, instead of increasing the quantity of internal linking.

Experiment results

  • Bounce rate reduced ~35%

  • Average session time increase by ~63%

  • Conversion rate increase by ~12%

  • New buyer rate increase by ~18%