A 6-month sprint to launch by back-to-school — 3 dashboards and 1 logging form, shipped in a year.
Executive Summary
A shared system for student behavior.
Panorama's Student Success product helps educators turn Student Information System data into action using the MTSS and PBIS frameworks. A 2021 competitive analysis surfaced a critical gap — no tool gave educators a complete view of student behavior across their schools and districts.
I joined as one of the first hires on a new product line, leading design from inception through launch and beyond. Partnering with product, data science, academic specialists, and engineering, we shipped three role-based dashboards and a comprehensive incident logging form within a year — while the team grew from 2 to 13.
We set out to give every educator a single, trustworthy picture of behavior — and a clear next step.
The Challenge
Educators were flying blind.
With our product manager and academic specialist, I ran extensive research with teachers, principals, district admins, and internal experts — mapping how schools actually manage behavior, and where the existing tools fell short.
The deeper problem was structural: there was no central hub. To understand a single student, educators stitched together multiple disconnected sources — losing time and confidence at every step.
The Strategy
Three roles, one source of truth.
After workshops to define the problem space and a service blueprint for behavior management, I led the creation of three personas — each essential to making positive behavior practices stick.
With six months to launch, we audited what already existed. SIS incident data was unreliable, reporting was scattered, and nothing connected it. The plan focused on two pillars:
Design Deep Dive
From sketches to shipped dashboards.
Tight timelines meant design and development ran in parallel. I facilitated sketching and brainstorming workshops to lock the information architecture, then produced wireframes that guided engineering on every net-new page.
Role-based dashboards
Each role got a tailored dashboard and report built around the Tier 2/3 intervention insight — so admins could troubleshoot with their staff, and teachers knew exactly when to ask for help.
Incident logging flow
Principals and teachers both log incidents; principals get additional administrative fields to finalize records, assign severity, and document follow-up steps and outcomes.
Validated and refined
Before launch I ran async Maze studies, in-person interviews, and stakeholder reviews. Five key updates followed:
- 01
Notifications & action button
Surfaced outstanding actions in the header and added an always-visible "Log Incident" button.
- 02
Behavior-first severity
Replaced manual severity selection with a simple list of observed behaviors; the system maps severity behind the scenes.
- 03
Stepped logging form
Split a long form into four logical steps with a progress bar, cutting drop-off significantly.
- 04
Incident summary
Added a review step before submission, and a faster way for principals to review and finalize records.
- 05
Summary data visuals
Visualizations on tiles and reports made dense data scannable — and rolled into the design system.
Impact
Adoption that stuck.
Even through significant change management, schools that adopted the product showed real commitment — diligently tracking interventions and submitting complete, accurate incident records.
Beyond the MVP
Reflection
What I'd carry forward.
- 01
Research and strategy are the foundation.
They align the team and turn ambiguity into shared, informed decisions that drive real innovation.
- 02
Ship tangible value sooner.
Early releases gather real feedback and keep the product relevant — incremental value beats a perfect launch later.
- 03
Protect user testing under pressure.
Even while cutting scope to hit the deadline, disciplined testing kept the MVP genuinely useful for clients.