VM

TRAININGGROUND

Product Design

UX/UI

TrainingGround.ai is an AI-powered learning platform designed to support educators, administrators and student-athletes. I led the end-to-end product design of connected experiences for both educators and students, helping evolve the platform into a clearer, more scalable product that could support adoption across different schools, grade levels and user needs.The initial rollout reached five schools, four principals, 12 teachers across grades 3–12 and more than 220 students, generating over 1,100 student-platform interactions.


Role: Product Designer

Ownership: End-to-end product design

Focus: Product strategy, user flows, interaction design, UI design, prototyping and scalable product patterns

Users: Educators, administrators and student-athletes

Primary Goal: Increase product adoption

Core Challenge: Scale the experience without increasing complexity

The Challenge

TrainingGround.ai was growing from an early product into a platform that needed to support multiple audiences and use cases.


Educators were navigating challenges such as outdated professional-development resources, administrative workload and difficulty keeping students engaged. At the same time, students needed an experience that felt approachable, motivating and easy to understand.


The platform also introduced an AI-powered assistant that helped educators plan curriculum and deliver content more efficiently. As new functionality was added, the experience needed to remain intuitive for first-time users while being flexible enough to support future users, features and school environments.


The central design challenge became:

How might we scale TrainingGround.ai while keeping the experience clear, connected and easy to adopt?


My Role

As the product designer, I owned the design process from early problem definition through final interface execution.


My responsibilities included:

  • 1. Translating product and business requirements into clear user experiences
  • 2. Defining key educator and student journeys
  • 3. Organizing complex functionality into understandable workflows
  • 4. Creating wireframes and interface concepts
  • 5. Designing responsive, high-fidelity product experiences
  • 6. Prototyping key interactions and user flows
  • 7. Creating reusable patterns that could support continued product growth
  • 8. Iterating on the experience with cross-functional partners
  • 9. Preparing designs for development and implementation

Working across the complete product experience allowed me to consider not only how individual screens looked, but also how users entered the platform, understood its value and continued using it over time.


Defining the Product Experience

Increasing adoption required more than introducing additional features. Users needed to understand what the platform could help them accomplish and how to get started without unnecessary friction.


I focused the product experience around three questions:

  1. What does each user need to accomplish?
  2. What information or action matters most at each stage?
  3. How can the product reveal more capability without overwhelming the user?


From there, I mapped the core experiences for educators and students and identified where the platform needed clearer hierarchy, navigation and calls to action.

Although both audiences were part of the same ecosystem, they entered the platform with different goals.


Educators needed to:

  • Create and organize learning content
  • Plan curriculum more efficiently
  • Deliver material to students
  • Reduce repetitive administrative work
  • Understand student participation


Students needed to:

  • Understand assigned activities
  • Navigate content without assistance
  • Stay engaged throughout the experience
  • Recognize their progress and next steps


This helped establish a connected product structure while ensuring that each audience received an experience designed around its own priorities.

The Product Experience

The product goal was to increase adoption, so the experience needed to make its value clear early.

I focused on reducing the amount of interpretation required from users by simplifying page hierarchy, clarifying actions and creating more predictable pathways through the platform.


The design strategy centred on four principles:


1. Make the next action obvious

Each experience needed a clear primary action so users could move forward confidently without scanning multiple competing options.


2. Reduce cognitive load

Complex information was organized into smaller, more manageable sections. This helped keep advanced functionality available without presenting everything at once.


3. Build familiarity across the platform

Shared interface patterns, interaction behaviours and visual language made the product easier to learn as users moved between different areas.


4. Communicate value through the experience

Rather than relying only on instructions, the interface was designed to demonstrate how the platform could save educators time and create a more engaging experience for students.

Designing for Adoption

The product goal was to increase adoption, so the experience needed to make its value clear early.

I focused on reducing the amount of interpretation required from users by simplifying page hierarchy, clarifying actions and creating more predictable pathways through the platform.


The design strategy centred on four principles:


1. Make the next action obvious

Each experience needed a clear primary action so users could move forward confidently without scanning multiple competing options.


2. Reduce cognitive load

Complex information was organized into smaller, more manageable sections. This helped keep advanced functionality available without presenting everything at once.


3. Build familiarity across the platform

Shared interface patterns, interaction behaviours and visual language made the product easier to learn as users moved between different areas.


4. Communicate value through the experience

Rather than relying only on instructions, the interface was designed to demonstrate how the platform could save educators time and create a more engaging experience for students.

Integrating AI Into the Educator Workflow

One of the platform’s key capabilities was an AI-powered assistant designed to support educators with curriculum planning and content delivery.


The challenge was ensuring that AI felt like a useful part of the educator’s workflow rather than an additional tool they had to learn.


I approached the experience by positioning AI around recognizable educator tasks. The interface needed to help users understand:

  • What the assistant could help them accomplish
  • What information they needed to provide
  • What the platform generated in response
  • How generated content could be reviewed or used
  • What action should happen next

This task-oriented approach helped make the AI functionality feel more practical, approachable and connected to the rest of the product.

The Outcome


The platform was introduced across:

  • 5 schools
  • 4 principals
  • 12 teachers across grades 3–12
  • 220+ students
  • 1,100+ student-platform interactions

These results demonstrated early adoption across several types of users and educational environments.

More importantly, the product established a foundation that could support both educator-led content creation and student participation within one connected platform.

The project also showed that a scalable experience does not need to feel complex. By creating clearer workflows and reusable interface patterns, the platform could expand while maintaining a consistent experience for its users.

TrainingGround Showcase

Takeaway


TrainingGround.ai strengthened my understanding of the relationship between product design and adoption.

A product can offer valuable functionality, but users still need to quickly understand:

  • Why the product is relevant to them
  • What they should do first
  • How it fits into their existing workflow
  • What value they receive from returning

I also learned that designing for scale is not about predicting every future feature. It is about creating clear principles and flexible patterns that allow the experience to grow without losing consistency.

This project brought together my interests in sports, education and product design while giving me the opportunity to create an experience with measurable real-world use.