Case Study · Education · Multi-Platform
A four-year collaboration with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to build an inquiry-based science ecosystem across web, tablet, mobile, and print — supporting students, teachers, and three state adoptions.
As a core design partner on this program, I owned UX and UI design for the digital experience, directed visual development across illustration and animation, laid out the print textbooks in parallel, and collaborated with editors, engineers, animators, and curriculum specialists to keep everything coherent across every format and grade.
Led UX/UI for web, tablet, and mobile across Grades 3–5 — user flows, wireframes, low- and high-fidelity prototypes, and final visual design for the complete digital lesson experience.
Reviewed illustrator sketches, shaped animation storyboards, guided asset creation, and approved final art for all three grade levels — ensuring visual consistency across a massive content library.
Designed and laid out the print textbook versions of the curriculum in parallel with digital — mirroring the same instructional flow so teachers and students could move between formats seamlessly.
Optimized assets and updated front-end code in the CMS to ensure designs could be implemented at scale — reducing production friction and maintaining design quality across hundreds of lesson pages.
The Next Generation Science Standards organize learning around three interlocking dimensions. Every design decision — layout, interaction, content hierarchy — was made in service of all three. Click each pillar to explore.
The fundamental scientific concepts students build across K–12. In Grades 3–5, this means life science, earth science, physical science, and engineering design — each requiring distinct visual languages and interaction patterns to make abstract ideas concrete.
The eight practices scientists and engineers use — asking questions, planning investigations, analyzing data, constructing explanations. The digital UX had to scaffold these practices at age-appropriate levels without over-directing students or under-supporting teachers.
Seven ideas that bridge scientific disciplines — patterns, cause and effect, structure and function, systems and models. These had to surface consistently across all content without feeling redundant — a pattern library challenge as much as a pedagogical one.
This simulator is built using the actual HMH Science Dimensions design system — authentic RPL-643 activity containers, RPL-614 button specs, RPL-652 color palette, and real interaction patterns (MCQ, DDD, FTQ) from the NGSS 3–12 Styleguide I designed and documented.
You just experienced a full HMH Science Dimensions lesson — built using the exact design system from the real product. RPL-643 activity containers, RPL-614 buttons with 7px radius, RPL-652 aqua/orange color palette, Evidence Notebook FTQ pattern, MCQ with radio feedback, and DDD drag-drop interaction.
Every design decision had to work across four very different contexts. Hover each card to see what made each platform unique.
Four years meant four phases. Each phase built on the last — refining the system, expanding to new grades, and adapting for new contexts.
Worked with editors and curriculum specialists to map NGSS standards to digital lesson structures. Defined the 5-step pedagogical flow — Phenomenon, Wonder, Investigate, Make Sense, Apply — that became the backbone of the entire program.
Created user flows and low-fidelity wireframes for Grade 3, establishing the interaction patterns and component library that would scale to Grades 4 and 5. Teacher and student views designed in parallel from day one.
Led visual design for the digital experience while directing a team of illustrators and animators — reviewing sketch rounds, shaping storyboards, and approving final assets. Simultaneously designed print layouts for the same content.
Supported state adoptions for Oklahoma, Texas, and California — adapting content, imagery, and standards alignment for each. Optimized front-end assets in the CMS and conducted UX consistency reviews across all grades and formats.
State science adoption requirements aren't suggestions — they determine whether a program can be purchased by districts. I supported the adaptation process for three states, plus a complete Spanish-language translation.
The HMH NGSS program delivered both instructional and operational impact — measurable learning gains in student studies, successful multi-state adoptions, and a design system that let large editorial and engineering teams produce content at scale without losing quality.
Building a coherent experience across four platforms, three grade levels, three states, and two languages required the same kind of system-level UX thinking that scales to any complex enterprise product.
HMH demonstrates my ability to lead UX and visual design at scale across an extraordinarily complex product ecosystem — four platforms, four years, three grades, three states, two languages, and dozens of collaborators — without losing coherence or quality at any layer.
The system-level thinking required to build and maintain a multi-platform design system for K–5 education is directly transferable to any enterprise product that needs to scale across surfaces, teams, and markets. The craft is the same. The stakes are just different.