Goal go
UI/UX Design, Research
Client:
City of Bridges High School
A guided goal-setting platform for student-directed learning
GoalGo helps students at City of Bridges High School turn their interests, skills, and values into actionable learning goals. The platform guides students through goal discovery, planning, and progress tracking, giving them structure to navigate their learning journey independently.
Collaborators
Shang-Yuan Wang,
Yinru Sun,
Zijing Lu
Shang-Yuan Wang,
Yinru Sun,
Zijing Lu
Duration
10 weeks
10 weeks
Tools
Figma
Miro
Figma
Miro
Problem space
How might we help students navigate a self-directed learning environment?
City of Bridges High School uses a competency-based education model, where students develop skills through personalized learning experiences rather than following a strictly standardized curriculum.
For new students, this freedom can make it difficult to decide what to learn, identify meaningful goals, and determine how to get started.
The design opportunity: Create enough structure to help students get started without taking away the independence that makes self-directed learning valuable.
City of Bridges High School uses a competency-based education model, where students develop skills through personalized learning experiences rather than following a strictly standardized curriculum.
For new students, this freedom can make it difficult to decide what to learn, identify meaningful goals, and determine how to get started.
The design opportunity: Create enough structure to help students get started without taking away the independence that makes self-directed learning valuable.
Design Approach
We explored the student onboarding experience to understand the challenges students face when adapting to a new learning environment. Through journey mapping and concept generation, we examined opportunities to support both students setting goals and teachers facilitating the process.
We focused on creating a structured experience that helps students move from exploring their interests to defining goals and planning their next steps.
We focused on creating a structured experience that helps students move from exploring their interests to defining goals and planning their next steps.
The Solution
GoalGo is an interactive web-based platform that guides students through goal-setting and helps them manage their learning goals over time. The platform aims to equip students with self directed goal-setting skills that enact long-term benefits.
Feature 01
Discover and Define Learning Goals
GoalGo guides students through a step-by-step process to explore their interests, skills, and values, brainstorm potential goals, prioritize ideas, and define actionable milestones.
Feature 02
Track your progress towards goals
A centralized dashboard helps students review their learning goals, manage schedules, and track progress toward milestones.
Feature 03
Build your goal library
Students can save their goals, revisit earlier goal-setting stages, and review their goal history. This allows them to refine their ideas and adjust their direction as their interests and priorities evolv
Design System
The core value for our UI design is to make our product become a friendly and supportive sidekick that accompanies the learners during their learning journey. Therefore, we used some illustration and game-like design elements to deliver our visual design in a delightful design language that expresses the joy of learning.
Here are our 4 core design principles:
Inviting but not overwhelming
Casual but not rash
Joyful but not entertaining
Supportive but not icy
Here are our 4 core design principles:
Inviting but not overwhelming
Casual but not rash
Joyful but not entertaining
Supportive but not icy
Research
For a more indepth process documentation
Click to view our notion
Click to view our notion
Concept Generation
We mapped the existing student journey to understand the challenges of adapting to a self-directed learning environment. We then explored a vision for a more supportive experience, considering how students, teachers, and the broader educational process connect.
By mapping the service and brainstorming potential opportunities, we narrowed our focus to goal-setting: helping students move from open-ended interests to structured, actionable learning plans.
By mapping the service and brainstorming potential opportunities, we narrowed our focus to goal-setting: helping students move from open-ended interests to structured, actionable learning plans.
Wireframing
Translating the concept into a guided experience
We translated the goal-setting process into user flows and interface wireframes. These flows established how students would move through goal discovery, prioritization, milestone planning, and progress tracking.The resulting interface was designed to make each stage of the process clear while allowing students to revisit and refine their goals over time.
Feedback & Iteration
We presented our GoalGo prototype to students, teachers, and education professionals at City of Bridges High School to gather feedback on the concept and user flow.
What worked
What needed improvement
Key takeaway
The feedback reinforced our approach to making goal-setting more structured, while revealing an opportunity to extend that support beyond defining goals to help students manage progress over time.
Due to the project's limited timeline, we collected feedback through a prototype presentation rather than formal usability testing. Further testing and iteration would be needed to validate the proposed improvements.
What worked
- Reviewers appreciated how the guided prompts broke goal-setting into manageable steps.
- The ability to revisit goals and saved ideas was well received.
What needed improvement
- Students needed more guidance turning goals into actionable next steps.
- The dashboard needed a clearer overview of goals and progress.
- The experience needed to better account for teachers' roles in supporting students.
Key takeaway
The feedback reinforced our approach to making goal-setting more structured, while revealing an opportunity to extend that support beyond defining goals to help students manage progress over time.
Due to the project's limited timeline, we collected feedback through a prototype presentation rather than formal usability testing. Further testing and iteration would be needed to validate the proposed improvements.
Reflection
This project reinforced the importance of understanding the broader system before designing individual features. Through contextual inquiry, stakeholder research, journey mapping, and service blueprinting, we explored how students, teachers, and the learning environment interact.
These insights helped us move beyond designing a standalone goal-setting tool to consider how a structured digital experience could support students throughout their learning journey. The project showed me how research can reveal opportunities that address not just individual user needs, but the relationships and challenges across an entire system.
These insights helped us move beyond designing a standalone goal-setting tool to consider how a structured digital experience could support students throughout their learning journey. The project showed me how research can reveal opportunities that address not just individual user needs, but the relationships and challenges across an entire system.
