Pluralsight Interactive Courses
Through human-centered design, our team introduced Interactive Courses, a guided, hands-on learning experience that unlocks practice for learners.
Pluralsight's technology learning platform hosts an impressive library of video content, but learners were craving something more than passive learning. Technologists need opportunities to practice and apply the skills they are learning, so Pluralsight's acquisition of Code School was the perfect opportunity to bring Code School's interactive learning ethos into the product.
Our first step was conducting 1:1 interviews with learners to understand how they practice and apply the skills they learn on Pluralsight. We talked to both engaged and disengaged learners to understand their successes and pain points.
The most common behavioral pattern we discovered is play, pause, code, repeat. Learners would set up two monitors— one with the video course and the other with a local development environment. This requires the installation of a text editor and the technologies being taught. The learner would then watch 2-5 minutes of video content, pause, and then replicate the author's demonstration on their own. Learners would repeat until the video course was completed, but our team knew we could provide something better. We crafted an envisioned journey map to hypothesize an ideal learning journey.
Our team conducted 42 discovery calls, analyzed NPS data, and built quantitative surveys to understand our learners and personas. Discovery calls consisted of VOCs (voice of the customer), to understand the current learning journey, and CPTs (customer preference test) to validate our hypotheses through prototype observation.
Based upon our initial research, we developed a set of guiding principles to inform our product strategy:
Lower the barrier to entry for practicing technology skills
Provide a real-world workspace
Have content that fits the context of instruction
Provide a way to get unstuck
Give guidance to prevent from getting stuck
Provide validation of learning progress
I partnered with instructional design experts to craft effective learning loops within the experience. Interactive Courses start with an author led tutorial that features visual examples and demons followed by in-browser coding challenges for practicing concepts.
The in-browser code editor features a robust experience for technologists of any skill level and includes syntax highlighting, Intellisense/autocomplete, and customization options. The file tree allows learners to manage, view, and work with multiple code files within the challenge, while the live preview shows exactly what the code is doing.
Each code challenge is backed with unit tests that anticipate any mistake a learner may encounter. This allowed us to provide real-time, targeted feedback to guide the learner through challenges.
It was important that the overall course design emphasized the learner's accomplishments and progress, so I designed a system of success states and animations. Our goal was to maintain some of the fun and delightful experiences of Code School.
I co-created a content branding system with Marketing to differentiate learning modalities and create a scalable solution for future content types (written, audio, project-based, community).
I worked closely with Product Marketing to determine pricing and packaging, create product messaging and communications, build marketing videos and materials, and prepare for the product unveiling at Pluralsight Live, our first live conference event.
