A visual overhaul for a seamless user experience
Enhancing student pathways, empowering educators, and supporting employers through human-centered design.
Key Takeaways
Tallo (a Stride platform) needed a fully designed web app connecting students, educators, and employers — delivered in under six months with incomplete requirements
OneSpring designed two distinct user experiences (Talent and Talent Seekers) using personas, one-week agile sprints, and Figma prototyping
Tallo launched on time, offering students career exploration tools and giving educators event, scholarship, and mentorship management in a single responsive platform
Background
The intersection of education and career development is crucial in a rapidly evolving world.
Tallo, a groundbreaking web application, aims to bridge the gap between students, educators, and employers. Over six months, our dedicated design team at OneSpring embarked on a transformative journey, crafting a user-centric experience that would redefine how individuals pursue their educational and career aspirations.
OneSpring successfully immersed itself in the challenge of designing Tallo from the ground up, collaborating with in-house researchers and product managers, and employing design processes to complete this innovative project.
The challenge, a six month timeline
Tallo entrusted OneSpring with the immense assignment of delivering a complete product in under six months. This case study explores how OneSpring tackled this challenge, focusing on user experience (UX) design for two distinct user groups: Talent (students) and Talent Seekers (educators, recruiters, and employers).
Understanding the User Groups
The primary goal was to create a seamless experience for both user groups, with a specific focus on appealing to the Gen Z target audience within the Talent user group. The application needed to include fully developed features for each user type and was based primarily on unfinished requirements, doubling the strain to complete designs for the application within the challenging allotted timeframe.
Balancing Needs and Expectations
Developing the application required OneSpring to devise strategies for balancing the needs, expectations, and pain points of both user groups, ensuring that Tallo would serve as a valuable resource for both.
Key Features for Students (Talent)
Students require a mobile-friendly experience to:
Create a profile showcasing their education and experience
Generate resumes based on their profiles
Explore career paths
Access online courses
Discover work opportunities
Connect with colleges and companies
Engage with a vibrant online community of users
Key Features for Educators and Employers (Talent Seekers)
Educators and employers needed a responsive web application to connect with students through:
Events
Scholarships
Mentorships
Job postings
Company or college profiles
Digital badges
This complex project demanded a strategic approach to UX design, ensuring that Tallo met the needs of both students and talent seekers within a tight deadline. OneSpring's expertise in understanding user needs and creating intuitive interfaces proved critical to the project's success.
Solution
Our goal was to design the application to be intuitive and appealing to both user groups. To shape our design strategy, we drew insights from existing user-centric research, including user interviews, surveys, and competitive analysis.
These insights led us to create robust user personas for both user groups. These personas acted as a guiding light for the rest of the design process to ensure the needs of the two target audiences were prioritized in each design decision.
Frequently referenced and relied upon during this product creation, these personas provided clear insights that guided our design decisions, laying the foundation for a more intuitive and impactful Tallo.
Our team deployed Requirements Visualization workshops to quickly and accurately address incomplete feature requirements with the Product team.
Iterative Design Process
We deployed an iterative design process in one-week sprints using a Human-Centered Design and Agile approach. With this approach, we could swiftly validate designs through prototypes or user surveys, making the platform more user-friendly and efficient while staying on schedule to complete the designs within the allocated six-month deadline.
Design and Prototyping Tools
The designs and prototypes for this application were crafted using Figma. Utilizing Figma for both aspects facilitated a seamless transition from design to handoff for development.
Handoff and Development
The meticulous design files and detailed annotations streamlined the handoff process, ensuring a smooth transition for the Tallo development team.
Elevating Tallo: The results of good design
Ensuring Vision Through Quality Assurance
Following OneSpring's strategic handoff to Tallo's development team, the client recognized the value of our continued involvement. They requested our active participation in quality assurance (QA) testing. This crucial step ensured that the original vision for Tallo was realized without compromise, resulting in a user-centric platform.
Successful Launch and Ongoing UX Support
Tallo successfully launched within the ambitious six-month deadline. OneSpring continues to partner with Tallo, providing ongoing user experience (UX) design support. We focus on ensuring optimal usability, envisioning future possibilities, and developing enhancements that further elevate this transformative platform.
Bridging the Gap: OneSpring's Impact on Tallo's Success
Through its strategic partnership with OneSpring, Tallo effectively bridged the gap between students, educators, and employers, achieving key objectives:
• Intuitive Connection: Created an intuitive platform connecting students with relevant educational and career opportunities.
• Responsive Design: Developed a responsive web app for seamless functionality across different devices, ensuring accessibility for all users.
• Dynamic Personalization: Implemented dynamic search capabilities and personalized suggestions, enhancing user engagement and discovery.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Tallo and who does it serve?
Tallo is a web application that connects students, educators, and employers through a single platform. Students use it to build profiles, explore career paths, access courses, and apply for opportunities. Educators and employers use it to post jobs, scholarships, events, and mentorships, and to discover talent through digital badges and profiles.
How did OneSpring design Tallo for two distinct user groups simultaneously?
OneSpring developed separate user personas for Talent (students) and Talent Seekers (educators, recruiters, and employers). These personas guided distinct feature sets and interaction models for each group while ensuring the overall platform maintained a cohesive design and shared infrastructure.
What UX methods helped OneSpring meet Tallo's six-month deadline?
OneSpring used one-week agile design sprints with a Human-Centered Design approach, validated decisions quickly through prototypes and user surveys, and ran Requirements Visualization workshops to resolve incomplete feature specifications with the product team — keeping the project moving without sacrificing quality.
Why is human-centered design important for EdTech platforms serving Gen Z?
Gen Z users have high expectations for digital experiences — they're accustomed to consumer apps with intuitive, visually engaging interfaces. EdTech platforms that feel dated or difficult to navigate see lower adoption and engagement. Human-centered design ensures the product matches how this audience actually thinks and behaves.
How did persona development guide Tallo's design decisions?
User personas provided a concrete reference point for every design decision throughout the project. When feature requirements were ambiguous or incomplete, the team consulted personas to determine which options best served each user group's core goals — preventing feature bloat and keeping designs user-focused under time pressure.
What features did OneSpring design for students on the Tallo platform?
For students, OneSpring designed profile creation with education and experience fields, resume generation, career path exploration, online course access, job and opportunity discovery, college and company connections, and a community feature for engaging with other users — all optimized for a mobile-friendly experience.
How does OneSpring support clients post-launch with ongoing UX design?
After Tallo launched, OneSpring continued as a design partner, participating in QA testing to ensure the original vision was realized in development, and providing ongoing UX support for future enhancements. This ongoing collaboration helps clients maintain usability standards as their products evolve.