Jen Serravallo’s Strategies to Go is a teacher-facing web app companion to the author’s best-selling reading and writing instruction series (dual-language English and Spanish). It provides the Strategies in a searchable format with flexible and intuitive note taking and student rostering features for lesson planning and progress monitoring. I led the product development, applying Lean principles, from initial concept through prototyping, field testing, and launch. I built a functional prototype using Zoho Creator in order to respond nimbly to author feedback and cut development time and expense during iteration. I coordinated a series of field tests and surveys with the marketing director to identify market needs, which were incorporated into the user stories and requirements for the live product build. I was the point of contact for all vendor communication, including scrum sessions and weekly deep dives, and I collaborated directly with their designer on all UX features using Figma and Adobe Photoshop. I facilitated integration with Heinemann’s data management platform, which was itself still in development.
Below is a gallery of screen shots from the fully-functional prototype app, built in Zoho Creator. Prototyping with a no-code tool like Zoho Creator allowed me to iterate much more quickly so I was able to respond to author feedback. We were then able to focus test the prototype with several hundred customers of the print version and conduct a survey regarding a proposed freemium model with free and subscription-only features.
Below are some “Pro Tip” explainer videos that highlight different features of the final app.
