Harvard Business Publishing:
Product Design Co-op
During my time as a Product Designer at Harvard Business Publishing, I stepped into a uniquely unstructured role. It gave me the freedom to chart my own path by reaching out across the team and asking, “How can I help?” That simple question opened the door to an incredibly dynamic and fulfilling experience.
I collaborated with designers on everything from flagship platforms like Harvard ManageMentor and Spark to emerging tools powered by AI. I contributed to learning simulations, helped shape new content experiences, and designed everything from system-wide UI elements and prototypes to accessibility updates and social media assets. With so many moving pieces, I was constantly shifting gears. It was a chance to touch nearly every corner of the product ecosystem and grow as a designer by adapting to whatever was needed.
duration
Jan–June 2023
Areas
Product Design, UX Research
managers
Donna Megquier & Ken Kimball
01 Designing & Running User Tests
Prototyping a New Learning Experience
I built functional lo-fi prototypes in Figma to simulate the full flow of our new learning platform — everything from browsing a lesson to watching a video and marking it complete. These prototypes were used in unmoderated user tests to evaluate clarity, usability, and flow before any code was written. I also helped manage the UserTesting.com setup and launch, ensuring we got reliable feedback on the entire learning experience.
Testing What Engages Learners
We ran experiments with different types of video content to see what resonated most, ranging from actor-led explainers to AI-generated avatars, AR-enhanced videos, and even TikTok-style clips. I contributed to the production of some of these videos, prototyped the review flows, and helped run the tests. It was eye-opening to see how content style could drastically change user engagement and retention.
Scaling Insights Through Testing
All tests were unmoderated and conducted through UserTesting.com, giving us access to diverse users from around the world. I helped define target demographics, fine-tune task prompts, and sift through dozens of responses, tagging key patterns and presenting actionable insights to stakeholders. This experience felt like a crash course in gathering qualitative data at scale and translating it into design direction.
02 Creating a LinkedIn Style Guide
Creating a Clear Visual System
I designed a comprehensive style guide and suite of templates for our LinkedIn Lifelong Learning group—an initiative focused on connecting with active learners, sharing lessons, and recruiting user testers. The goal was to establish a more cohesive and professional presence across posts.
Boosting Engagement Through Consistency
The templates included formats for testimonials, lesson launches, polls, and more. By providing visual and copy consistency, we made it easier for the team to post regularly and with purpose. After launch, we saw a 36% increase in engagement, showing just how much clarity and design can improve content performance.
Leaving a Lasting Impact
Beyond the metrics, this project was especially meaningful because it supported my manager’s passion project. The tools I created helped her continue running the group smoothly even after my co-op ended, something I was proud to leave behind.
03 Building an Accessible Data Visualization Design Library
Supporting Admins with Data
At the heart of Harvard ManageMentor’s, our largest product’s, success is the admin experience: leads at client companies who assign lessons, track progress, and drive engagement. One of their most powerful tools is a dashboard built in Domo, which visualizes key learning data to help them take action.
Bridging Design and Data with Figma
Before anything gets built in Domo, our team prototypes dashboards in Figma. I noticed we lacked a consistent set of components, so I led the effort to create a reusable design system that made prototyping faster, cleaner, and more scalable across projects.
Leaving a Lasting Impact
I developed a full design library including chart types, layout grids, spacing rules, typography and color styles, etc. This toolkit didn’t just improve speed and consistency, but it also empowered cross-functional teams to collaborate more efficiently and design with clarity.
Prioritizing Accessible Visualization
One of the most valuable takeaways from this internship was my introduction to WCAG accessibility standards, and honestly, I got a little obsessed. I started diving deep into how design systems can be intentionally built to improve usability for people with different access needs. I explored best practices for accessible data visualization, including resources from government and education sites, and applied them to the dashboard components I was building. This meant adding whitespace between bar segments, using unique shapes or endpoints in line charts, and integrating patterns into bar graphs to offer alternatives to color-based distinctions, especially helpful for users with low vision or color blindness.
Color Testing, Tweaking, and Testing Again
I spent hours refining the color palette for our dashboard components, making sure it was not only visually cohesive but also accessible. Using an online tool called Viz Palette, I tested the palette across different types of color blindness and reviewed contrast reports to ensure each data point remained distinct and legible. I went through multiple rounds of adjustments until I was confident that the visual contrast held up across use cases. Nothing is ever 100% perfect, but this process helped me deeply internalize how much thought goes into designing visual systems that truly work for more people.
04 Improving the Release Notes Experience
Supporting Admins with Data
One of my projects at HMM involved redesigning the release notes page—a key resource for admins who need to stay up to date on lesson changes, system updates, and new content. While some admins only care about the latest updates, others still rely on older versions or need to reference past changes. The existing page was a long, overwhelming list of every update ever made, making it hard to find relevant information. I set out to rethink the structure and improve navigation, exploring three different approaches to make the content easier to scan and more user-friendly.
Approach #1: Visual Cues
Explored adding visual cues to the release notes page, like lesson thumbnails and color-coded hyperlinks that linked directly to updated content.
Made page more engaging & scannable for users looking for specific lessons
Risked visual clutter and didn't solve the issue of page length
Approach #2: Collapsible Sections
Designed a dropdown system where each release could be expanded or collapsed, letting users choose which updates to view.
Reduced visual overwhelm and made it easier to focus on relevant releases
Added an extra click, which could slow users just browsing for general updates
Approach #3: Carousel Navigation
Prototyped a horizontal carousel with each release on its own card, plus a scrollable sidebar showing only the most recent releases.
Created a cleaner, more modern layout that emphasized recent changes
Less accessible for screen readers and less efficient for quickly scanning multiple releases
05 Designing Assets for Spark
I created 50+ visual assets, primarily thumbnails and lesson visuals, for Spark, one of our professional learning products. Each visual was carefully tailored to reflect the themes and content of new lessons through sourcing and editing graphics (mostly SVG’s) that felt more engaging and inclusive.
I also ensured all visuals aligned with brand guidelines while also elevating their clarity and appeal. I also contributed to the branding of a new lesson format called Conversation Starters, helping define a distinct but cohesive visual style for this content type.
Since there was no existing design library for Spark visuals, I created one from scratch, bringing together typography, color, iconography, lesson tags, logos, and more into a cohesive system. I also documented clear guidelines for creating new assets, with tips on designing, editing, and exporting to ensure consistency and efficiency across the team.