intro

Standards-based grading (SBG) flies in the face of traditional grading.

The practice opens up a conversation about learning between students, teachers and parents. Students are no longer focused on achieving a grade but rather on proving learning or mastery of a standard. JumpRope used to be an outlier, and SBG was a fringe practice. But with increasing adoption within the public education system in the United States over the past 12 years, SBG has become more mainstream and competition in the space has grown—though they still remain the only true standards-based gradebook.

strategy

1. Starting Point: Research & discovery

What does the marketplace look like? Who's the current audience? The future audience? What does the current user journey look like? What are JumpRope's business goals? The research and internal stakeholder interviews from this phase were compiled to develop a discovery summary that guided the decision making throughout the remainder of the engagement.

2. Crafting a well defined audience

JumpRope's user is not necessarily a decision maker or purchaser—this means audience definition is integral. We uncovered 12 distinct personas and defined each on a scale of influence identifying decision makers along with 6 distinct categories of decision influencers. Using a value proposition canvas model, pains gains and jobs to be done were identified for each persona.

3. Visualizing an evolved brand

JumpRope was really happy with the existing brand visuals that I designed for them six years prior. But as we continued down the path of discovery, research and audience definition the full scope of the evolution that the brand was undergoing became apparent and an evolved brand mark seemed necessary. The result is a brand that expresses not the tangibles that JumpRope provides but the intangibles of learning, growth and support.

4. Creating a website built for growth

Finding new, qualified leads is a key driver for this project and thus an updated website was necessary. I built out a highly skilled team of contractors to execute on this phase of the project including: fractional CMO, copywriter (SME edtech), UI designer, developer and illustrator.

Outcomes

Prior to the launch of JumpRope's evolved website and brand visuals, the research elements of this project began to take hold internally. Throughout the project we involved the entire JumpRope team, as much as possible, to ensure internalization of the outcomes of this work. Personas are being referenced in the decision making process for product strategy. They are a friendly reminder to the customer success team of who they are communicating with and what their unspoken needs may be in each interaction.