Curiosity.com
Never Stop Learning
Curiosity turned everyday learning into a simple habit through short, visually engaging, editor-curated content across a wide range of topics. It combined the depth of a science magazine with the ease of a personalized discovery feed.
Discovery Communications/Curiosity
Industry
Platform
Services
Team
Andy O’Dower
Won You
The Overview
Curiosity began as a Discovery Communications initiative designed to make learning more accessible, engaging, and part of everyday life. In 2014, the platform was spun out as an independent company and raised $6.5 million in Series A funding.
As the platform grew, it evolved into a standalone product with an expanding library of videos, articles, and topic-based content.
This created a new design challenge: how to turn a large content collection into a connected experience that encouraged people to explore, continue learning, and discover what to watch or read next.
$6.5M
Series A funding in 2014
1M
International users by 2015
75M+
Monthly organic reach reported later in 2017
My Role
I worked as a freelance Senior Product Designer, collaborating with Andy O’Dower and the Curiosity team during the product’s transition from a Discovery Communications initiative into an independent educational technology company.
As an embedded product design partner, I helped turn early thinking into clear, compelling product experiences — strengthening functionality, usability, and visual expression across platforms. My role ranged from shaping concepts from initial briefs to evolving low-fidelity wireframes into polished interfaces and interactive prototypes for review.
Content Discovery Platform
The Challenge
At launch, Curiosity offered more than 100,000 educational videos from across the web. With so much content, finding the right video was difficult. Our challenge was to make discovery easier through curated playlists, clear filters and relevant recommendations.
Curated Playlists
Designing a Continuous Learning Experience
Working closely with the product team, I designed a playlist-first learning experience, proposing usability improvements and a new visual direction that brought video playback, episode navigation, curator context and related recommendations into one flexible system — helping users understand each collection, save content and continue exploring without losing context.
Find your path
A connected content system designed to help users continue learning beyond a single video.
A series of interface explorations for Curiosity’s learning-path experience. The concepts connect video playback with related topics, progress indicators and recommended content, helping users understand what to watch next and move through a subject in a more guided, continuous way.
Mobile Learning Digest
Based on the team’s product goals and requirements, I designed a mobile app experience centered on a small set of curated stories refreshed each day. The format gives users a clear stopping point, making learning feel focused, manageable, and easy to return to. Progress indicators and viewing statistics reinforce a lightweight daily habit without overwhelming the user.
Mobile Digest
A simple mobile experience that builds a daily learning habit and keeps users engaged.
I designed a series of key mobile screens to explore a visual direction for a daily learning digest.
Each edition features five curated videos and stories, with a clear stopping point before new content arrives the next day. Progress indicators and viewing statistics help build a lightweight daily habit without overwhelming the user.
A wearable version of the daily digest for quick, on-the-go learning.
I explored how the Daily Digest could extend to Apple Watch. Compact story cards, progress indicators and concise topic summaries let users discover something new at a glance and continue exploring without opening the full mobile app.
A simple activity chart and key metrics show weekly progress, helping users stay motivated and build a consistent learning habit.
Circular indicators show the user’s current level and the time needed to advance.
Outcome
The work established a flexible product direction for Curiosity across desktop, mobile, and wearable experiences. The concepts connected discovery, playback, progress, and recommendations into a more consistent learning system designed to encourage continued exploration without overwhelming users. The team responded positively to the proposed directions, and several ideas were later incorporated into the product.
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