Kaplan Site Re-Design
2022 | UX Design
Making meaningful digital experiences more accessible to students, professional, businesses, and universities.

INTRODUCTION

Kaplan, a global leader in education, needed a complete redesign of their digital ecosystem to consolidate over 90+ individual sites into a unified, scalable platform. My role was as one of the lead experience designers, tasked with designing a modular system that could accommodate Kaplan’s diverse offerings while enhancing usability, accessibility, and brand cohesion.

MY ROLE

Responsible for conducting a site audit on 30+ sites, designing low-mid fidelity wireframes, designing modular templates and components, designing global navigation for desktop and mobile, contributing to information architecture and taxonomy, building design system, and writing design documentation for dev handoff

THE TEAM

2 UX designers, 1 design director, 2 visual designs, 1 product manager, 3 producers, 3 data analysts, and 15+ engineers

TIMELINE

Dec 2021 - May 2022

THE CHALLENGE

Kaplan's existing design lacked consistency and accessibility across its educational platforms, which hindered the user experience for both students and educators. The fragmented digital presence made it challenging for users to navigate their products and services.

The redesign needed to address
• The consolidation of 90+ sites into a single, cohesive platform.
• Designing scalable templates and modules to meet varied content needs.
• Balancing the needs of diverse user personas, from students to educators.
• Streamlining navigation to improve user engagement and reduce drop-off rates.

THE SOLUTION

A Modular Design System

We developed a modular design system that provided a structured yet flexible framework to meet the needs of various pages across Kaplan’s platforms, ensuring consistency and ease of maintenance.

Templates

Components

Cards

Improved Navigation and Content Discovery

We simplified the navigation by organizing the primary menu by audience and the secondary menu by content categories. This approach clearly communicates the user types Kaplan serves and allows users to easily self-select into an experience tailored to their interests, reducing the clicks needed to find relevant content.

Mobile-First Optimization

We redesigned the mobile experience to ensure touch-friendly interactions, faster load times, and an overall more streamlined experience. This improved conversion rates by making key actions, such as course sign-ups and purchases, more accessible and user-friendly.

HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

Homepage

Curated Hub

Category

Package PDP

Standard PDP

Bio Detail

Article Detail

Detail

Lead Gen

Search

Utility

Bio Detail

IMPACT + TAKEAWAYS

Through the development of a scalable design system, restructuring of the navigation, mobile-first optimization, and accessibility enhancements, the Kaplan redesign not only improved usability and content discoverability but also provided a modernized platform that supports both high-intent and exploratory users. These solutions helped Kaplan better serve its diverse audience while driving increased engagement and conversions.

The Kaplan redesign was one of the most rewarding projects of my career. It challenged me to think about scalability and modularity on a massive scale while balancing the needs of a diverse user base. The collaboration with Kaplan’s team and stakeholders was a key factor in delivering a solution that exceeded expectations.