Digital Tools
An interactive HTML slide system that puts everything students need in one beautifully organized place. Color-coded navigation, custom SVG icons, and embedded resources make this a digital home base that middle schoolers actually want to use — because when the tool feels intuitive, the learning gets to be the hard part.
My students were drowning in tabs. Every class meant a new Google link, a different platform, another login they'd forgotten. The digital tools were supposed to make learning more accessible, but the sheer disorganization of it all was doing the opposite. Kids would spend the first ten minutes of class just trying to find where they were supposed to be. I needed a single, intuitive home base that made navigation feel effortless — so the cognitive load could go where it belonged: on the actual learning.
I designed an interactive HTML slide system that works like a digital wayfinding hub. Each subject area is color-coded (inspired by Saddleback College's campus navigation system, of all things), with custom SVG icons I built to visually anchor each section. Students land on a clean home screen and click into exactly what they need — today's lesson, reference materials, vocabulary tools, or assignment submissions.
The whole thing runs in-browser with no logins required. I hand-coded the HTML and CSS to keep it lightweight and fast, even on the ancient Chromebooks our school provided. Every interaction was tested with actual 12-year-olds, which is the most honest usability testing you'll ever get. If a sixth grader can't find the assignment in three seconds, the design has failed.
Transition time at the start of class dropped dramatically. Students started taking ownership of navigating their own learning — they knew where things lived, and they could get there independently. Teachers who borrowed the system reported the same thing: less time directing traffic, more time actually teaching. The hub proved that good UX isn't just for tech companies — it belongs in every classroom.
