ClassCover
Reimagined
Rebuilding Australia's leading education
workforce platform — from the ground up.
UX CASE STUDY | UX Design, Research, Design System, Product
My role
Product Designer
4 Years, 10 months (2021-2026)
I was responsible for the full ClassCover product ecosystem. I redesigned the school and teacher platforms while simultaneously building the design foundation for new learning and jobs features that enabled ClassCover expansion globally.
When I joined the team, it had...
Solo-Designer on the project
No existing design system
No customer research/data
SUPPLY SIDE
Teachers looking for work
DEMAND SIDE
Schools looking for casual teachers
Classcover product ecosystem
For schools & teachers
Desktop Web, Mobile Web & Mobile App
50%
Market share
up from 20%
100%+
Gain in teachers
& 38% increase in 30d retention
Ireland
Expansion launched
& Government contract procured
Outcome first
The impact on users & business
1:1s with primary stakeholders revealed
Stakeholder expectations
WHAT I REALLY HEARD
Marketing Head
The real concern was scope creep and brand risk — not the users. They wanted control over the narrative.
STAKEHOLDER 1
Marketing Head
"Our brand is outdated but we can't afford quick change. We don't want to confuse our loyal users."
WHAT I REALLY HEARD
Product Head
The legacy systems are not useful anymore and we need a strategic plan to build the design system and brand
STAKEHOLDER 2
Product Head
Our core UX is broken. Usability is poor. We have no design system or consistency. Handoffs are a mess
WHAT I REALLY HEARD
CEO
Zero tolerance for regression. Any change had to be invisible to users who didn't want it — at least initially.
STAKEHOLDER 3
CEO
"Nothing can break the experience for existing loyal users. That's non-negotiable."
WHAT I REALLY HEARD
Support Head
The platform had features users didn't know existed. Discoverability was broken and onboarding manually was a huge pain.
STAKEHOLDER 4
Support Head
We get tickets every day for things the product already does, users just can't find those features
Turning on the tap of user insights
I first ensured that we had a steady stream of user insights by activating existing analytics tools and getting buy-in for new tools
Conversion tracking
Added conversion events and basic behavioral setup on existing tools like Intercom and Mixpanel.
User recruitment
Used Intercom to successfully recruit active users for interviews for the first time in ClassCover.
In-depth interviews
Did 12 teachers and 8 schools admin interviews to understand how they used ClassCover.
Session heatmaps
Introduced Hotjar for continuous heatmaps and session recordings to validate behavioral patterns.
“How might we evolve ClassCover into a scalable, accessible, and modern platform for global expansion — without alienating a loyal user base deeply accustomed to our decade-old workflows?”
1
Business Problem
Government contracts were blocked entirely due to unmet accessibility standards.
The upcoming EU expansion into Ireland required a rock-solid, scalable platform and unified branding.
Newer competitors were closing in.
2
User Problem
Severely dated usability, but older power users were deeply accustomed to the existing layouts and highly resistant to change.
Days of manual processes and undocumented workarounds to achieve basic approvals.
3
Design Constraints
Wildly inconsistent product interfaces across different states and user flows.
Absolutely no design system, component library, or even basic design tokens existed to anchor a redesign.
Synthesizing the chaos into core problems
Initial data collection and interviews led to a three-pronged problem
Project gantt chart
The 18-Month Launch Plan
Initial user research revealed
User Personas
We synthesized our research into four core groups. Each group uses ClassCover differently and has different priorities we needed to address. Two school (demand-side) and two school (supply-side) personas.
Defining the research goals
Research questions
01
What does a school admin's actual booking workflow look like — and where do they work around the platform rather than through it?
02
Where is the school platform losing admins — through drop-offs, confusing interactions, or tools they've given up trying to find?
03
What would make this platform feel genuinely useful during a school admin's morning — and what's getting in the way of that today?
Before designing a single screen, I created a
User Research Plan
Qualitative research
User Interviews
Data tells us what is happening, but conversations tell us why. In 40 structured interviews with school admins and relief teachers, I uncovered the hidden friction behind the platform's core workflows.
SCHOOL INTERVIEWS
15
TEACHER INTERVIEWS
25
School Admin Insights
01 - Tracking active bookings was disorganized and difficult to follow without real-time updates.
02 - The calendar experience felt fragmented, forcing admins to hunt for available teachers.
03 - Unfilled jobs were a common source of frustration, leading to platform abandonment.
Relief Teacher Insights
01 - The process of marking availability was an unnecessarily manual and repetitive chore.
02 - Outdated profiles resulted in poor job matching, driven by a confusing update workflow.
03 - A lack of custom notification controls meant users were flooded with irrelevant shift alerts.
School admin survey
Quantifying user feedback with surveys
We ran an intercept survey via Intercom to 127 active school admins. The goal was simple: find out how widespread the friction was, and whether the patterns from interviews held at scale.
School Admin Survey · 14 days via Intercom
127
Survey completions
over 14 days
78%
Rated booking as
highly frustrating
3.2h
Lost per week
cross-checking availability
71%
Cited booking status visibility
as #1 need