Learn Overview

Assignments became the foundation of Snyk Learn's first enterprise tier.
The early version generated customer demand, with organisations joining the beta and converting to paid, through to the full V1 launch.

Problem

Snyk Learn offered high-quality, bite-sized lessons, but AppSec had to share content through LMS platforms, email, or Slack.

These workarounds didn’t scale and made it difficult to:
• Distribute relevant lessons to the right teams
• Track completion and progress
• Generate evidence for audits and compliance

As a result, AppSec faced high effort and low visibility, with no reliable way to prove learning impact.→ This gap between strong content and operational control led us to design the Assignments experience.

From pattern to Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)

To understand how AppSec currently manage learning assignments — and where friction occurs — I translated the problem into core Jobs-to-be-Done and mapped the end-to-end assignment journey.

This helped us:
• Focus on the highest-value opportunities
• Surface unmet needs and workflow inefficiencies
• Prioritize where Assignments could deliver the most impact

Figure 1: AppSec Persona JTBD

OOUX Exploration

Before designing Assignments, Snyk Learn already included lessons, learning paths, and certificates.

To ensure the Assignments module integrated cleanly into an existing ecosystem of objects (Lessons, Learning Paths, Certificates), I mapped the object relationships to reduce ambiguity across design and engineering and to identify the Core Content and Metadata to reduce ambiguity between design and engineering on what an 'assignment' actually contains.

Figure 2: Snyk Learn's Object Glossary

Figure 3: Object relationships map

Figure 4: ORCA object map - Captures the full Assignment object, nested objects, metadata, core content. Including both AppSec and Learner touchpoints. For this case study, the Learner side is intentionally out of scope; the focus remains on the AppSec experience."

Assignment journey — Task Flow & Scope Exploration

After defining the objects, metadata, core content, and CTAs, I mapped the end-to-end assignment journey to understand the full scope of the feature.
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This revealed that Assignments was not a single interaction, but a system spanning multiple tasks:
• Create assignments
• Edit assignments
• Delete assignments
• View assignment progress
• Send reminders
• Download report

Figure 5: AppSec Assignment CTA flow

I shared this task flow with product and engineering early. Since this was a new enterprise workflow, we intentionally avoided building the full lifecycle upfront. Instead, we aligned on delivering the minimum set of tasks needed to validate value with internal teams and early customers.
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‍Early version focus:
• Create assignments → Roll out learning at scale
• View assignment progress → Monitor assignment completion
• Download report → Analyse progress and completion


We intentionally deferred edit assignments, delete assignments, and send reminders so we could focus on delivering validated core value quickly.

This decision reduced system complexity, accelerated delivery, and ensured we could validate the core enterprise use case before expanding.

Early exploration focused on mapping the assignment journey and identifying where clarity and efficiency could be improved. These explorations helped validate the early version scope and informed how key actions should be structured in the UI.

Figure 6: Early version Assignment flow — scoped create + progress experience

After sharing the flow with engineering, product, and content, engineering flagged that assignment titles would require a new data model and learning paths would add significant complexity, risking delivery timelines. We made the deliberate call to cut both from v1 — prioritising speed and validated learning over completeness.

While these elements could be valuable long-term, they were not essential to validating the core enterprise use case: assigning learning at scale and tracking completion with confidence.

As a result, we deliberately simplified the Early version model to focus on:
‍• Creating assignments by selecting lessons and due dates
‍• Viewing assignment progress and completion status

This decision reduced cognitive and technical overhead, accelerated Early version delivery, and created a clear, intentional path for future expansion once real usage data was available.

View Assignment Progress & Create Assignment — Early version Key UI Screens

In the early version experience, AppSec can log in, select an assignment from a dropdown menu, and quickly create assignments. Assignment progress is displayed in a clear, structured table, with the option to export progress data as a CSV for further analysis and reporting.

The screens below illustrate the core AppSec create assignment workflows we prioritized in early version.

Figure 7: Early version key UI screens — focused on AppSec create assignment workflows and export