Mucktracker
Fall 2023
Duration
Lead Product Designer
Role
Redesign and enhance the user experience for both learners and educators on an existing, developer-built platform.
Deliver a high-fidelity, clickable prototype to be used for stakeholder feedback from Clicksters / Character Lab for a competition pitch to the National Science Foundation.
Establish a foundational visual design library and system to improve the platform's aesthetics and consistency.
Strategically iterate and implement impactful UX improvements within a tight deadline.
Key Objectives
Overview
Mucktracker is an EdTech platform designed to help students build media literacy skills by engaging with live news feeds from trusted sources. When I joined the project, the platform was already functional but lacked UX structure and visual cohesion. As the Lead UX Designer, I was brought in to elevate both the learner and educator experiences - introducing clarity, engagement, and accessibility across the product.
Working closely with the founder and engineering lead, I redesigned core features, streamlined navigation, and built a scalable design system that established a consistent visual language. The result was a more intuitive, collaborative learning environment that supported the platform’s mission of helping students think critically about the news.
The Challenge
The platform had strong functionality but lacked the clarity, accessibility, and polish expected in a modern learning tool. My task was to introduce UX principles into an existing system—balancing user needs with engineering limitations—and advocate for design-driven improvements across the experience.
A timeline of the collaborative design process.
Process
I began by auditing the product and conducting quick-turn user research: persona development, competitive analysis, and flow mapping.
Persona Development.
Competitive analysis and insights.
Before and after of the learner’s IA and flow with improved, simplified navigation.
From there, I focused on high-impact redesigns for the Learner Home, Assignment Pages, and two core tools—Canvas and Timeline—where students research, organize, and analyze news content. I also redesigned the Article Card to make sure it was as engaging as it should be for teenagers.
Throughout the five-week sprint, I collaborated daily with the founder and engineer, prototyping in Figma, iterating from teacher and student feedback, and ensuring feasibility with the dev team.
Mucktracker’s Canvas view - before.
Mucktracker’s Canvas view - after my redesign.
Mucktracker’s Timeline view - before.
Mucktracker’s Timeline view - after my redesign.
Original article card (left) and my redesign (right). Essential for engaging with the search, timeline and news articles.
Key Improvements
Streamlined Navigation: Simplified the information architecture and unified navigation across learner and educator views.
Enhanced Canvas & Timeline: Introduced visual hierarchy, drag-and-drop usability, and annotation tools for more interactive learning.
Educator Empowerment: Designed a multi-step assignment flow for flexible lesson creation and classroom management.
Visual Design System: Built a foundational design library with new typography, color palette, and reusable components for scalability.
Clickable Prototypes: Produced high-fidelity prototypes used for user testing and a National Science Foundation funding pitch.
Preview of the design system foundation I created for Mucktracker.
The redesign made the platform easier to use, more visually coherent, and better aligned with classroom needs. User feedback showed a 75% increase in student favorability, and the work contributed $5,000 in design value toward the team’s National Science Foundation presentation in the VITAL competition.
Beyond design, I helped shape product priorities - balancing feedback, scope, and speed - while establishing a design foundation Mucktracker can continue to build on.