Improving membership sign-up with course-specific recommendations

Course Hero is an online learning platform and marketplace where students can access course-specific content and share resources within their online communities. Its mission is to help every student graduate with confidence and preparedness.

As the Lead Product Designer on the Growth team, I drove the design strategy for the sign-up flow experiment that aimed to help visitors gain better understanding of Course Hero's membership offering and increase conversion rate.

learnings

The main culprit of the conversion problem may lie beyond our scope

Since the test launch, there were no significant differences in usage data between the test groups. Qualitative follow-up suggested there might be bigger issues outside the scope of the experiment.

Customers thought the offering was impressive, but not for the price of the membership

People were interested, but they wanted to try it before they buy it

Document landing page often provided the answers visitors were looking for, discouraging further exploration.

Challenge

The perceived value fell short of the actual value

By analyzing unmoderated tests with real users on UserTesting.com, we identified these key problems to address.

Lack of brand awareness

Awareness and understanding of Course Hero as a brand and service were low. The majority of visitors discovered Course Hero through Google search, making it the primary entry point—even for repeat visitors, many of whom struggled to recall what Course Hero offered.

Leaky funnel that's wide and steep

Many users landed directly on the document details page from Google search, quickly finding the study content they needed. As a result, they dropped off quickly and didn’t see enough value in a paid subscription.

Confusing pricing

The pricing tiers and add-on structure was overly complicated. Many people were confused by what they were buying and often felt the prices were too high for the services they needed.

Low trust

Some users hesitated to commit to a paid membership due to trust concerns. Frequent upsell pop-ups felt intrusive, making it difficult for them to fully grasp the value of Course Hero’s services before encountering the paywall.

EXPERIMENT

Better way to convey the long-term value of a paid membership

The scope of the experiment was limited to the sign-up flow. Pricing and payment experiences were planned for a separate experiment.

Test group 1 - control

We evenly divided traffic across three test groups. Group 1 acted as the control, featuring the existing sign-up flow, which lacked a clear value proposition and had an outdated look and feel.

Test group 2 - elevated design with up-front value messaging

We kept the steps and content in the sign-up flow the same but introduced branded value proposition at the beginning of the funnel. Additionally, we enhanced the brand presence and improved the interaction design for a more engaging experience.

Test group 3 - additional course specificity

Group 3 built upon Group 2 by adding course-specific details to the sign-up flow. The hypothesis was that showcasing study content tailored not only to students' schools but also to their specific courses would provide significant value, encouraging them to recognize the long-term benefits of a paid membership.