Selections for Learning

Overview and Problem

While Common Sense had a successful award program for family media, educators needed a similar, trusted seal of approval. Based on our competitive analysis, we determined that our badge could best serve as an indicator for educators of edtech products that had the best potential to deliver exceptional, student-driven learning. This badge, which we called the Selection for Learning award, would serve as an indicator to educators of which of the tens of thousands of edtech products educators should pay attention to, whether on the Common Sense site or out in the market.

As the education team’s primary stakeholder, my job was to ensure this badge represented our team’s pedagogical point-of-view and fit well within our content strategy, including our review pages and best-of lists.

Process and Solution

While the overall brand identity and naming of the badge was owned by marketing, I was the owner of the program on the education team. My contributions included:

• Designing the award rubric from the ground up, setting the standard and process for issuing badges and creating FAQs and developer guides.
• Overseeing the program’s administration, including awardee selection and management, stakeholder and awardee communications, and promotional material creation (articles, collateral).
• Co-leading a cross-functional team in charge of on-site implementation of the badges, including leading content design and collaborating on UI/UX connecting the Selections for Learning award to review pages, Top Picks lists, and Best-in-Class pages. This work included solving the critical UX challenge of ensuring users understood the badge’s unique meaning in contrast to our existing star ratings and list selections

Results and Impact

The Selection for Learning program became a key differentiator in a crowded and competitive market.

• As intended, the seal was a primary driver of clicks on the website (search/browse and on lists), directing users to the tools we identified as highest quality.
• The seal had an extremely high adoption rate, with nearly 70% of honored developers promoting the award and nearly all honored developers showcasing it on their booths at the ISTE conference.
• Publishers displayed the badge prominently on their websites and app store pages and called out the award in press releases and promotional materials. We also received word that it was cited in pitches to funders and buyers, and likely played a supporting role in several acquisitions.