Go1 is a SaaS learning platform operating under B2B and B2B2C models, helping organisations and partners deliver curated online training at scale
Go1 is a global e-learning platform that aggregates content from over 250 providers, helping organisations meet their upskilling and compliance needs through a single solution. With over 3.5 million learners worldwide, Go1 is a leader in online learning innovation.
During my two years at Go1, I led the design of key initiatives including self-serve solutions for content creators and admin users, as well as integrated third-party partnerships. I played a central role in streamlining onboarding, implementing AI-driven content management for embedded B2B solutions, designing a self-serve experience for B2B2C partners, and launching Go1’s developer documentation portal to simplify API integration. These efforts supported Go1’s strategic goal of expanding its reach to 5 billion learners through scalable embedded experiences.
Case # - Driving Growth by Scaling Learner Reach Through Embedded Partner Solutions and Self-Serve Platforms
Project overview
Go1 faced critical operational bottlenecks that impacted both internal teams and external partners. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and Learning Managers were burdened by manual, repetitive tasks — from curating course bundles to handling content updates through e-mail exchanges.
This project addressed two distinct partner models:
Self-Serve Partner Platform
For partners reselling Go1’s library to their customers, but who needed a way to manage course offerings independently like a white-label solution
Embedded Partner Solution
For partners who wanted to integrate Go1’s content library directly into their own platforms without adopting Go1’s UI. This required creating a seamless embedded experience
My role was to lead the design of both solutions, empowering partners with tools to self-manage their offerings, reduce internal support dependencies, and scale Go1’s reach through frictionless integrations and hands-off enablement.
Goals and objectives
This project aimed to unlock new growth opportunities by enabling partners to manage and deliver Go1 content through self-serve platforms and embedded solutions. The objective was to reduce dependence on internal teams, increase partner autonomy, and support Go1’s mission to reach 5 billion learners through scalable, partner-driven adoption.
Discovery phase
Persona outline
We focused on two distinct partner groups with different goals, technical capabilities, and operational needs. My objective was to understand their workflows and surface unmet needs, as well as identify design opportunities that would support scalable growth for both Go1 and its partners.
Primary Group: Self-Serve Resellers
These were small-to-mid-sized partners looking to resell Go1’s content library. They wanted a lightweight, self-managed solution to quickly expand their offering and fill gaps in their existing catalogue.
User goals:
👉Offer current, high-value content to their customers without relying on Go1’s internal teams
👉Access a simple, efficient way to manage and curate content
👉Reduce onboarding friction and operational complexity to focus on business growth
Secondary Group: Embedded Partners
These were large-scale partners with high volumes of customers and learners who wanted to embed Go1’s library directly into their own platforms. Their goal was to expand their offering without the overhead of sourcing or maintaining content. The challenge was to integrate it seamlessly into their own ecosystem.
User goals:
👉Deliver a seamless, on-brand experience using Go1 content within their own platform
👉Ensure flexibility and customisation to meet unique technical or user experience requirements
👉Always provide up-to-date, high-quality learning content to their customers
Research
Partner current Integrations and Experience Analysis
To better understand partner workflows, I analysed the behaviour of 18 partners across five strategic partner types. This research was documented and shared internally to increase visibility around how different partners interact with and integrate Go1's systems. The findings revealed both technical and design requirements necessary to support a wide range of partner needs.
Stakeholders’ interviews
I conducted interviews with four internal Customer Success Managers (CSMs). A recurring issue emerged: between 400–800 pieces of content are retired from the Go1 Premium library each month, yet only internal Go1 teams are notified. As a result, 10–20% of support tickets were tied to missing or broken content links, causing disruption for partners and their learners.
“We’ve noticed issues when partners are accessing Go1 content. There’s no warning and no replacements, causing huge issues for partners.”
Support user feedback analysis
In addition, I analysed support feedback from Zendesk and Intercom, highlighting a lack of visibility and control over content status:
“ My customers are having issues with assigned content — learners can’t access it.”
“ Why is the player acting weird? The content looked active. Was it removed? Who did that? When?”
Competitor Analysis
Key Insights:
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Seamless integration with existing LMS, LXP, HRIS, and compliance systems is essential for operational efficiency.
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Some platforms offer full white-label capabilities, allowing organisations and individual creators to fully customise the learning experience—from domain and branding to user interface and learner communications. This level of control is particularly valuable for customer education, partner training, or monetised learning products where brand consistency is key.
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Strong curation or partner vetting is essential for meeting regulatory requirements and maintaining learner trust.
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Enhances learner engagement by leveraging data such as job roles, skill levels, and behavioural history to surface relevant content. Platforms that support intelligent recommendations reduce friction in the learning journey and improve outcomes by aligning content with individual and organisational goals.
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Adaptable licensing models—such as per-user, per-course, or usage-based pricing
Audience Research
I interviewed six partners to understand their content management workflows across the full lifecycle — from onboarding and curation to retirement and support. The insights highlighted the need for a flexible, self-serve solution that reduces dependency on Go1’s internal teams and supports scale across different partner types.
Key themes emerged:
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The system must accommodate varying partner models and regional needs.
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Learning Managers want visibility into when content changes occur, especially to maintain compliance — many were unclear about how the content lifecycle was managed.
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There is a clear need to manage content independently without relying on Go1’s internal processes.
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Partners want tools to collect and act on learner feedback to maintain high content standards.
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Partners expect a seamless experience across sales, management, maintenance, and support.
Delivery Phase
Design and Development
Based on our research, we defined a strategy focused on flexibility, transparency, and partner autonomy. The solution needed to support a wide variety of partner interfaces while also aligning with Go1’s platform standards. Those are the key design considerations:
Lifecycle Transparency: Introduced content lifecycle visibility so partners could proactively manage retiring content, preventing learner disruption and maintaining compliance continuity.
Content Evaluation Signals: Incorporated learner ratings and approval indicators. We tested a combination of AI-generated suggestions, AI + content partner curation, and manual feedback loops to determine the most trusted experience for partners.
Self-Serve Discovery: Enabled Learning Managers to explore multiple course options per topic and select the most relevant content for their library, reducing reliance on Go1 support.
Flexible Integration: Designed the solution to adapt across different partner platforms, support multiple languages, and accommodate region-specific compliance requirements.
Success Criteria
Retention Rate: Maintain a retention rate of over 35% for partners engaging with the new content management experience.
Support Load Reduction: Reduce partner support tickets related to disappearing or retired content by more than 15%.
Content Replacement Adoption: Achieve an acceptance rate of at least 44% for AI-generated content replacement suggestions.
Notification Engagement: Increase the number of users opting in for content retirement notifications over the project baseline.
Validation Phase
From the prototype to the finished product
We followed a structured validation process to ensure usability and alignment with partner needs:
Designed a high-fidelity prototype and conducted an unmoderated usability test with three key partner participants.
Received strong feedback, which led to valuable improvements — including the opportunity to capture partner email addresses to establish a communication channel that previously didn’t exist, and the introduction of visual indicators to highlight content requiring partner action.
Collaborated closely with developers to refine the solution, implement changes, and ensure smooth integration into existing systems.
Established post-launch tracking to monitor feature adoption and inform ongoing iteration.
| Design Hypothesis | User Feedback |
|---|---|
| AI will provide relevant content replacements | Users liked the simplicity but questioned AI reliability for compliance decisions. |
| Users want to be notified about retiring content | They want early notifications to act before it impacts learner experience. |
| Users want visibility into when content will be retired | Considered essential for staying compliant and avoiding service disruption. |
| Users want to manage retiring content (discard or replace) | Confirmed — users want full control to update libraries proactively. | Users want to preview retiring content and suggested replacements | Users prefer to compare options before acting to ensure quality and relevance. |
Current process
Retirement designs
Explored ideas
(Self-serve platform applied)
Idea 1 : Engage the L&D team in discovering related content for Learning Managers.
✅ Pros: Improved quality of content suggestions.
❌ Cons: Elevated workload for L&D, decreased curated content volume, higher likelihood of L&D recommending the same content over time.
Idea 2: Explore AI to find related content for Learning Managers.
✅ Pros: Reduced workload for L&D, prompt results
❌ Cons: Development cost (reusing existing code), potential initial limitations in the quality of suggestions from the data model.
Idea 3:
A mix of idea 1 and idea 2 to find related content for Learning Managers.
✅ Pros: Improved quality of content suggestions and prompt results
❌ Cons: High cost for internal teams and development
MVP Designs
(Embedded Partner Solution applied)
User feedback
“Users want to know when there are actions required before they reach the retirement page.”
Through testing, we discovered that users were frequently overlooking content that required their attention, as the action indicators were not clearly visible or easily discoverable.
Enhancements
(Embedded Partner Solution applied)
Updates
Improve indicators for pending retirement items that have not been actioned yet
“I can notice there is something for me to check over there”
Business impact
This solution has evolved into the central platform that supports not only partners and those seeking standalone solutions but also serves as the primary resource for learning managers and learners alike. Check more about the transition on MyGo1 to Go1 Learn, which has become the core product of Go1.
Check out more information about the help doc for content retirement
Empty screens
Before this project, Go1 had no direct connection to Learning Managers using embedded partner solutions.
To address this gap while still delivering value to these users, we introduced a notification system that collected their email addresses. This not only reduced the communication gap between Go1 and end users but also empowered Go1 to proactively support Learning Managers and extend the platform’s influence beyond direct customers.
Next steps
Conduct usability testing with beta users to gather feedback on AI recommendations.
Refine the design and concept based on user feedback.
Test various labels and indicators through targeted experiments.
Enhance the notification component within the design system.
Learnings
Small interactions – Go1 lacked direct communication channels with content partners. Capturing partner emails for course updates created a simple but scalable way to close that gap and build ongoing engagement.
Early in the project, we lacked dedicated developer support. To move forward, my PM and I worked with the business to clearly define strategic value and demonstrate early ROI. By aligning the initiative with Go1’s vision of reaching 5 billion learners, we secured cross-functional engineering support. What began as a low-capacity initiative evolved into one of the company’s highest-impact growth projects.
Design is a critical bridge between product vision and operational execution, especially in B2B SaaS, where long-term scalability often depends on solving practical, unglamorous problems well.
What THEY Say about me
“Joyce is highly skilled at solving customer problems by creating intuitive user experiences (often in very technical product domains). I have always admired her ability to uncover the root cause of problems, ask insightful questions, and challenge design boundaries.
Her resilience and adaptability made her an invaluable asset to our team. Joyce’s willingness to embrace change and turn it into an advantage significantly contributed to the team’s ability to thrive in dynamic environments. She not only met challenges head-on but also found innovative solutions that propelled our team forward.
Joyce’s commitment to staying ahead of the curve in terms of industry knowledge and trends speaks volumes about her proactive mindset and dedication to excellence. She constantly shows great leadership in sharing her learnings with the team, and also as a design industry mentor.
I 100% endorse Joyce for any senior or leadership design role! 🌟”
THANKS FOR CHECKING IT OUT
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