Barnes & Noble Yuzu

Shaping the Future of Digital Education

At Barnes & Noble, I contributed to the creation of Yuzu, an interactive digital learning platform designed to enhance the everyday educational journey of students.

As part of the Education UX team, I crafted intuitive icons, attractive book covers, and optimal page layouts for both desktop and mobile apps. Our goal was to offer a unified, engaging learning experience across all platforms.

I worked with the Education UX team to innovate digital education, making the student learning journey more impactful.

User Research

We delved into the heart of student needs through comprehensive user research. We observed how students study, their tools, note-taking methods, and interaction patterns with study partners.

Annotations

I took the lead in designing the annotations tool, translating research insights into a practical, multi-platform tool that enriches the learning process for the iPad, Microsoft & Android tablets.

My manager sketched the flow on the whiteboard, and I designed the component and its interactions in the Sketch app.

WHITEBOARD SKETCH

Select, then act. Selecting text opens a toolbar to highlight in a color, add a note, or define, search, and copy.

WHITEBOARD SKETCH

Notes stay with the highlight. A note opens beside the text it belongs to, with the color picker on top.

WHITEBOARD SKETCH

Find it again. Search runs across highlights and notes, grouped by chapter and page, with filters for each type.

Design Gallery

LIBRARY

Every class in one place. Each course shows its books and recent notes.

SEARCH

Search inside a book. Matching pages appear by chapter.

NOTES

Search your own notes. Highlights and notes come back grouped by chapter, in the colors students chose.

Final Product

A versatile platform allowing students to organize, read, and annotate textbooks right at their fingertips.

DESKTOP

Yuzu on the Mac. The same textbook library, on the desktop.