CRAFTING THE UX & Customer Education Function

Building the foundation of a scalable user experience and customer education discipline for a high-growth SaaS company.

Before this initiative, no formal User Experience (UX) or Customer Education strategy and function existed within the company. Users were expected to learn the platform through trial and error, resulting in high support dependency, inconsistent user experiences, and slower adoption.

To support the company’s growth, scalability, and long-term success, UX and education were introduced as strategic pillars—transforming how users engaged with and learned the platform.

Read more below to learn about how we crafted this experience and the impact it made.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

As the company scaled, the absence of user experience and education frameworks created several challenges:

Complex Onboarding & Adoption – No structured onboarding process existed, leaving users to navigate the platform with little guidance.
Limited Self-Serve Capabilities – Users relied on customer support for even basic tasks due to the lack of formal learning resources.
Fragmented UX & Learning Experience – Without a cohesive design and education strategy, the platform lacked consistency, making it difficult for users to become proficient.
Lack of Design-Driven Growth – UX was not integrated into product development or business strategy, limiting opportunities to drive engagement and retention.

Without addressing these gaps, the company faced slower product adoption, increased support costs, and challenges in scaling the platform effectively.

OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT

By establishing UX and education from the ground up, there was an opportunity to:

Introduce structured onboarding and learning experiences to improve adoption and reduce friction.
Develop self-serve capabilities with documentation, tutorials, and in-app support, reducing reliance on customer service.
Standardize UX and education practices to create a seamless, intuitive, and scalable user experience.
Embed design thinking into product development to ensure UX played a central role in business growth and customer retention.

By building these foundations, the company could accelerate user adoption, enhance engagement, and position itself for long-term success.

APPROACH

We started by defining a comprehensive framework and mandate to guide us.

It was structured around six key disciplines needed to support a scalable user experience and customer education function at the company:

Design Thinking – Applied a problem-solving approach that mechanized feedback loops, ensuring continuous improvement and a symbiotic relationship with users.
User Experience (UX) – Focused on how users interact with and experience the product, defining user needs and mapping the journey to solve pain points.
Design System – Established a structured set of patterns and best practices to drive consistency, scalability, and repeatability across the product.
Education – Crafted learning strategies that created “a-ha” moments for users, unlocking performance and value through active learning.
Product Design – Translated user insights into tangible, intuitive experiences, ensuring that form follows function in collaboration with Product and Engineering.
Technical Writing – Simplified and structured complex information, ensuring clarity and accessibility through curation, documentation, and user enablement.

This cyclical and interdependent process reinforced continuous improvement, enabling cross-functional collaboration that ensured design decisions were aesthetic, functional, educational, scalable, and user-driven.

With no prior UX or education initiatives in place, it was essential to integrate these disciplines into product strategy and company culture:
- Established UX and education as core components of the product development process.
- Positioned user experience and learning as key drivers of engagement and retention.
- Partnered cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Customer Success to ensure improvements were data-driven and impactful.
A structured approach to user education was introduced to drive self-serve adoption and reduce onboarding friction:
- Built the "Product Academy" – The company’s first formal learning program, designed to accelerate user adoption.
- Developed Self-Serve Learning Resources – Created documentation, tutorials, and guided experiences to empower users.
- Enabled Internal Teams with a Train-the-Trainer Model – Equipped Customer Success & Sales with educational tools to drive product adoption.
Results:
- Transformed the onboarding process, allowing users to become self-sufficient faster.
- Reduced support dependency, making learning more accessible and scalable.
A UX strategy framework was developed to ensure a human-centered approach to product design:
- User Research & Journey Mapping – Conducted first-ever research initiatives to identify user pain points and opportunities.
- Simplified Workflows – Redesigned key self-serve and onboarding experiences to improve usability.
- UX Scorecard & Metrics – Introduced performance indicators to track adoption, engagement, and usability.
Results:
- Created a UX strategy that influenced product and engineering priorities.
- Identified and resolved high-friction areas, leading to a smoother user experience.
Bringing UX and education into a company that had never prioritized these areas required strong collaboration across teams:
- With Product & Engineering – Introduced design-driven development processes, embedding UX into product decisions.
- With Customer Success – Developed a Customer Education Pilot Program, improving self-serve adoption and support efficiency.

IMPACT AND RESULTS

estabLished a scalable self-serve model

Launched the Product Academy, piloted with key customers, and introduced the company's first self-serve UX & education frameworks, reducing reliance on support.

embedded ux into product strategy

Developed a UX strategy that shaped platform design and engineering priorities, ensuring user-centered decision-making at every stage.

increased adoption and engagement

Increased customer adoption and engagement, improving retention while strengthening self-serve capabilities to minimize onboarding support needs.

culture of continuous improvement

Established the first user research and feedback loop, reinforcing UX and education as strategic growth drivers for long-term success.