Zen Educate: Creating Retention
Product Design Consultant (2025)
Zen Educate is a UK-based platform that helps schools quickly connect with supply teachers, making staffing faster, fairer, and more transparent. I worked with them on a short project aimed at helping educators build longer-term relationships with the company.
This project showcases how we designed features to modify the current user experience and improved retention of teachers on the app.
We drew inspiration from user-centric mechanics across platforms—Uber’s instant job matching, Duolingo’s streak motivation, Tinder’s earned priority, and Strava’s peer acknowledgment—to reimagine how Zen Educate delivers intuitive, engaging experiences for supply teachers.
Teachers can proactively explore jobs via a Job Radar with real-time map and list views, while Ready Mode enables urgent, one-tap booking and exclusive matches—enhanced further through an earned Boost system for consistent performance
Upon completing a job, teachers are rewarded with instant feedback, recognition, and a clear progress tracker toward the next milestone. This includes streaks, points toward Boosts, and an invitation to share their achievements with the community
Together, these ideas form a redesigned supply teaching journey—where finding, booking, and completing jobs feels more seamless, rewarding, and community-driven. The features are currently being A/B tested with real users, and early insights are shaping final refinements before rolling out to the Zen Educate app in the coming months.
