Foxford is an online school for students from grades 1 to 11. When switching to homeschooling in Russia, parents must attach their child's profile to a school that will conduct the annual and final state attestation.
Until 2023, this entire process for homeschoolers at Foxford was completely manual. Parents had to read lengthy instructions online, clarify details with support, collect all documents on their own, and submit a full "paper package" after purchasing the learning program.
This created stress for both sides: parents got confused, and the support team spent hundreds of hours explaining the rules over and over again.
By the time I joined the project, I was a mid-level product designer responsible for key parts of the user journey. I worked directly with all stakeholders: the academic department, legal team, product manager, and development.
The primary users are parents whose children are transitioning to homeschooling before grades 9 and 11, or students who are already studying remotely in grades 8 and 10.
In rare cases, it's the students themselves — usually high-schoolers reconsidering their education format before grades 10–11.
Regardless of their profile, all users had one common fear: they did not understand how attestation would work and whether it was reliable.
A significant portion of parents didn't choose Foxford specifically because of uncertainties around attestation. Others left right before grades 9 or 11 because they didn't understand how exams were conducted and which documents were required.
The informational materials — blog posts, support answers, sales presentations — didn't help much. The process was too bureaucratic and too legally complex to be solved with tips and short explanations.
Foxford needed a strategic solution: make the attestation attachment process clear, transparent, and fully integrated into the main user journey.
We aimed to achieve three goals:
- Make the process simple and non-stressful for parents
- Reduce the workload on the support team, who manually reviewed thousands of documents every year
- Improve retention and increase conversion by removing one of the key barriers to choosing Foxford
The project was tied to numerous legal requirements. The academic department was responsible for the correctness of all wording, and even minor inaccuracies could create risks. Requirements changed throughout the project: the school received accreditation only at the end of 2022, and new regulations continued to arrive while we were already designing.
Technically, we couldn't create a full new flow. We had to integrate attestation inside the purchasing flow — into the existing "select learning format" page and the document upload page — without making the user journey longer.
All of this happened under strict deadlines. Sales started in May, and the peak load was expected in August–September, so the design had to be completed in roughly one month.
At the start, we worked with two sources: the academic department's requirements and user pains.
Parents told us
"We don't understand how to take exams online."
"My child is on home education due to disability, but we have no idea how to take the final state exams."
After preparing the early drafts, we ran about 10 UX interviews with parents, showed them the prototype, and gathered feedback.
The UX writer worked with me from day one. Together we structured the screens, ensured the storytelling was consistent, and kept the tone clear and human despite the legal heaviness of the content. Her work helped us soften the bureaucratic language while staying fully compliant.
Parallel to the design and user research, I continuously synced with stakeholders — held demos for the academic and legal teams, clarified requirements, and adapted designs as new rules arrived. Some screens were redesigned multiple times; the process was long and demanding, but it helped us avoid critical mistakes.
Progressive disclosure
I proposed building the new functionality around the principle of progressive disclosure: show information only when it becomes relevant. This gave us two major benefits — parents didn't see anything unnecessary if they didn't need attestation, and the entire process looked logical and simple.
Integrated into the existing flow
The functionality was integrated into two existing pages of the purchase flow. On the first page, we added fields for selecting citizenship, learning format, the attestation school, and the list of required documents. Depending on the citizenship, different education-format options appear next — with a tip for users unfamiliar with them.
A pre-selected school
We also introduced a pre-selected school. The system automatically suggested the most suitable option — our own accredited legal entity. This significantly increased the likelihood that parents would attach their child to Foxford rather than to partner schools (which would generate additional costs for the business).
For cases when users needed different documents or wanted to explore alternatives, we added a "Choose another school" button. It opened a list of partner schools, but the default selection was always Foxford. This preserved user control while keeping the main flow inside our ecosystem.
A clearer document upload
On the document upload page, users now provided both the standard contract documents and the additional attestation documents. The blocks were clearly separated and supported with hints to avoid confusion.
Because of platform limitations, we couldn't add more steps to the flow. We fully preserved the length of the journey while seamlessly integrating a major new feature.
To streamline implementation, I broke all designs into logical blocks and added comprehensive comments.
We held regular demos with the development team to validate feasibility within the legacy system, anticipate corner cases, and refine solutions early.
After the launch, parent chats were filled with positive feedback. Parents were genuinely relieved: finally they could attach their child to a school without endless back-and-forth messages and the fear of submitting incorrect documents.
The support team no longer manually processed thousands of files — we built an internal admin tool with automatic validation and the ability to request corrections.
I was responsible for the UX concept, flow structure, visual design, stakeholder communication, creation of all new parts of the interface, and the entire set of production-ready mockups. I conducted research, held stakeholder demos, and checked quality during development.
I'm particularly proud of the simplified interface: progressive disclosure and a clear structure significantly reduced cognitive load for parents.
Looking back with more experience, I would have changed the process in two ways.
- Wait for more stable legal requirements before designing — this alone would have eliminated several redundant iterations
- Structure stakeholder communication around a weekly sync with asynchronous reviews beforehand — it would have saved time and reduced repeated discussions
Despite the stress and the evolving requirements, this project became an important milestone in my work. Our team turned a legally complex procedure into a transparent, human-friendly experience — and delivered it under extreme time pressure without compromising quality.