When anyone can teach, the hard part is finding the right course.

Udemy connects people who want to learn with instructors who teach what they know. I was Udemy’s second designer and its first design leader, and I built the team to ten: product designers, brand designers, and researchers, plus agency partners for marketing.

The opportunity

Anyone could teach on Udemy, so the catalog grew faster than anyone could navigate it, and quality varied. Students needed help finding the right course and finishing it. Instructors were running a small business and needed to know how they were doing.

The problems worth solving

• Finding the right course. New discovery features helped students find a good fit in a catalog where anyone could publish.
• Learning, not just watching. Exercises, plus a player built for learning: chapters, and quick jumps back to catch what you missed.
• Keeping students and instructors talking. New communication channels let students ask questions and instructors stay close to their classes.
• Showing instructors what’s working. Analytics made quality and performance visible, so instructors could improve their courses.

Building the practice

Starting from almost nothing, I defined what design meant at Udemy: the principles, methods, and practices. I set up ways for teams to collaborate and share what they knew across every level of the organization. We also established the styles, patterns, and brand elements for both brand and product, so the work could move fast without losing quality.