A classroom of twenty-five. A product for one.

Velocity is Voyager Sopris Learning’s flagship adaptive K–5 platform. I led the redesign from classroom research through interaction design and into the system that engineering built from — serving a student working alone and a teacher watching the whole room, in the same product.

senior product designer ux research interaction design design systems 2021–2022 at tectonic

Voyager Sopris Velocity reward screen with character celebrating student progress and skill badges

challenge

Velocity had to serve two users at the same time — a student working independently and a teacher monitoring twenty-five at once — on aging school hardware in rooms where bandwidth was not guaranteed.

Those constraints weren’t abstract. They were the brief. Every decision had to hold up in a real classroom, not a design review.

Students using Velocity on Chromebooks in a real classroom — classroom observation — the design brief written by the room itself

transformation

Velocity’s wide range of activity types — cold read, highlight, drag-and-drop, guided practice — got mapped into one consistent interaction model. A shell, a structure, and a golden path from login to grade-level readiness.

The visual language said learning tool without saying enterprise software. Approachable, clear, age-appropriate. Never condescending to the kids or the teachers.