CareerVillage.org · Product Design · 2025–2026
I simplified signup and replaced a lengthy chat introduction with a guided setup learners could complete or skip.
At a glance
Role: Primary Product Designer in 2025. Co-designer with Xavier Garcia in 2026.
Platforms: Responsive web across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
Team: Product management, engineering, design, and data analytics.
Launched: July 21, 2025 and April 1, 2026.
Overview
Coach is CareerVillage.org’s AI-powered career coaching platform. The challenge was to help learners start using it without losing the context needed for useful career guidance.
I led the 2025 redesign, from reviewing the existing flow to signup, welcome screens, responsive layouts, implementation, and QA. In 2026, I worked with Xavier Garcia to make signup more consistent across learner types.
Too much effort before getting started
Conversations with the data team and a review of the signup funnel pointed to drop-off early in onboarding. Looking through the existing flow, I found three places where we were asking too much of learners before they could use Coach.
Too much information upfront
The signup form asked for account details, birthdate, location, and gender in one sitting. Some of that information could help personalize Coach, but it didn’t all need to be collected to create an account.
Decisions before context
Learners had to choose between educator, learner, and learner with an invite code before they had seen the product. We were asking them to understand our account structure just to get started.
A long explanation before career guidance
After signup, a chat introduced AI, its capabilities, and its limitations through several long messages. The information was useful, but it stood between learners and the career guidance they came for.
Simplify signup
I separated account creation from the questions used to personalize Coach. The Independent Learner form asked for fewer required details and kept supported sign-in options.
The tradeoff was timing, not whether personalization mattered. Asking for less at signup meant Coach would need to collect career context later. I kept that step in the journey, explained its purpose, and gave learners a way to try Coach first.
Before
After
Personalization fields moved out of signup. Account creation and career context became separate steps.
Give learners a clear starting point
I replaced the chat introduction with a welcome screen focused on what learners could do with Coach. A short introduction, friendly illustration, and clear next step took the place of lengthy explanations about AI.
Learners could also choose to try Coach right away rather than finish the guided setup.
Before: Choose a role, complete the signup form, then read the chat introduction.
After: Create an account, see a short welcome, then personalize Coach or try it now.
Show what comes next
The new setup showed learners where they were and what was left: a welcome, questions about their goals and experience, and a career-readiness assessment.
I used a horizontal progress indicator on desktop and a vertical one on mobile so the same steps were easy to follow on either screen.
Mobile
Desktop
The progress indicator makes the sequence visible. “Try Coach now” gives learners another way to begin.
Explain personalization and let it wait
Coach still needed context to give relevant guidance. I introduced the personalization questions by explaining how the answers would help, how long they would take, and that learners could return later.
The goal was to make the request understandable without making it a requirement for trying the product.
The introduction explains why the questions matter, estimates the effort, and says learners can return later.
Designing for real-world use
The flow had to work across account types, sign-in methods, invitation links, and screen sizes.
I worked with product and engineering to refine the copy and review signup, personalization, surveys, optional steps, and responsive behavior during implementation and QA.
The 2025 launch
We launched on July 21, 2025 with shorter registration forms and a guided setup. Early internal reporting was encouraging for Classroom Learners, while Independent Learner conversion appeared stable.
We couldn’t recover and independently verify the historical funnel behind that report, so I don’t claim a specific conversion increase for the 2025 redesign.
Continuing the work in 2026
Xavier Garcia and I brought the Independent and Classroom Learner signup proposals into a more consistent flow. We refined signup and login, routing, invitation links, and prefilled information. These changes launched on April 1, 2026.
A closer look at the 2026 iteration
Invitation-based entry: the learner can enter an invite code and continue with a supported sign-in method.
Account creation: the next screen keeps the invitation context alongside the remaining account details.
Reported results
Thirty days after the April 2026 launch, the data team reported these start-to-account-creation conversion rates.
Learner type
Before
After
Classroom
~39%
~55%
Independent
~32%
~32%
Source: internal data-team reporting, 30 days after launch. A later review of PostHog and Metabase could not reproduce the historical comparison, so these figures do not establish causation.
The Classroom Learner rate rose by 16 percentage points, about a 41% relative increase. The Independent Learner rate was unchanged.
Reflection
This work changed the first few minutes with Coach: fewer signup questions, a shorter introduction, and a visible path through setup. The 2026 work with Xavier extended that approach across learner types.
Useful information doesn’t always belong in signup. Learners need enough context to begin, not an explanation of everything the product can do.
I’d also make measurement part of the launch plan from the start. Agreeing on funnel definitions and preserving a baseline would have helped us understand which changes worked for each learner group.