Making complex testing tools easier to use.

Designing the tools behind the tests.

Working closely with Fairway’s engineering lead, I wireframed and designed tools that helped the Smarter Balanced team create and manage student assessments.

The work meant getting deep into complicated requirements and technical workflows, then figuring out how to make them feel logical on screen. Engineering and design worked closely together throughout the process, so what we designed was both useful and technically grounded.

Turning test results into something teachers could use.

Creating the assessments was only part of the challenge. Teachers also needed to understand what all that testing data was telling them.

I helped design complex reporting tools that gave educators a clearer way to understand student performance and track progress over time.

With so much information competing for attention, the challenge wasn’t simply displaying the data. It was creating the hierarchy and structure that helped teachers find what mattered.

Growing from a project into a design partnership.

As the work expanded, so did my role.

I delegated additional Smarter Balanced projects to designers on my team and stayed closely involved through collaboration and design reviews. This gave individual designers room to own their work while helping us maintain a thoughtful, consistent experience across products.

Making complexity feel a little less complicated.

This was the kind of work I love: getting into a complicated system, working closely with the people who understand how it works, and finding a way to make it more human.

What began as hands-on wireframing and interface design grew into a broader partnership across design, engineering, and my team, all focused on making complicated tools genuinely useful for the people relying on them.