Tours enrollment

At EF, enrollment is when a parent commits to an experience that could change their child's life. Our job wasn't just to make the forms easier—it was to rethink how we show up for families in that moment. The old flow felt like paperwork: rigid, overwhelming, and disconnected from the excitement of what parents were actually doing. We needed something that would ease their nerves and help them feel confident about their decision.

As Product Designer, I led the complete redesign of Tour Enrollment, turning an administrative task into a journey that guides and supports families, balancing clarity with anticipation.

Role

Product Designer

Product Designer

Focus

Cross-Functional Leadership

Narrative Architecture

UX/UI
Brand

Conversion
Optimization

Cross-Functional Leadership

Narrative Architecture

UX/UI
Brand

Conversion
Optimization

The Core Problem

Teachers arrived with two competing jobs to be done. Emotionally, they wanted to see the meaning, impact, and transformation of what a tour can do for their classroom. Professionally, they were asking whether they could defend this decision to parents, administrators, and themselves about the logistics, pricing, and risk mitigation.

Our mandate was to design a single experience where desire and accountability could coexist without friction. The core tension we were solving was simple and difficult: how do you design for inspiration and risk at the same time?

The core probelm

The old experience was designed to collect data, not to help people feel good about their decision. Every screen felt like filling out an application—because that's exactly what it was modeled after. Our legacy paper forms had been translated directly into digital, and it showed.

Parents felt overwhelmed. Students felt like they were doing homework. The interface got the job done, but it didn't inspire confidence or build excitement. It was functional, but it wasn't helping anyone feel ready for what came next.

How we defined success

We couldn't just measure completion rates and call it a win. We needed to know if people felt good about completing enrollment.

So we defined success around emotional clarity. Did users:

  • Know exactly where they were in the process and what was coming next?

  • Feel guided and supported, not just processed?

  • Trust that EF had their back?

  • Move forward with confidence instead of second-guessing themselves?

The metrics mattered—better step-through rates, lower abandonment. But what really mattered was whether families felt calm and clear, not anxious and confused.

Experience Strategy

We stopped thinking about enrollment as "form submission" and started thinking about it as "trip preparation." That shift changed everything.

Our guiding principles:

  • Show progress, not just requirements — Let people see how far they've come and how close they are to being done

  • Clarity builds trust — Use plain language, no jargon, no surprises

  • Design for two audiences — Parents need reassurance; students need excitement

  • Set the right pace and tone — Treat logistics like preparation for an adventure, not red tape

Visually, we moved away from dense forms and toward something that felt more like planning a trip. Card-based layouts. Breathing room. Photos that made you want to pack your bags. Small animations that gave you a sense of momentum—like you were actually getting somewhere.

Outcomes

We stopped thinking about enrollment as "form submission" and started thinking about it as "trip preparation." That shift changed everything.

Our guiding principles:

  • Show progress, not just requirements — Let people see how far they've come and how close they are to being done

  • Clarity builds trust — Use plain language, no jargon, no surprises

  • Design for two audiences — Parents need reassurance; students need excitement

  • Set the right pace and tone — Treat logistics like preparation for an adventure, not red tape