Skip to content
All cases

Designing the student journey for Ursa School

My role
Independent Product DesignerSole designer, from the initial product definition to launch and continued development.
Period
Jul 2023 → presentthree years, still running
Scope
Product · brand · site · LMS · CRMidentity and illustration, marketing site, trial booking, level assessment, learning environment, automation, marketing templates
Product
Online language schoolteaching Serbian in live small groups
55%82%
Attendance among trial-lesson bookings
The school’s site on a laptop in a library: Serbian language school, a results guarantee, a free-lesson button and the Ursa Major constellation across the screen.

Interface examples are reconstructed in English and contain no student data. Some imagery is illustrative.

What this was

The product and my role

Ursa School teaches Serbian online in small live groups. I joined before launch to turn the founders’ business and teaching model into a digital product.

As the sole designer, I worked on the brand, website, trial booking, level assessment and learning environment. I also designed the connections between these experiences, the CRM and automated communication, implementing solutions or coordinating external services as needed.

Ursa School home page: white type reading Serbian language school over a violet glow on a dark star field, a button offering a free lesson, and the Ursa Major constellation drawn to the right with a note about the star Merak.

The whole of it

Designing the student journey

I designed the journey across the website, booking, CRM, manager follow-up and learning environment.

The work included deciding what information passed between services, when messages were sent and when a manager needed to step in.

  1. Explore the school
  2. Book a trial
  3. Attend
  4. Enrol
  5. Learn
  6. Choose the next course
A stepA question the system asksThe school reaching back
not yetcomes back knowing their levelyesnoyesnot yetyesyesnot nowSocial, search,an adThe siteordered by the buyer's questionsReady tobook?The level testan entry point of its ownGuide by emaillevel stored with the leadBooks a firstlessonteacher, date, timezoneThe record landsin the CRMtask assigned to a managerCall andremindersautomated, timed to the slotTurns up?ManagerreschedulesThe lessonoutcome goes back to the threadPayment page,by emailgenerated for that studentPays in thewindow?Back to themanagerthe thread reopensCabinet andcalendaraccess the moment it clearsThe courselessons, homework, quizzesClub and extramaterialsthe habit between lessonsWants thenext step?The next courseStays in the club

The three loops are the whole operational design. Little of it is a screen; it is a decision about what happens automatically, what happens because a person does it, and what has to hand over cleanly between the two.

Follow-up paths for missed lessons, incomplete payment and the end of a course.

The first step

A concrete first step

I proposed a free lesson with a named teacher as the main entry point.

Prospective students could choose a session, experience the teaching and then decide whether to buy a course.

I designed the trial and course cards for comparison, using the same information order and making the teacher, date, time zone and next action visible. The journey also needed reminders, teacher availability and manager follow-up to work together.

Choose the format that gets you there

With philologists and native speakers, on the school’s own method

Speaking practice
talking with different people sharpens listening and speech
Motivation and support
a group creates mutual encouragement, and new acquaintances
Themed games and simulation
role-play fixes the language through use, not memorising

First lesson

Serbian from scratch

  • Online, on the interactive platform
  • In a group with a teacher
  • 60 minutes

After the lesson

  • A recording of the lesson
  • A vocabulary sheet
  • 30% off the full course
Choose a session

First lesson — free

Group course

Merak Gamma · A0–A2, for beginners

The course

  • 6 modules, 32 online lessons
  • Twice a week, 90 minutes
  • Vocabulary cards in Quizlet
  • Homework checked by the teacher

Show all (21)

Choose a group

3 places left

An interface people trust

Testing the experience across devices

I ran a comparative usability and perception study with 50 participants unfamiliar with Ursa.

They tried key flows on our site and other language-school websites, then discussed their experience.

We simplified interactions that caused friction across devices and retested ideas before reintroducing them. As social advertising grew, mobile reached around 80% of visits, and I began designing new experiences for the small screen first.

Showing

Group
Group
Wide: the explanation stands beside the offers, and both offers are visible at once for comparison.
17:38

Pick the format that gets you there

Group
Group
Narrow: tabs become a rail, offers become a deck, and the explanation moves under the thing it explains.

The next step

Helping students continue learning

We introduced the next learning options during the course, through additional materials, quizzes and invitations to other formats.

The conversation club offered a way to keep practising between structured courses.

Some students had already reached their practical language goal. We focused follow-up on those who would benefit from another course or format.

  1. Course begins
  2. Learning
  3. Extra materials
  4. Quizzes
  5. Conversation club
  6. Course ending
  7. Next product

Conversation club · live

Tonight: the book everyone read as a child

Thursday, 19:00 Belgrade · 6 in the room

A man in a black hoodie with one earbud in, mid-sentence on a video call from a room with framed prints and a bookshelf.
You· speaking
  • A teacher in a cream collared cardigan speaking to camera from a home study.TeacherEkaterina
  • A student with dreadlocks and dark glasses, mid-sentence in a warmly lit room.Marta
  • A student in a white t-shirt smiling at the camera in front of a bookshelf.Danilo
  • A student at a desk, half in frame at the edge of the participant strip.
No recording

Four supporting systems

Other parts of the product

Around the funnel sat four systems of its own: the marketing site, teacher profiles fed from the CRM, a classroom assembled from existing services, and a level test that also brought people in.

The core funnel relied on several supporting systems, each solving a distinct user need while contributing to the overall student journey.

The site, structured around the decision journey

I organised the main marketing page around the questions prospective students need answered as they evaluate a school: the offer and formats, then pricing and level, then the people teaching them, evidence of quality and a clear way to begin. Practical questions around instalments, missed classes, access to materials and technical requirements become more important later in the decision process.

Navigation works as a table of contents, allowing visitors to move directly to the section relevant to them, while booking remains available throughout the page.

Campaign pages as an experimentation environment

We also used temporary campaign pages to test mechanics the core product could not risk. For Black Friday I built a dedicated landing page with more intensive promotional patterns; the ones that performed were developed further and introduced into the main page afterwards.

Teacher discovery, connected to the CRM

Teachers were central to the Ursa School concept from the beginning, so I designed their presence on the site as a real selection experience. A profile needed to communicate professional credibility quickly while also giving prospective students enough personal context to imagine spending several months learning with that person.

As the school grew to around 30 teachers, I connected teacher information with the CRM so the team could update records in one place and use them on the website.

Ekaterina Titova

UrsaSchool teacher · ECL Serbian C1

Experience

  • Working interpreter and translator of Serbian and Croatian
  • Interpreter for a youth national team at an international tournament
  • Translator-annotator on an AI research project
  • Interpreted for student expeditions between Russia and Serbia
  • Accompanied official delegations as an interpreter

Education

  • MA in linguistics, BA in Serbo-Croatian studiesMoscow State University
  • Exchange semesterUniversity of Montenegro
  • Professional development courseUniversity of Belgrade

The site surfaces a small set of profiles first, with the full directory a click away.

One learning experience across several services

I designed the learning portal around existing services for video, interactive materials, homework, messaging and storage. My work focused on navigation, visual consistency and preserving context as students moved between tools.

Zdravo! Ja — Ana, — sam. — i radim u Beogradu.

Choose the correct forms

Done: 0%

A level test that connects to the next step

The assessment used a third-party testing engine. I worked with the provider on its presentation and designed the journey around it.

Visitors received their full result before being offered a level-specific guide in exchange for contact details. The result was saved with the lead, giving managers context for follow-up. Campaigns later linked directly to the assessment.

Level test · 24 of 24 answered

Your Serbian is at A2

You can handle a shop, a café and small talk about yourself. What still trips you up is case endings — you know the words, but they come out in the wrong shape.

  1. A1
  2. A2
  3. B1
  4. B2
  5. C1
Vocabulary78%
Grammar61%

The gap is in grammar, not in words — you know what to say and it comes out in the wrong shape. That is the gap the recommended group course is designed to address.

Your course

Merak Gamma

Serbian from scratch: introducing yourself, your week, and holding your own in a shop, a bank, a clinic.

The school's printed phrasebook, standing at a slight angle.

The A2 phrasebook

180 words and the phrases that carry them. Yours either way.

Your result is saved with your contact, so a manager already knows where to start.

One star per language

A reusable brand system

I developed the visual identity and a naming system based on Ursa Major, with a star assigned to each language.

The structure also accommodated the school’s brief expansion into Czech.

I created illustration guidelines and reusable templates so the marketing team could produce regular content independently.

Merak

Serbian · β Ursae Majoris, one of the two pointers to the North Star

Merak Gamma
A0 – A2
Merak Beta
A2 – B1
Merak Alpha
B1 – B2

Alioth

Czech · ε Ursae Majoris, the brightest star in the constellation

  • Social post labelled Reels: a woman holding up a gloved hand, headline reading Lock, Stock and Seven Cases over a violet gradient.
  • Social post labelled Courses: Merak Gamma, Serbian course A0 to A2 for beginners, set over a pale violet gradient with the school's asterisk mark folded in paper.
  • Social post labelled Interview: a teacher photographed against the school's violet gradient, headline reading Interview with Ekaterina Penyaz, UrsaSchool teacher.
  • Social post labelled Q and A: a snowy street at dusk, headline in white speech bubbles reading Is Serbian similar to Russian, with the constellation logo below.
  • Social post labelled Discover: a river bend seen through pines, headline reading National Parks of Serbia.
  • Social post labelled Reels: a woman holding a mug, headline reading Word Order in Serbian Sentences.

Three years

A connected experience from booking to learning

The school developed into a working product with a website, booking flow, learning environment, CRM integration and automated communication.

The teaching team grew to around 30 people.

Attendance among trial-lesson bookings increased from around 55% to 82% over the project period. This figure describes the overall journey rather than the effect of a single design change.

What I would improve in a similar project

  • Define when the no-code platform should be reconsidered, based on performance and maintenance needs.
  • Measure the full journey from acquisition onwards, using consistent metric definitions.
  • Review traffic, user behaviour and platform constraints regularly as the school grows.
Next caseEvents PlatformAn internal events app that grew into a platform for participants and organisers. I designed the first release and continued developing the mobile and web experience.Read the case studyThe events app held at a conference: a live event with its organiser, dates and venue, above a tab bar.

Open to Senior Product Designer roles

Based in Porto, Portugal, with authorisation to work here. Get in touch about a Senior Product Designer role or to discuss my work in more detail.

startsev.scouts@gmail.comDownload CV(PDF)