The Challenge

Essential CEU Institute came to us with a working SaaS platform, but they knew it could be more. For years, they'd been serving healthcare professionals in California with state-approved continuing education courses. The core service worked. People subscribed, took courses, earned certificates, and maintained their licenses.

But the platform had evolved organically, adding features as needs arose without a cohesive strategy. The result was a functional but fractured experience. Users struggled to navigate between different types of content. The information architecture had grown tangled. And most critically, Essential CEU was missing an opportunity to increase subscriber value and retain long term customers.

As product designer for this project at Moonbase Labs, I worked with a small team to transform Essential CEU from a course library into a unified training management system.

Uncovering the Real Opportunity

Our initial objective was straightforward: improve the user experience, clean up the interface, make it easier to find and complete courses. Standard optimization work.

But as we started talking to users — both individual healthcare professionals and team administrators at healthcare organizations — a different picture emerged.

The pain point wasn't just about consuming Essential CEU's courses. It was about managing all training requirements in one place. Healthcare professionals attend conferences, complete external certifications, and participate in employer training programs — all of which contribute to their job certifications and license renewals. They needed to track everything in one place, but no single tool gave them that comprehensive view.

Individual subscribers told us they were maintaining separate spreadsheets. Team administrators were juggling multiple systems. Everyone was doing manual work that should have been automated.

Essential CEU had an opportunity to become the single source of truth for healthcare training, going from a conventional course provider to a complete training management platform.

The strategic insight: Let users document external training alongside Essential CEU courses. Give them a unified transcript. Make the platform valuable even when they're not actively taking courses. Create a reason to maintain their subscription year-round.

The business case was compelling. Higher retention meant more predictable revenue. Increased subscriber lifetime value meant better unit economics. And the feature would differentiate Essential CEU in a crowded continuing education market.

Capturing the Process

When planning a new feature with non-technical stakeholders, it can be difficult to establish shared forms of communication. To facilitate a productive conversation and align on requirements, I utilized a virtual white-boarding tool (Miro) and a process diagram which included:

• User Types
• High-Level Steps of the Process
• Specific User Actions (User Stories)

This helped us to move fast, gather the details we needed to get started on the feature, and confirm everything with stakeholders.

Translating for Software

A simple process diagram isn’t enough to prepare a feature for implementation by engineers. I created in-depth user flows to communicate the process and outline design elements for developers. Holding off on UI design at this stage streamlines the most important work and avoids the pitfalls of time spent crafting unnecessary high-fidelity mockups.

Minimum Viable Fidelity

A personal product design value I do my best to uphold is the restraint to stop at the level of fidelity required to successfully deliver a feature. If I'm working with existing design patterns that engineers are comfortable with, I stick to wireframes and written notes. That was the case for this external course entry feature.

I take pride in my high-fidelity design work, but it isn’t always needed. Employing the concept of "Minimum Viable Fidelity" helps teams move fast and keeps the work focused.

The Results

Empowering users to document training completed outside of the Essential CEU Institute platform increased value for existing subscribers and created greater incentive for potential subscribers to use the service. Our redesign of user profiles made it easier for individuals to track their progress and for teams to manage employee training with better visibility.

What I Learned

Project Details

Responsibilities: