A tool for creating digital credentials with meta data; issuing them to employees, customers or partners; and using analytics tools to inform training, marketing, talent management, partnerships, and other initiatives. Welcome to recognition technology!
A digital badge is a portable, verified, graphic representation of knowledge and skills earned in various learning environments. Because digital badges are issued and verified online, unlike paper certificates, they make it easy for individuals to communicate their competencies to employers, clients and peers. Each digital badge has a unique URL that can be shared electronically via social media, in an email signature, on a resume, and more.
Organizations, Educational Institutions, Online Certificate Programs, Trade Certification
What is the benefit for Issuers using Credly?
• Promote a Culture of Achievement & Recognition
• Engage and Empower Employees
• Convert employees into brand ambassadors as they use their digital credentials online
• Gain data-driven insights into employee skills and interests – identify influencers, areas of strength and skill gaps to inform talent development and hiring needs
Students, Employees, Learners
What is the benefit for Earners using Credly?
• Gain recognition by displaying achievement, which has been validated by an issuing organization or authority
• Badge is available online
• A digital badge is portable and transparent; achievements can be shared
When joining the Credly team I lead the redesign experience of Credly’s website to enable current users to use the functionality and increase engagement. Working on all UI and UX design, ideas/concepts, marketing, onboarding and branding while collaborating with a team of engineers. Eighteen months later, with a MVP of the product successfully launched, I further developed the product with Credly’s Acclaim and designed the next wave of features to position the product as a market leader.
Partnered with the Project Manager and Product Director to uncover insights and translate concepts into features that address user behaviors and motivations.
Created a visual design system to establish the brand and shared a design vision to gain alignment to help with decision making.
Helped define the product with the Product Manager balancing customer goals and business goals. I prioritized and negotiated features working closely with our Engineering Team.
Created user journeys, wireframes, interactive prototypes, components and design specs.
Collected user feedback, feature usage, conversion rate, session duration and frequency
In just four years Credly transformed into a true startup with a global network. The website struggled to scale, usability was challenged, features competed for focus and many were hidden while the performance issues increased exponentially. When organizations tried to issue badges on the Credly platform over 60% could not perform the task on their own and had to reach out to customer service for help. Many of them had trouble managing their credentials.
• Four years since last update
• Confusing user experience
• Visual design was outdated
• Site is not responsive
• Actions/content was hidden
• No interactions
• Features added in a disjointed way
All the above problems made the process of creating, managing and issuing a badge a tedious and confusing task. We found that users were frustrated throughout the process and there were many drop-offs. A seamless flow of creating and managing a badge would make this a more successful and intuitive resource for organizations.
We were able to collect some data and we interviewed many different users, but Credly is a startup with mostly new employees in a new digital space and having to manage feedback from different internal viewpoints was a challenge. The team spent a lot of time debating product decisions and there was no data that could easily be gathered to help drive all decisions.
I worked with the Product Director to set design goals and the Product Manager to help implement a design process to document feature prioritization, including feedback and data, to help articulate design rationale. With this framework in place, the team shared the vision for the product and created visibility into my decision making process.
To create an intuitive credential platform for the user which should aim at increasing the number of organizations
• Modernize design
• Ensure usability
• Increase brand presence
• Improve functionality
Clarity of features being offered and its benefits
• Access to edit the details of the badges
• Acquiring relevant information to each badge
• Retain their long-term loyalty for training and development
• For learners to benefit from their verified skill set
I performed a feature audit and collaborated with the Customer Success Team to understand the product and current state of the website. Another area of focus was clarity throughout the issuers journey, as we found through existing usability testing videos that users were unclear and confused of how to create a badge and what features were offered. This helped to identify questions for development and to understand various digital touch points that I focused on while redesigning Credly’s application.
Analysis
• Create a dashboard showing data points
• Streamline creating a badge
• Customize view for created badges and issued badges
• Organize account settings
We conducted a survey to understand what data was most important to see in the dashboard/analytics section. We learned that:
Our Initial Findings
1. To search for all issued badges and a specific badge
2. Adding notifications would give the user an ability to take notice and action
3. Filtering the acceptance rate per badge within the last 30 days
4. Insights on shared badges
Then I worked with the Engineering Team to see what data points we had the ability to track.
Just like any other design project, I first took to pen and paper to ideate and experiment.
I designed an interactive prototype and conducted some additional user feedback. Based on these insights, the first screen a return user would see when they signed onto the application was a analytics dashboard. By using individual cards representing visual data the design could easily be scalable and adaptable. To prove this design the Engineering Team tested the data.
My objective was to present an experience that was friendly and communicative, meaning interactions would be easy to adapt to and learn. In addition, provide value from a first time user experience by adding a analytics overview section. Designing different individual cards of visual data that were scalable and adaptable allowed engineering to start testing in Credly’s data to prove the designs.
The final design included:
• Filter to adjust the time
• Ability to search for badges
• Export a spread sheet for additional data points
Cards
• Overview card to tab through – total badges issued, accepted earners badges, shares
• Alerts/notifications – claim requests, pending badge acceptance, expired badges, email reminders
• Badges issued stats – accepted, pending, declined, revoked
• Total shares
• Average – share per earner, share per acceptance, views per share
As per the data, around 60% of the users had trouble creating a badge and successfully issuing it. As a result of this feedback I wanted to simplify the process and create an intuitive form which started with wireframes and moved onto rapid prototyping.
Although the old design had a feature to create your own badge, it was outdated and according to the research was not being used. By eliminating the badge builder and creating a one page form, I designed a consistent side container to display all options and actions.
DECISION
To verify the performance, we decided to do user testing with two layouts (A/B) – one with clicks to edit data and one without.
The results showed that the new design was generating a better experience, but it was unnecessary to have an edit button with the text form fields which created extra clicks. This insight brought us to the conclusion that a form design was the best solution (B).
Organization was the key design component of this section based on the feedback. A big change that we wanted to implement created two separate experiences, one for the issuer and one for the earner. Presenting the badges in a list view with column headers allowed sorting, filter and search capabilities. We were able to interview with users to prove this design hypothesis as a design system.
Add Badge to Category
The prototypes helped with gathering user feedback. It set clear direction with engineering.
Once I designed the product system, I was able to move through the different sections of the application. We used the same process.
1. Collecting data and requirements
2. Meeting with Engineering to discuss sprint
3. Design iterations – sketching, wire framing, designing, prototyping
4. Conducting user feedback with prototypes
5. Collecting feedback to finalize designs
6. Finalizing designs, functionality and interactions with Engineering
• View badge status
• Ability to find an earner and group them
• Revoke multiple badges
• Know when a badge expires
The redesign intended to create focus and unity for Credly’s product and aimed to simplify the chaos of features available to users. Adopting a systematic design process was the first step that provided white space and affordance throughout site and would evolve over time with the growth of the company. This was accomplished with the guidance and cooperation of the Engineering Team.
The design system included product components, emails, marketing collateral, banners, business cards, badges, ads and brochures.
The launch of Credly 2.0 was done progressively. We knew that the design was drastically different from the existing experience our users were accustomed to and presenting them with this new experience could be jarring. We decided to give users the option to switch to the new issuer layout to start. This allowed us to continue iterating while receiving valuable feedback from users regarding the new experience.
Metrics tracked from improved new design
• Number of badges published
• Number of member badges issued
• Number of clicks on search
• Number of clicks on the filters
• Number of page views of the admin dashboard
Since rolling out the new application, we have learned a lot about Credly users. A huge portion of users primarily use the app for its branding reach. When earners share their badges to social media platforms, it creates visibility for the organization. The other finding we made was that organizations are using this platform for internal hiring because the badges represent a grouping of skills which are helpful when promoting from within.
