Course Expiration

Aceable logo

Aceable serves hundreds of thousands of learners across licensing and education programs. Prior to this project, courses expired without any way to renew or re-enroll, leaving learners blocked from continuing and creating confusion, increased support volume, and lost engagement opportunities.

This project introduced renewals and re-enrollments as a net-new product capability, designed to help learners seamlessly continue their progress after expiration while validating a new growth and retention lever for the business. The work spanned web, iOS, and Android and required designing clear, scalable patterns for a moment that is both high-friction and emotionally sensitive for users.

Role
Lead Product Designer

Platforms

  • Web, iOS, Android

Deliverables

  • Launched renewal and re-enrollment as a net-new capability across web, iOS, and Android

  • Designed end-to-end expiration and renewal flows from discovery through checkout

  • High-fidelity cross-platform UI designs and prototypes in Figma

  • Contributed scalable patterns to the design system and accessibility improvements

  • Supported post-launch validation and iteration using analytics and user feedback

Project Overview

Context:

Aceable serves hundreds of thousands of learners across licensing and education programs. Prior to this project, courses expired with no ability to renew or re-enroll, leaving learners blocked from continuing, increasing support volume, and creating missed engagement opportunities.

This project introduced renewals and re-enrollments as a net-new product capability, enabling learners to seamlessly continue their education after expiration while establishing a new growth and retention lever for the business. The experience was designed and launched across web, iOS, and Android.

Goals:

User goals

• Clearly understand when a course is expiring or expired

• Continue learning without losing progress

• Feel confident and supported during a high-friction moment

Business goals

• Launch renewals and re-enrollments as a new product capability

• Validate early adoption and usability

• Reduce expiration-related CX tickets

My Role:

As the sole Product Designer, I owned the experience end to end across web, iOS, and Android. I partnered closely with Product, Engineering, and CX to define requirements, design flows, prototype and validate solutions, and support implementation.

My responsibilities included:

  • Defining current- and future-state expiration, renewal, and re-enrollment flows

  • Designing high-fidelity UI across platforms

  • Leading usability testing and iteration

  • Contributing scalable patterns to the design system

Results

Outcome:

  • ~11% renewal rate for a net-new renewal and re-enrollment capability

  • ~13% reduction in expiration-related CX tickets

  • Live across web, iOS, and Android

  • Established a scalable foundation for post-MVP enhancements

Design Process

Discovery & Insights:

As the sole designer, I partnered directly with CX and PM to review:

  • Support tickets related to course expiration

  • Common learner questions and confusion points

  • Funnel drop-offs in post-expiration states

Key insights:

  • Learners often didn’t understand why access ended

  • Next steps were unclear or felt punitive

  • Language and hierarchy strongly influenced trust and willingness to continue

Design Approach:

I focused on three core principles:

  1. Clarity over urgency

    Clear explanations of expiration, renewal, and re-enrollment before introducing CTAs

  2. Reassurance through design

    Calm hierarchy, supportive copy, and predictable interactions

  3. Scalability across platforms

    Patterns that could be reused consistently across web and mobile

Solution

The final solution introduced:

  • Clear expiration and re-enrollment states with contextual messaging

  • Primary and secondary CTAs based on learner eligibility

  • Consistent visual patterns across web, iOS, and Android

  • WCAG-aligned accessibility improvements

  • Modular components contributed to the design system

I used high-fidelity Figma prototypes and v0 AI prototyping to rapidly explore layouts, flows, and interaction patterns and align early with engineering.

Validation & Iteration

As the sole designer, I led validation end to end by:

  • Conducting usability testing on high-fidelity prototypes

  • Iterating directly with PM, Engineering, and CX

  • Validating post-launch behavior using Amplitude

  • Deploying Appcues surveys to capture learner sentiment

This allowed for rapid iteration on hierarchy, copy, and CTA placement after launch.

Results

Outcome:

  • ~11% renewal rate for a net-new renewal and re-enrollment capability

  • ~13% reduction in expiration-related CX tickets

  • Live across web, iOS, and Android

  • Established a scalable foundation for post-MVP enhancements

Learnings & Next Steps

What I learned

  • Designing for emotionally sensitive moments requires clarity, not pressure

  • Growth features earn trust through transparency and usability

  • Shipping MVPs with strong systems thinking accelerates iteration

Next steps

  • Further personalization based on learner behavior

  • Expanded analytics on long-term retention

  • Additional optimizations to renewal and re-enrollment timing and messaging