Voyager Sopris makes K–5 literacy and math products for schools. Velocity needed a complete redesign: from the adaptive learning experience to the design system used to build it.
Before any design work, we spent time understanding how Velocity was actually being used, by teachers managing 25 kids at once, on aging school hardware, in classrooms where bandwidth wasn’t guaranteed. The constraints were real.
The lesson experience needed to support a student working independently while giving the teacher visibility across the room at the same time. Those two needs had to coexist in the same product, designed so neither user felt like an afterthought.
Velocity had a wide range of activity types across subjects and grade levels. Mapping those consistently was the foundation of the design system. Without that structure, every new activity would be a design problem from scratch.
The student journey from login to grade-level readiness.
The visual language had to communicate “learning tool” without feeling like enterprise software. Approachable, clear, and age-appropriate, without being condescending to the kids or the teachers using it.
The student experience unfolds across themed worlds. Each world introduces lessons through animated characters and z-space environments, with a reward system that acknowledges effort and tracks skill mastery.
Animated environments use z-space depth to create an engaging and playful entry into each world.
Clear typography, hierarchy, and an uncluttered framework for students to work in across grade levels.
Lesson flows adapt between reading, highlighting, guided practice, and character-driven transitions.
Personalized feedback acknowledges effort and shows skills practiced after each session.
Portals show students how they're progressing through worlds and preview their next adventure.
The adaptive engine presents different interaction types depending on the skill being assessed: cold read, highlight, drag and drop, text input, guided practice, and more. Each activity maps to a specific comprehension skill and feeds data back to the algorithm, which adjusts difficulty and sequencing in real time. Students complete skill experiences to earn progress points, level up through themed worlds, and ultimately reach grade-level readiness.
A personalized welcome sets the tone before students enter their first world.
The portal map gives students a persistent view of where they’ve been and where they’re headed.
The design system documentation gave the engineering team a foundation they could build from independently: component specs, interaction patterns, usage guidance, and the logic behind every decision.
The full handoff package spanning UX framework, visual guidelines, component specifications, motion direction, and illustration style.
Designed for the Chromebook dimension as the primary target, with touch and mouse support. The focused experience floats centered on screen, scaling responsively without requiring a full responsive system, accommodating iPads and full-screen desktop as well.
Every major decision tied to observed classroom behavior.
Full design system with engineering documentation.
Student and teacher experiences designed in parallel.
Boston & remote
