The PLUS Evolution
PLUS is built to be innovative, community-centered, and impact-driven EdTech platform. But its digital presence needed to match its mission.
As the Lead Designer, I redesigned PLUS's main website end-to-end—from defining a distinct brand identity that sets PLUS apart, to crafting the design language, and eventually fully responsive implementation on Framer.
My Role
UX Engineer
Visual Design
Project Manager
Team
Lead Designer (Me)
DesignOps
Marketing Designer
Product Manager
Duration
Jul - Nov 2024
Tool
Figma, Framer, Procreate, Notion
CONTEXT
PLUS is an innovative, caring EdTech brand—but you wouldn’t know that from its current website
"Oh, so it's a math tutoring company…"
PLUS is a research-driven EdTech platform dedicated to providing accessible, effective math tutoring to underserved communities, but its digital presence merely tell that unique story.
PROBLEM
One website, many confused audiences
PLUS’s website serve many diverse audiences.
Tutors needed seamless access to training, funders and partners sought clear impact insights, and students and parents craved a more engaging, approachable experience.
However, none is fully achieved.
CHALLENGE
How might we create a cohesive, high-impact redesign that balances diverse audience needs?
FINAL DESIGN
✨ The New PLUS Website
Explore PLUS's impact interactively
Take a peek inside PLUS — where every bento block tells a story
Fully responsive, across devices
Accessible for everyone
UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDS
🧐 Who’s here, and what do they need?
To ground my decisions in evidence, I took two key steps:
Stakeholder Alignment
I held discussions with leadership and the product team to understand business goals and content priorities.
Website Analytics Review
I analyzed traffic patterns to uncover which user groups were most engaged and which content was most accessed.
By analyzing engagement data and business objectives, I identified the key audiences in order of importance:
Funders & Partners
Seeking proof of impact and data-backed case that highlights PLUS’s scalability and success stories for investment & partnerships.
Tutors
Incoming tutors need a smooth onboarding process to join the team confidently. Current tutors need access to training materials efficiently.
Internal Teams
Internal teams rely on the website as a storytelling tool and need a clear, compelling narrative to communicate PLUS’s mission.
FIXING THE FLOW
How to guide different audience towards information they need?
Call-to-Actions with Targeted Focus
With the insights from preliminary research in mind, I revised the CTAs to put partner schools, funders, and tutors front and center.
Before: Generic CTA, loose navigation experience
After: Targeted CAT, focused navigational experience
Make impact more than just numbers
Click and Expand
Numbers alone are easy to glance over — but when users click to reveal a story or visual behind the stat, something changes. That tiny act of interaction transforms passive reading into active engagement.
Before: Plain numbers, no story
After: Interactively shows PLUS's impact
With a new information architecture in place, how can we craft a memorable & cohesive brand identity?
INSPIRATIONS
What makes a brand identity memorable?
Taking Inspirations from established EdTech & innovative brands
This helped me identify patterns in effective branding, such as the following design elements:
Illustration
Custom illustrations add personality and warmth.
Crayon Colors
Blended crayon-like colors evoke a sense of creativity.
Bento Boxes
Bento-style layouts allow for easy-to-scan content.
Bring these trends together with PLUS's unique identity
Gradient colors
Instead of treating the gradient color as just a logo element, I expanded it into a core part of the visual identity.
Color-coded Research Framework
PLUS’s research-backed SMART framework had an established color-coded system to represent different educational dimensions. I incorporated these colors into the visual language.
Math Symbol Illustrations
To make the brand feel both playful and educational, I collaborated with our marketing designer to create a set of math symbol illustrations.
Each math symbol illustration aligned with our SMART framework colors.
Next, how do we scale up the design and collaborate better within our design team?
DESIGN OPS
To support this growing webpage, I collaborated with our DS designer to build a scalable design system
Ensure visual consistency through standardizing
The design system defines specific local variables for 4 breakpoints (e.g., XS, S, M, L).
Elements like padding, corner radius, and icon sizes adjust dynamically to different screen sizes.
Static illustrations -> Dynamic components
As part of our design system, I worked with the Design Ops team to transform our PLUS math characters into flexible, reusable components.
Instead of being static illustrations, these characters are now modular assets, allowing future designers to replicate, customize, and create new variations effortlessly.
Onboard new designers, with full guidance
To streamline communication, I created an onboarding guide that provided new designers with project overview, design practices, and tool suggestions.
LEARNINGS
Lessons in Scalability, Brand Strategy & Impact
Branding is more than just aesthetics (hint: I think it's strategic storytelling)
A strong brand isn’t just about looking good—but also creating recognition, trust, and impact.
Every color, shape, and interaction should reinforce the brand’s mission and serve a purpose.
Design for now, but build for what's coming up next
Great design doesn’t just solve today’s problems—it anticipates tomorrow’s challenges.
A scalable system ensures that as the webpage evolves, the design stays consistent + adaptable.
