Skillshare is an online learning platform for creatives and a two-sided marketplace. Teachers can share referral links to promote their classes and earn additional income for any new students who start a free trial. I led the redesign of the referral flow and page, collaborating with internal Growth experts, and successfully increased the conversion rate by 14%.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study.
Design lead — Research, UX/UI Design, QA
Matt Niemitz, Product Manager
Emily Frouine, Engineering Lead
Anna Buchsbaum, Data
Optimization — Growth
1 month from kick off to launch (2024)
Figma
Miro
Google slides
Skillshare teachers can share referral links for their classes to earn additional income. The existing referral page was outdated, built on legacy code, and had poor conversion rates, prompting engineers to prioritize its update.
For prospective users, the first impression is critical for conversion, but the existing page lacked information, aesthetic appeal, and a clear call to action.
Without teachers sharing their content outside of Skillshare, referrals cannot succeed. Updating the referral page was essential to provide teachers with a modernized "business card" for their content.
I audited the existing experience in different lenses in order to identify the potential problems the scope started with refreshing the page only, but after reviewing the experience more holistically we have decided to include the flow change as part of this project.
Since the majority of first touchpoints before reaching the referral page came from teachers' YouTube channels, we aimed to align with users' expectations upon arriving from YouTube. The offer, which initially grabbed their attention, needed to be the top-priority information on the referral page. Knowing the users were already interested in the teacher, we revised the heading copy to make it feel like the teacher was speaking directly to them.
From past user research, we learned that elements such as class length, number of students, available resources, lesson plans, and projects as outcomes were important factors users liked to evaluate before starting a class. We decided to add more class information to entice users to start learning without adding too much to distract them from the main CTA.
I worked closely with Growth marketing, SEO, Growth product manager to learn common Growth tactics, and applied them on this page. Having the one-click sign-up module on the page reduced unnecessary steps in the account creation process. It also added the credibility of the Skillshare brand by showcasing familiar brands like Google and Apple. The navigation was simplified and made sticky to optimize the page as a growth-focused landing page.
I share my design with engineers early, so we could find a way to build faster with existing components. Some components look similar but functionally slightly different, so any tweak needed to be made were discussed without increasing the scope of the project. For video player, it was written on legacy code, and rebuilding on React would take more time and we decided to drop some functionality that are not necessary for the referral page.
The aesthetic refresh was impactful, as it instantly elevated brand trust. However, I didn’t stop there—I delved deeper into the problem and proposed a flow change to eliminate unnecessary steps and adjust the destination at the end of the referral process. This was possible because I took the time to experience the entire journey from start to finish. The approach I took for this seemingly simple, small project inspired other team members to ask more questions and uncover new problems to solve while addressing the task at hand.
