Advancing Early Childhood Education Assessment Systems Through Content Design
VAConnects for Kids is Virginia's new unified platform for educators and administrators to conduct and manage early childhood education assessments and reporting. This innovative solution combines three legacy systems into a single, efficient platform.
As the sole Content Designer from start to launch, I played a key role in identifying needs and crafting the right information at the right time to support Virginia's youngest learners.
Challenge
Prior to VAConnects, Virginia's early childhood education assessment landscape was fragmented across three disconnected systems. Educators and administrators struggled with navigating different platforms, each with its own terminology and user experience.
The complexity was magnified by the need to serve 21 distinct user types with varying permissions and a lack of standardized guidance for assessment content and layout. This fragmentation created significant inefficiencies in data collection and made it difficult to gain comprehensive insights into child development progress.
Solution
In partnership with University of Virginia and the Virginia Department of Education, WillowTree developed VAConnects for Kids as a comprehensive assessment platform that unifies all three initiatives under a single, intuitive interface.
In its initial MVP launch, which was accomplished in under six months, the platform served over 340,000 students and 60,000+ active users and successfully administered more than 3.5 million literacy subtests to K-3 students. This transformation created a seamless experience for conducting and managing early childhood assessments across Virginia.
How I helped
For over a year, I served as the sole Content Designer on a Design Team of four and a project team of 30+ Engineers and Product Leads. I supported all features and initiatives within the web app, owned all copy, and presented to stakeholders on a regular basis. Additionally, I played a key role with:
Strategic Information Architecture Design
Led the creation of a unified product and information architecture (IA) that brought three distinct, complex initiatives under one cohesive platform serving hundreds of thousands of users
Developed comprehensive taxonomies and nomenclature systems to ensure consistency
Created sitemaps and user views for 21 different user types with varying permissions across three programs, including navigation and filtering customization
User-Centric Design Excellence
Created intuitive experiences that streamlined the assessment and tracking process, reducing time to assess students and help desk calls
Crafted clear, concise UX copy and microcopy, including instructions and guidance, system labels and navigation, modals, and error messages—all reducing training and support needs
Designed new product features for providing contextual information such as relevant stats, timelines, and tasks for each user level
User tested features and navigation to ensure clarity and satisfaction
Assessment Content Innovation
Pioneered a new structure for assessment content delivery, including bite-sized, contextual components for assessment preparation, administration instructions, scoring guidance, content formatting, and review and success modals
Streamlined the assessment process through clear, sequential presentation
Scalable Solution and Client Empowerment
Led discovery workshops to understand client needs and goals as well as design reviews to collaborate and receive feedback
Designed and implemented a scalable Contentful integration for Home page management, Resource page updates, and system-wide communications
Trained clients on content management best practices
This work was not done alone. Thank you to my collaborators—designers, project managers, engineers, and everyone else—for your talent, guidance, and hearts. I appreciate you.