Designing a B2B Company's First Paid Product

Transforming CommonLit from a Resource Library to a Comprehensive Curriculum Hub

Description

About the project

About the project

About the project

Project Overview

Teachers originally viewed CommonLit as a place for grabbing one-off lessons to fill in gaps or for emergency substitutes. The Library page was the platform’s focal point, leading educators to see it as a supplemental resource rather than a comprehensive instructional tool. This perception created a fragmented user experience that didn’t support teachers looking to plan, organize, and implement a cohesive curriculum. Our goal was to redefine CommonLit’s role from a lesson repository into a centralized hub for lesson planning, resource management, and curriculum delivery.

What teachers were doing

Through user interviews and shadowing sessions, we found that teachers were overwhelmed trying to build structured lesson plans from individual resources in the Library. They had to jump from page to page, often losing track of what they were looking for. For newer teachers, this process was particularly frustrating as they needed more guidance to create a year-long instructional plan. The lack of a central place to manage their teaching resources led to an inconsistent experience, and teachers ultimately defaulted to using CommonLit as an “on-the-fly” resource instead of integrating it into their core instructional strategy.

Why they were struggling

The Library-centric architecture reinforced the idea that CommonLit was only good for sporadic lesson use, making it difficult for teachers to see the value of using it for full-course planning. When teachers logged in, they were dropped straight into the Library, which meant that most were unaware of other available resources, such as professional development materials or unit-based lesson sequences. The assigning experience was also disjointed, with teachers unable to preview what students would see. This lack of structure made CommonLit feel less like a comprehensive solution and more like a disorganized collection of individual lessons.

“When I log in, I’m just grabbing a lesson and getting out. I don’t think of CommonLit as the place where I start my day or plan my week.” Another added, “It feels more like a library than a teaching platform.”

ELA teacher

Brainstorming solutions

Given this fragmented experience, we realized that a full architectural overhaul was necessary. We needed to build a new Teacher Hub that would become the primary entry point for teachers, providing them with a clear overview of their tasks, access to curriculum resources, and easy navigation to other product offerings. Alongside this, I was also working on CommonLit 360, our first paid product—a full-year English curriculum. This was an opportunity to overhaul the platform’s visual design and component library, ensuring all new elements would be modular and adaptable for future iterations.

We brainstormed over 20 ideas, focusing on two core solutions:

  1. Teacher Hub — A new central dashboard where teachers would begin their day, view upcoming lessons, access their assigned tasks, and explore additional resources.

  2. 360 Curriculum Experience — A structured year-long curriculum that included unit plans, lesson sequences, and integrated resources designed to be easily assignable and trackable.

Prototyping and testing

We began with low-fidelity wireframes of the Teacher Hub and CommonLit 360 to establish a clear workflow for lesson planning and unit management. Early testing with 12 educators revealed that the Teacher Hub was a game-changer. Teachers appreciated having a “home base” where they could see all their tasks and navigate the platform more intuitively. However, there was confusion around where individual lessons fit within the broader curriculum structure.

To address this, we refined the Units Display Page in CommonLit 360 to visually organize lessons by theme and progression, using a tabular layout that allowed teachers to quickly scan and navigate through a year’s worth of content. We also reimagined the Assigning Flow to ensure teachers could assign, preview, and manage lessons seamlessly without leaving the main curriculum view.

Building and measuring impact

With a focus on creating scalable components, we spent 6 weeks building out the Teacher Hub and CommonLit 360 concurrently. We developed a new design system and component library from scratch, which included updated typography, unit display templates, and visual elements. Each component was designed for long-term reusability, ensuring consistency across the platform.

The impact was immediate:

  • Changed User Perception: Teachers now viewed CommonLit as a comprehensive curriculum tool rather than just a lesson repository.

  • Enhanced Teacher Engagement: Time spent on the platform increased by 16%, with teachers utilizing the Hub as their daily starting point.

  • Improved Usability: A simplified Assigning Flow led to a 25% reduction in time needed to assign lessons, improving productivity for busy teachers.

Final designs

The final design shifted the focal point of the platform from the Library to a comprehensive Teacher Hub, integrated seamlessly with the new CommonLit 360 Curriculum. This new architecture positioned CommonLit as a one-stop solution for lesson planning, curriculum management, and resource discovery.

What to know more?

What to know more?

What to know more?

Qasim Brown

Visual & Product Designer

Qasim Brown is a Visual & Product Designer with 5+ years of experience in streamlining workflows and building intuitive interfaces in EdTech, Internal Operations, Admin Tools, and beyond.

Qasim Brown

Visual & Product Designer

Qasim Brown is a Visual & Product Designer with 5+ years of experience in streamlining workflows and building intuitive interfaces in EdTech, Internal Operations, Admin Tools, and beyond.

Qasim Brown

Visual & Product Designer

Qasim Brown is a Visual & Product Designer with 5+ years of experience in streamlining workflows and building intuitive interfaces in EdTech, Internal Operations, Admin Tools, and beyond.