Jason Kellum | Portfolio

Traverse

History and Social Studies Curriculum

Traverse is a digital-first social studies curriculum for grades 6–12, combining rich content, primary and secondary sources, interactive media, and flexible tools that give teachers more ways to personalize instruction. The experience is built around inquiry, helping students explore history, analyze sources, and develop critical thinking skills.

I shape product strategy and manage the product design process from concept through delivery. I work across product, design, engineering, and curriculum to turn complex content into a cohesive digital experience. I also lead UI/UX design across key student and teacher experiences, balancing instructional goals with usability and engagement.

Design Leadership Mentorship User Research

Student Interface

The student experience builds on learnings from StudySync, applying what we learned about student behavior, navigation, and engagement to a new social studies experience. Those insights helped shape how students move through content, understand their progress, and interact with the curriculum across different learning activities.

Rather than carrying the previous experience forward unchanged, we used those insights as a foundation for exploring what needed to evolve. The result was a more flexible student experience that could support Traverse’s curriculum structure while maintaining familiar patterns where they benefited students.

Teacher Interface

The teacher experience brought together a broad set of tools for shaping curriculum, managing classrooms, and supporting instruction. Educators could edit chapters or create new ones, manage assignments and assessments, monitor student progress, and provide feedback. District administrators could also apply curriculum-level customizations, creating different layers of control within the same platform.

Designing for that range of needs required careful consideration of how much control to expose and when. We structured the experience so core classroom workflows remained straightforward while more advanced capabilities could be accessed as needed. Features like student-view previewing, pre-filled annotations, and feedback at both the assignment and activity levels helped connect the teacher's workflow to the student experience.

Project Management

Traverse was a large and complex product, requiring the design work to stay coordinated across a wide range of experiences, content, and curriculum requirements. I established the design direction and helped structure the work so the team could move from early concepts through execution while maintaining a consistent experience.

As the project evolved, I balanced hands-on design work with guiding the team, reviewing work, and helping designers navigate competing requirements. This created a shared design approach while giving the team the space to solve individual problems and contribute their own expertise.

Traverse curriculum template library and layout system

Curriculum Templates

While building the curriculum, I partnered with Academic Designers to develop templates that enabled departments to move forward independently without blocking one another. I introduced shared text styles early in the process, creating a common visual language while giving each team room to explore and solve for their own content.

The templates became a scalable foundation across the curriculum, helping teams work more consistently and making the transition from design to site content smoother. By establishing shared patterns and guiding teams toward a common approach, I helped create alignment without limiting creative problem-solving.

Figma

I led the adoption of Figma as our cross-department design tool, replacing disconnected programs with a shared source of truth. The shift changed how teams collaborated, reducing duplication, speeding up idea sharing, and creating a more unified workflow.

I also introduced a shared component file that streamlined updates, reduced rework, and brought designs to roughly 80% completion before moving into development. Final refinements happened in code, creating a faster feedback loop between design and engineering while maintaining consistency through production.

Print Companion

Although Traverse was designed as a digital-first curriculum, textbooks remained an important part of how many school districts delivered instruction. I coordinated across teams to keep digital content and print materials aligned, adapting design patterns to the unique requirements of each format while maintaining a cohesive experience.

The print companion also created an opportunity to reinforce the value of the digital platform. Because the textbooks represented only a portion of the full curriculum, we used the digital experience to extend the learning journey with additional content, interactive resources, and tools that couldn't be replicated in print.