05 / REFLECTION

Project Reflection

This project deepened my understanding of what builds trust between families, educators, and the ed-tech platforms they rely on, and reinforced that authentic, word-of-mouth-driven credibility is often more powerful than paid promotion. Balancing Starfall's limited staff and budget with our recommendations pushed me to prioritize high-impact, low-cost solutions, like repurposing existing long-form content rather than proposing resource-heavy new production. Working closely with Starfall's team throughout the process also taught me how to translate broad research insights into practical, platform-specific design decisions that a real organization could realistically implement. Ultimately, this project strengthened our belief in designing with empathy and accessibility at the center, ensuring that the strategies we recommended served not just Starfall's growth, but the diverse communities of children, parents, and educators who depend on it.

Thank you to my amazing team!

05 / REFLECTION

Project Reflection

Thank you to my amazing team!

01 / RESEARCH

How might we restructure our presence on our current social media platforms, and whether we should expand out to newer networks in order to reach a new and largely younger audience?

Starfall had strong performance on YouTube and Pinterest but saw an opportunity to expand onto platforms more relevant to younger parents and educators, all while working with limited staff, no dedicated ad budget, and a reliance on word-of-mouth for growth. Our team explored how might we restructure Starfall's presence across social platforms and expand to new channels to better engage both existing and new users.

To address this, our team conducted a multi-method research approach combining an internal audit of Starfall's existing channels, a competitive analysis of 8 leading ed-tech platforms (including Khan Academy Kids, PBS Kids, and ABCmouse), and user research through surveys and interviews across 4 key audience groups: educators, parents/guardians, home educators, and nostalgic users. The internal audit revealed low engagement across several platforms, with Facebook posts averaging just 4–8 likes and Instagram posts averaging 10–30 likes, while X and LinkedIn were effectively inactive.

Starfall had strong performance on YouTube and Pinterest but saw an opportunity to expand onto platforms more relevant to younger parents and educators, all while working with limited staff, no dedicated ad budget, and a reliance on word-of-mouth for growth. Our team explored how might we restructure Starfall’s presence across social platforms and expand to new channels to better engage both existing and new users.

To address this, our team conducted a multi-method research approach combining an internal audit of Starfall’s existing channels, a competitive analysis of 8 leading ed-tech platforms (including Khan Academy Kids, PBS Kids, and ABCmouse), and user research through surveys and interviews across 4 key audience groups: educators, parents/guardians, home educators, and nostalgic users. The internal audit revealed low engagement across several platforms, with Facebook posts averaging just 4–8 likes and Instagram posts averaging 10–30 likes, while X and LinkedIn were effectively inactive.

Competitive analysis further highlighted gaps in Starfall's reach; for example, ABCmouse generated over double the monthly YouTube views of Starfall (234.5K vs. 108.2K), largely through more consistent branding and short-form video content. These findings directly shaped our strategy, prioritizing high-performing formats and platforms while identifying clear opportunities to strengthen brand consistency and engagement.

Competitive analysis further highlighted gaps in Starfall’s reach; for example, ABCmouse generated over double the monthly YouTube views of Starfall (234.5K vs. 108.2K), largely through more consistent branding and short-form video content. These findings directly shaped our strategy, prioritizing high-performing formats and platforms while identifying clear opportunities to strengthen brand consistency and engagement.

02 / SYNTHESIS

Synthesizing our Research into Insights

Our research combined quantitative and qualitative methods to uncover how users discover, trust, and engage with Starfall. Surveying 103 respondents revealed that 93% discovered Starfall through schools or word-of-mouth, with 65.2% trusting platform recommendations from teachers and 52.9% relying on friends and family when exploring new resources, highlighting how organic, trust-based channels drive Starfall's growth far more than paid promotion.

Follow-up interviews with 6 participants reinforced these findings through affinity mapping, surfacing four key insights: word-of-mouth remains the dominant discovery channel, users are largely unaware Starfall even has a social media presence, older children's needs go unmet due to a lack of visible product updates, and interactive, authentic content resonates most with families.

Recognizing that our initial survey skewed toward highly engaged, longtime users sourced primarily from Starfall's newsletter, we conducted a supplemental non-user survey of 16 younger teachers and parents across Berkeley, Southern California, and Texas to close this gap. This research revealed that Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are the top platforms for this demographic, with a strong preference for authentic, real-classroom content over polished advertisements, and short-form, visual formats driving the highest engagement.

Together, these insights confirmed that Starfall's strength lies in its trusted, word-of-mouth reputation, but revealed a clear opportunity to build greater social media visibility and adopt more authentic, short-form content to reach both existing and emerging audiences.

UX RESEARCH / SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Starfall

Starfall Education is an organization dedicated to supporting families and educators through accessible learning resources. For this project, I worked on a team to develop their brand identity and conduct user-experience research to better understand and strategize how these audiences engage could with the brand online.

ROLE — Product Marketing Consultant · RESEARCH · IDEATION · YEAR — 2026

PROJECT MEMBERS

Kayla Espinosa, Madison Lee, Kennedy Edwards, Katelyn Wu, Melissa Co

SKILLS + TOOLS

Figma, FigJam, Decking, Client Communication, Product Strategy/Thinking, UX Research, Branding, Graphic Design

UX RESEARCH / SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Starfall

ROLE — Product Marketing Consultant · RESEARCH · IDEATION · YEAR — 2026

PROJECT MEMBERS

Kayla Espinosa, Madison Lee, Kennedy Edwards, Katelyn Wu, Melissa Co

SKILLS + TOOLS

Figma, FigJam, Decking, Client Communication, Product Strategy/Thinking, UX Research, Branding, Graphic Design

04 / PROTOTYPE + HI-FI

Hi-Fi Prototypes & Final Deliverables

With our key insights in mind, we translated our research into a set of platform-specific recommendations and prototypes, built around a content ecosystem that was cost-effective, brand-consistent, and easy to repurpose across channels. Our design decisions centered on three priorities: strengthening Starfall's brand identity, maximizing content reuse, and creating fun, engaging content that felt authentic rather than promotional.

For YouTube, we prototyped a consolidated single-channel structure with organized playlists by audience, alongside a cohesive thumbnail and title system optimized for searchability and click-through. For Instagram, we designed mockups for carousel posts, short-form Reels, and a structured weekly content calendar built around recurring themes (like "Monday Math" and "Teacher Tips Friday"). For Facebook, we adapted much of this content into a more conversation-driven, professional tone suited to its older, more discussion-oriented audience, including caption formulas and example testimonial posts. For Pinterest, Starfall's strongest existing channel, we prototyped a reorganized board system with branded covers and keyword-optimized captions designed to mirror how educators and parents actually search.

Across every platform, we created before-and-after mockups to visually demonstrate how small, consistent branding changes (thumbnails, captions, visual templates) could improve recognizability and engagement.

03 / IDEATION

Rapid Ideation & Brainstorming

Rapid Ideation
We started by ideating a wide range of ideas that came to mind instinctively, drawing directly from our research insights and competitive analysis. This allowed us to explore possibilities freely before narrowing our focus.

Moodboard & Outline Inspiration
From there, we condensed our ideas into clear categories and began finalizing our direction for final recommendations, pairing each concept with visual inspiration to guide the design and content direction moving forward.

IDEATION FIGJAM