User Experience Designer
ROLE
TEAM
October 2024 - February 2025
TIMELINE
TOOLS/SKILLS
Figma, FigJam, Notion, Adobe Creative Suite; Mobile-First, Design, UX Research, Product Development, Prototyping
OVERVIEW
CHANGE Arts' mission is to "make arts access limitless" - so what's their current limitation?
CHANGE Arts is a New York-based nonprofit which aims to make arts access limitless for students in underserved areas, thereby nurturing the desire for lifelong experiences with the arts. Since 2022, CHANGE Arts has already served over 15,000 students from the New York metro area, Los Angeles, and London.
The Challenge
Currently, CHANGE Arts has a web platform to host their services. However, because CHANGE Arts aims to serve teachers who are always “on-the-goˮ, how can we build a mobile platform to adapt to teacherʼs needs?
Solution & Impact
The first mobile marketplace for arts education services that enables teachers to find relevant arts content in their communities, manage event registrations, and connect with larger communities of educators.
As a designer, I focused on crafting the teacher-facing search and browse experience to simplify arts content discovery and ensure easy access to event information & registration.
USER RESEARCH
Interviewing teachers to understand why is it difficult to find and access arts resources
To research how we could best bridge gaps in the existing market, we interviewed various teachers across multiple disciplines like english, social studies, the arts, and more. Within this user group, my team and I synthesized the following key insights:
Financial & Institutional Barriers
Budget constraints is a primary reason why teachers can't bring more arts experiences into their classrooms. Even when external programs exist, costs for materials, field trips, or visits pose challenges. Also, rural and lower-income schools may not have easy access to local arts organizations, making in-person experiences difficult to arrange without transportation and funding solutions.
Lack of Time and Support
Many teachers recognize the value of arts education in fostering creativity, critical thinking, and engagement in students. However, they struggle to find the time to research and integrate arts opportunities into their lesson plans. The process of discovering, vetting, and coordinating arts programs is often too time-consuming given their already demanding workload.
No Centralized Arts Resources
Teachers often rely on word-of-mouth recommendations, outdated directories, or extensive web searches to find arts programs that align with their curriculum. Without a centralized platform that curates and categorizes available opportunities, teachers find it difficult to compare offerings, ensure quality, and book experiences efficiently. They need a more streamlined, mobile-friendly solution.
Turning these key user pain points into targeted opportunity areas
These user insights and analysis were then used to form 4 major themes—seamless discovery & search, community-driven engagement, resource management, and accessible arts integration—for us to use as a guideline for user needs and desires throughout our design process.
Seamless Discovery & Search
Allow teachers to quickly find, filter, and compare arts resources based on subject, grade level, location, budget, and availability.
Community-Driven Engagement
Foster a collaborative environment where teachers can share recommendations, leave reviews, and connect with arts organizations and fellow educators.
Resource Management
Arts organizations can easily upload, update, and manage their offerings while ensuring teachers receive accurate, up-to-date information about programs, events, and resources.
Accessible Arts Integration
Support multiple formats of arts education to accommodate different teaching styles, schedules, and accessibility needs.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Identifying key features and user flows
From our designated user needs, we identified the primary users of the platform as teachers and arts organizations, each with distinct but interconnected needs. The following information architecture was created as a general structure for the platform using our synthesized insights from the previous stages.
TEAM COORDINATION & FEATURE OWNERSHIP
I took ownership over designing the teacher-facing search and browse features
To achieve our team’s goal of creating a mobile marketplace for arts education services, we divided tasks for focused feature development between our two user groups: teachers and arts organizations. I took ownership and led the design of the teacher-facing search and browse features, prioritizing simple arts content discovery and ensuring easy access to event information & registration.
IDEATION
User journeys for teacher search and browse
Given the complexity of arts content discovery, I developed user stories for teachers to define the specific features needed for searching and browsing. I outlined the visual and interactive components needed for each story as its acceptance criteria.
ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA
Search & Filter
As a teacher, I want to be able to search for arts content so that I can narrow down the enrichment opportunities which fit the needs of current/upcoming class content.
Teachers need to be able to search by keyword (ex. “World War II”), distance from school (by miles of radius), date range, attendance type (in-person vs virtual), category (visual arts, media arts, music, theatre, dance, opera), and age range (kindergarten, elementary, middle school, HS, etc).
Browse Events
As a teacher, I want to be able to browse through search results so that I can explore and easily find the right opportunity.
Each search result should appear in a “card-like” format which includes a thumbnail picture, the name of the event, date range, the host organization, city location, and any relevant tags by attendance type, category, and age range. If a teacher is interested in an event, they can “bookmark” the event card.
View Event Details
As a teacher, I want to be able to view low-level details of an event so that I can make an informed decision about which arts event to purchase.
Clicking on an event card should include a description of the event, any relevant content warnings, and options to participate in the event (ex. purchasing tickets, requesting ticket subsidy, or requesting education services).
Initial search and browse feature explorations
I created low-fidelity wireframes to consolidate my potential ideas and envision the core features I outlined above. These included the search page (aka the home page), browse events , a filter tab, and event cards.
ITERATION
First challenge—simplifying searching & filtering to start the discovery process
To design an intuitive search and filtering experience for teachers, I focused on reducing friction in the discovery process. The initial iteration explored how users might browse and refine opportunities, but early tests revealed visual clutter and unclear hierarchy. Through iterative refinement, I streamlined the interface by simplifying filters, clarifying structure, and aligning the visual design more closely with the brand’s identity, which resulted in a cleaner, more accessible, and user-friendly experience.
Iteration 1
Layout is dense and not scannable
Iteration 2
Clear section hierarchy and spacing
Cohesive with brand’s identity
Second challenge—browse cards
When designing the browse and filter experience, the goal was to make it easier for teachers to explore events without feeling overwhelmed. The first iteration presented too many options at once, leading to visual clutter and difficulty scanning for relevant information. Through refinement, I reorganized the layout into collapsible sections, prioritized hierarchy, and modernized the UI to create a cleaner, more structured, and visually cohesive browsing experience.
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
Clean, collapsible filter sections
Third challenge—displaying event information in a simple and digestible way
For the event detail screens, the goal was to create a clear, engaging layout that helps users quickly understand key event information. The first iteration lacked visual hierarchy and consistency, making it harder to distinguish between details and actions. In the refined version, I improved typographic hierarchy, button affordances, and spacing while integrating brand elements.
Iteration 1
Button styles lack differentiation
Inconsistent alignment of elements
Iteration 2
FINAL DESIGNS
FINAL PROTOTYPE
Design Kit
IMPACT & FEEDBACK
Mentor feedback from industry professionals @ HP Enterprise, Cisco, and Bloomberg
Our product was validated through presentations and prototype reviews with industry mentors. Our team was recognized for exceptional project execution, scoring up to 11.5% above average across key impact (client and social impact) and teamwork metrics in an industry-evaluated assessment.
"Understanding of all parts of approach and solution, very complex problem that requires a lot of moving parts."
"Their presentation was excellent! They explained the assignment well and the audiences it was targeted to. They gave examples of how the app they were designing would work for the users. They provided thoughtful answers to our questions and were very open to suggestions, replying in a conversational manner. I found it inspiring and now I am curious how the app will perform for the organization!"
"The overall problem was stated clearly and I appreciated the detail presented in terms of the planning. Having the general roadmap as well as a listing of all the features they were adding was really helpful in clarifying what the end product was going to be."
"Presentation was very well organized and professionally delivered. Clear prototype examples and some personal observations gave the presentation human interest. Easy to understand."
Next Steps & Reflections
Expanding Accessibility Features
Next steps include integrating more robust accessibility filters and interface adjustments, such as screen reader support, text resizing, and high-contrast modes. These additions would make the platform more inclusive for users with diverse needs and align more closely with universal design principles.
Refining Search Personalization
Future iterations could incorporate personalized search recommendations based on users’ past interactions and preferences. This would help teaching artists and educators discover more relevant events, services, and opportunities while enhancing overall engagement with the platform.
Usability Testing with Educators
To validate design decisions and uncover remaining pain points, it is necessary to conduct usability testing sessions with teaching artists and educators. Their feedback would help refine the information hierarchy, confirm that filters meet real user needs, and guide further improvements to the overall UX.
Overall, this project strengthened my ability to design data-driven interfaces that align with the goals of educational technology products. By iterating on the search and discovery flow, I learned how visual hierarchy and interaction design directly impact content engagement and task efficiency for educators. Moving forward, I'm excited to apply these insights to create scalable, accessible systems that improve discoverability and user satisfaction while supporting broader business objectives in the edtech space.