Dynamic System for Customized Learning Recommendations
The Problem
Corporate Finance Institute’s free users are not sure where to get started with CFI and require guidance.
The Solution
Provide users with customized Learning Recommendations based on their topic of interest and learning style.
Key Accomplishment
Designed dynamic recommendation system to provide learners with customized guidance, which significantly increased the percentage of users who began courses and contributed to +7% subscription rate and +5% DAU growth.
Primary Team
Product Designer, Product Manager
Timeline
2 months
Context
Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) enhances the skills and productivity of finance and banking professionals. 2M+ CFI learners have access to six industry-recognized certifications and 200+ courses to advance their careers.
In addition to All-Access plans, CFI offers a freemium model in which users have full access to about 20 courses and can only view previews of the others. Only subscribers are able to complete certifications.
Business Goal
The product team’s primary goal for the year was to increase subscription rate.
When deciding how to proceed, we evaluated our existing user pain points with a particular focus on the concerns of free learners. We then determined how to address these pain points, which we believed would improve our conversion rate.
BUSINESS GOAL:
Increase subscription rate.
User Research Insight
When new CFI users were asked about their current training plan, 61% of free learners reported that they do not where to start and need guidance.
On the other hand, 68% of subscribers know how they are going to begin their training and have already selected a course, certification, or training tool.
Based on this insight, we concluded that learners, particularly free learners, need additional guidance upon account creation. If we help learners identify where to get started with CFI, this may also lead to an increase in conversion.
Thus, we formed our hypothesis: providing learners with guidance for where to get started will increase CFI’s subscription rate.
While our research indicated that there may be a positive association between users knowing where to get started with CFI and the likelihood of subscribing, there may not necessarily be a causal relationship.
In any case, providing learners with more guidance addresses an existing learner pain point and provides a better CFI experience overall.
HYPOTHESIS:
Providing learners with guidance for where to get started will increase CFI’s subscription rate.
Providing Customized Guidance
CFI has over 2 million learners, each with their unique learning goals, and 200+ courses in a variety of banking and finance topics. How might we provide learners with customized guidance?
Our first step was to segment users based on their topic of interest and learning style. With these two key pieces of information, we could provide recommendations based on what a learner is interested in and how they want to learn.
Defining User Segments
To obtain the information required to segment users, we implemented a simple welcome survey. This survey appeared directly within the CFI platform 15 seconds after a learner logged in.
Though this survey was only shown once upon login, learners always had the option to complete the survey or edit their responses via a CTA on their dashboard.
In order to create a simple and quick experience for learners, we limited the survey to two questions and only collected information on each user’s topic of interest and learning style.
Within one month, 69% of learners completed this survey, and we collected data from 14,956 responses.
Survey Results Mapping
Based on each learner’s survey results (or lack thereof), we segmented them and defined Learning Recommendations for each group.
For Question 1, topic of interest, we categorized each learner’s responses based on if they selected either one of seven Specific Topics (e.g. Financial Planning & Analysis) or Not Sure / Other.
We also considered learning style with Question 2: whether a learner aspires to Get Certified, Take Individual Courses, or Explore Their Options.
We provided the same recommendation for learners with matching topics of interest who wanted to either take individual courses or explore their options. Learners who are still exploring options may be intimidated by an entire certification, and starting with an individual course is more approachable.
As we increase the sophistication of this recommendation system, we will iterate to provide options to better suit the needs of our diverse group of learners.
Defining Recommendations
For each user segment, we crafted explicit recommendations to provide learners with more guidance. This should address the user pain point of not knowing where to start with CFI.
As our overall goal was to increase subscription rate, each recommendation included multiple calls to action, all pointing toward conversion. After viewing their customized recommendations, learners should:
Start their first course. Learners will immediately experience the high quality of CFI’s content and begin to understand the value of a subscription.
Pursue a certification. Those interested in a certification will have an actionable goal, providing them with motivation, and further increasing their value of CFI.
Convert to a subscription. Now that learners have received customized guidance and begun learning with CFI, they may decide that a subscription would support their goals.
Recommendations
RECOMMENDATION 1
Specific Certification
In the most common scenario, a learner indicates that they’re interested in a specific topic and a certification, and we’ll recommend the certification that aligns with their selected topic. There are seven versions of this recommendation, each corresponding to a topic available in the survey and its respective certification.
Each Learning Recommendation includes a header featuring the tag “Based on Your Selections”, which indicates that these recommendations are customized. Additionally, the icon in the top right of the header allows a learner to collapse this section.
The most prominent CTA directs learners to start the first course in this certification. This allows those who have a chosen topic and want to get certified to immediately make progress toward a certification. In order to earn a certification, learners must subscribe to CFI.
For those who are interested in more information, learners can select the name of the certification to learn more and view the syllabus.
Lastly, the footer provides learners with easy access to re-take the welcome survey if these suggestions don’t resonate with them.
Learning Recommendation: Specific Certification (Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst)
RECOMMENDATION 2
Specific Popular Courses
If a learner is interested in a specific topic but would rather take individual courses or explore their options than pursue a certification, we’ll recommend popular courses from their selected topic. Similarly to the above scenario, there are seven versions of this recommendation, each featuring popular courses from the corresponding topic.
For learners with a matching topic of interest, we provide the same list of popular courses whether they indicated that they were interested in taking individual courses or exploring their options. We’ll continue to explore alternatives to better tailor recommendations for each learner.
From each topic’s popular courses, we selected three courses to recommend. Each list includes one free option, allowing both subscribers and non-subscribers to immediately start their first course. Specifically, we identified free courses from each topic resulting in the highest percentage of conversion to a paid subscription.
Additionally, all courses are included in each topic’s corresponding certification. As a learner makes progress on their chosen course, they will recognize that they are also making progress toward a certification, which may encourage them to pursue a certification.
Learning Recommendation: Specific Popular Courses (Financial Planning & Analysis)
RECOMMENDATION 3
Generic Popular Courses
If a learner is not sure about which topic but would like to take individual courses or explore their options we’ll recommend a variety of free, entry-level, popular courses from across CFI’s catalog.
We strategically selected free courses that have a high percentage of conversion to paid accounts. Additionally, each course is associated with multiple certifications, allowing a learner to make progress toward multiple certifications simultaneously, allowing them to easily transition to pursue a certification.
Without knowing their topic of interest, it is difficult to recommend appropriate courses. If these courses don’t resonate with a learner, we still want to encourage them to start their first course, so we’ve added a secondary CTA linking to our Course Catalog.
The footer now features a more prominent CTA, encouraging learners to re-take the survey in order to receive more tailored recommendations. This copy also changes from “Interested in something else?” to “Interested in something specific?”.
Learning Recommendation: Generic Popular Courses
RECOMMENDATION 4
Popular Certifications
In the most rare case in which a learner is not sure about which topic to study but would like a certification, we’ll recommend the most popular certifications.
We want to support these learners in their determination to pursue a certification, so we have also included information and a secondary CTA to view all certifications that CFI offers. All certifications require a paid subscription.
Learning Recommendation: Popular Certifications
RECOMMENDATION 5
Customize Your Learning
For learners who dismissed the welcome survey, our primary recommendation is to take the survey so we can help guide them on the first steps of their learning journey with CFI. As outlined above, the customized recommendations they’ll receive after the onboarding survey should will help lead learners toward converting to a paid subscription.
We’ve also listed a few popular courses, the same courses featured in “Recommendation 3: Generic Popular Courses”. If a learner is determined to not take the survey, we still want to provide them with guidance to start their first course.
Unlike the others, this version does not have a header, nor a footer, and is not collapsible. The persistent nature should highlight the importance of the survey and further encourage learners to take it.
Recommendation: Customize Your Learning
Impact
Impact
Three months after the launch of Learning Recommendations, 40,000+ learners had completed the survey and received customized recommendations.
Of those recommendations, the 3 courses that were selected most often saw a 5.5% increase in the percentage of active users who started the course. Consequently, the implementation of Learning Recommendations successfully led to more learners starting their first course.
By providing guidance for where to start, we addressed a common pain point, which helped users experience the high quality of CFI’s content and led them to subscribe. Ultimately, these recommendations contributed significantly to CFI’s 7% subscription rate growth over a six month period in which DAU also increased by 5%.
Thus, we successfully proved our hypothesis that “Providing learners with guidance for where to get started will increase CFI’s subscription rate.“ In addition to driving key metrics, Learning Recommendations increased the user value of CFI and improved the product experience for a growing number of CFI learners around the world.
Next Steps
This recommendation system is quite simple. After tracking user engagement with these recommendations, we would like to increase the sophistication of this system to provide even smarter recommendations for each learner. For example, we could ask learners about their level of experience in finance and then recommend courses of corresponding levels of difficulty.
Additionally, the recommendations are not updated when a learner completes a recommended course or certification. For now, learners have the option to collapse this section if it becomes outdated, but we are going to update this system so it scales better as a learner makes progress.
Reflection
The most satisfying aspect of this project was simultaneously addressing a user pain point and achieving a business goal. As a Product Designer, my role is to strike the balance between advocating for the user and considering business needs, which I excelled at during this project.
I am honored to have impacted the lives of CFI learners who have already received customized recommendations, and I’m excited that this system will continue to evolve and support future learners in their banking and finance careers.