From a High-Growth, Series A SaaS Startup to Nationwide Scale
When I joined Clever, it was still defining what it wanted to be—a secure sign-on bridge for K-12 students to access digital learning tools. The vision was simple: make logins frictionless, safe, and universal.
The execution was anything but simple. Schools had hundreds of different systems, inconsistent data sources, and complex permission models. Teachers were losing hours managing accounts. Students were losing access altogether.
My job was to bring clarity—to make something this complex feel invisible.
Setting the Foundation
As the founding UX lead, I partnered directly with the CTO and co-founders to design the first scalable version of Clever’s Single Sign-On (SSO) and onboarding experience. My early work centered on system architecture and accessibility—not just interface polish, but designing an operational language between schools, apps, and the students who used them.
The design had to work across every district type, from a rural classroom with 30 Chromebooks to a district with 200,000 students.
I designed modular patterns that could scale infinitely, reducing setup friction and aligning with FERPA compliance standards from day one.
Design Thinking in Motion
I approached the problem through pattern recognition. Every district had slightly different needs—but the same pain points: lost logins, manual syncing, and overcomplicated onboarding.
By identifying behavioral clusters across user groups (IT admins, teachers, students), I mapped repeatable journeys and built UX templates that could flex with variable data and permissions. This was the seed of what became Clever’s design system—a shared language across 90,000 schools.
Empathize: Conducted user interviews with district IT leads and teachers to identify onboarding bottlenecks.
Define: Prioritized accessibility and speed as twin pillars of design.
Ideate: Created low-fidelity prototypes to test sign-on paths for clarity and speed.
Test & Iterate: Launched 3 variations across pilot districts, cutting login times by 60%.
My design philosophy was rooted in one principle: the best UX is the one nobody notices—because it just works.
Design Process & Thinking
We worked cross-functionally with leadership, design, and PMs to map out friction points, priority users, and clarity gaps. What started as a front-end redesign quickly evolved into a foundational UX effort addressing content hierarchy, accessibility, brand cohesion, and behavioral clarity.
The product didn’t just need to look cohesive—it needed to operate with confidence.
We rebuilt core experiences with a modular, decision-first framework that reduced noise, simplified choices, and improved conversion. This wasn’t paint. It was architecture.
Scaling Up
Once Clever hit national adoption, new challenges emerged. The product had to maintain reliability while integrating thousands of third-party apps. I built modular onboarding systems and dynamic configuration flows that enabled self-service district setup—reducing support volume by 30%.
The design system matured into a living framework that unified web and dashboard experiences. With each iteration, we reduced friction, simplified visuals, and made the technology fade into the background.
I also implemented early WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards, embedding inclusive design into every component to meet the needs of visually and cognitively diverse students.
Key Initiatives
Designed and launched Clever’s first scalable Single Sign-On (SSO) and onboarding experience for K–12, improving login speed by 60% and driving 35% higher adoption across pilot districts.
Built the foundational design system that unified dashboards, partner apps, and admin tools under a WCAG 2.0 AA-compliant framework, reducing design-to-dev time by 45% and increasing engineering velocity.
Redesigned district onboarding and self-service setup to automate app integrations and user syncs, cutting support tickets by 30% and accelerating time-to-launch for new districts.
Embedded accessibility as infrastructure, defining inclusive color, type, and focus standards that ensured 100% compliance across all core user flows and improved usability for diverse learners.
Partnered with engineering on performance and reliability improvements, optimizing caching and data flow for large districts to achieve 28% faster load times and stable uptime during national school hours.
Key Results
25M+ users (students and teachers)
90K+ schools nationwide using Clever
50% of U.S. districts connected monthly
30% reduction in support tickets via self-service onboarding
60% faster login completion
Acquired by Kahoot! for $435M (2021)
These weren’t just UX wins—they were operational wins that scaled trust, access, and adoption at the national level.
The Impact
Clever redefined access to education technology. What once took teachers hours now happened in seconds. Districts stopped dreading integrations and started innovating on top of them.
My role wasn’t just design—it was building the connective tissue that made digital learning usable at scale.
Every improvement in the UX flow meant more time for students in the classroom and fewer headaches for teachers and IT teams. That’s where design earns its value: in time, trust, and reach.
Role
Founding UX Architect & Design Lead
Partnered with the CTO, product, and engineering to architect Clever’s identity and onboarding UX, establish early design systems, and scale user access from a few districts to 25 million users nationwide.
