Mobile product design · Interaction strategy

Making it easy for teams to connect and reply instantly.

I completely redesigned Schoox’s mobile Social Feed after UXCam showed that desktop interaction patterns were falling apart on phones. The new mobile-first approach tested well with customers, and one interaction worked so well that the Design System team began bringing it back to desktop.

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Role: Product Designer (Mobile)
Timeline: 2+ sprints · 2024
Team: Web Designer · Engineers · UX Researcher · Design Systems
Tools & skills: Figma · UXCam · Mobile UX · Interaction Design

50K+: Learners on the platform
Client-tested: Schoox + non-Schoox users
Mobile → desktop: Pattern taken into Design Systems

Social Feed

Design Team mobile feed with Published/Scheduled/Pending views, pinned posts, and purple reaction and reply controls.

Feed · Pinned updates, recognition, and replies

The problem

Desktop patterns were choking the mobile feed.

While another designer handled the web experience, I owned the mobile adaptation in lockstep with the web designer and Design Systems team.

Deeply nested threads became cramped and unreadable. Flat reactions gave almost no feedback. Managers couldn’t pin, schedule, approve, or manage important posts from their phones.

The challenge was not to shrink the desktop feed. It was to preserve the same product intent while rewriting the interaction rules for a smaller screen, surfacing relevant discussions without turning the learning app into a distracting social destination.

What data showed

Clunky mobile design, not disengagement, was the real problem.

UXCam session recordings were the primary evidence. I also audited where community moments fit into the learning journey and used competitor research to pressure-test what we were seeing.

Thread management

Users gave up after endless scrolling through flat, disorganized comment walls.

Satisfying social proof

A web-style Like button did not provide enough visual or tactile feedback on a phone.

Management on the move

Managers needed pinning, scheduling, review, and approval tools in their pockets, not only on desktop.

Mobile decisions

Three decisions made the feed feel native to a phone.

We measured one thing: how quickly someone could spot a discussion that mattered and jump into it.

Expandable replies

Deep, indented desktop threads squished the text and broke the layout on mobile.

Long threads hide by default, keeping the main feed clean. People enter the full conversation with one tap.

A dedicated post conversation with four example replies and a persistent Reply to Ralph field. — Replies · A focused conversation
Prototype walkthrough · Open Ralph’s post, select Celebrate, scroll through four example replies, then return to the feed. The reaction is local to this conversation; no real reaction or reply is sent.

Satisfying reactions

Mobile users wanted to feel a reaction happen, not just watch a counter tick up.

High-contrast reactions and tuned touch feedback made every response immediate and clear.

Pinned welcome and badge posts with selected purple reactions and collapsed reply counts. — Feed · Reactions and replies in context

Status and management on the go

Managers struggled to distinguish drafts, pending posts, and suggested content from mobile.

Clear status tags and mobile management controls made review and approval possible on the fly.

Scheduled posts with Awaiting approval and Approved status tags, publication times, and Reschedule/Edit/Publish now controls. — Scheduled posts · Status and management controls

Write, attach, and schedule from the phone.

The composer keeps the approval reminder, message field, and publishing tools together.

New post composer with an approval reminder, message field, and Photo, Link, and Schedule controls. — New post · Mobile publishing controls

Impact

Customers called it clean, intuitive, and finally worth using.

Schoox and non-Schoox customers described the direction as clean and intuitive, and one participant said it felt geared toward professional rather than academic learning. The expandable reply pattern also proved effective enough for the core Design System team to begin adapting it for desktop.

“Really clear and clean, no extra details and noise, feels intuitive.”
Customer interview

What I learned

Three principles I carried out of Social Feed.

Data over theory

Broad social-learning theory did not explain the friction. Watching real UXCam sessions showed exactly why deep threading fell apart on mobile.

Unification is not replication

A cohesive cross-platform experience does not mean making the phone behave like a smaller desktop.

Constraint improves interaction value

The expandable reply pattern came from mobile constraints and became useful enough to travel back to desktop.