UnlockedLabs provides digital education tools for incarcerated learners. I designed a new system to help learners document and present their rehabilitation progress for parole hearings, shifting from course-level tracking to long-term progress reporting.
My Role
This project was completed in four weeks by a team of five designers. The major contributions I made to this project were:
- storyboarding the user flow,
- ideating low-fidelity wireframes,
- conducting mid-fidelity usability tests,
- designing high-fidelity prototypes
The Problem Space
YEARS OF PROGRESS Learners with long sentences take many programmes but risk losing track of their progress.
MESSY PAPER TRAIL Records are typically kept, sorted, and stored on pen-and-paper, making them hard to manage over time.
NO CLEAR PATH TO PAROLE Without clear documentation, learners can struggle to make their case for parole.
SOLUTION PROMPT
How might we help long-term learners track and present their progress in a way that is structured, reliable, and supports their case for parole?
To tackle this, I focused on two key design priorities:
1) creating a structured way for learners to track their progress long-term, and
2) ensuring they could present a clear, organised case for parole.
KEY DECISION #1
Zooming Out from Courses to Programmes
PROBLEM UnlockEd focused on course-level progress which failed to give learners a higher-level view of all of their long-term programmes, activities, and accomplishments.
SOLUTION Lifetime statistics enable learners to monitor their long-term progress at a glance, seeing their completed programmes, milestones reached, and certifications earned.
KEY DECISION #2
Exportable Reports that Support Parole Readiness
— QUOTES FROM USER INTERVIEWS WITH FORMERLY-INCARCERATED INDIVIDUALS —
“I have to show the positive and useful things I’ve done too so it’s not just my negative criminal record [in my parole portfolio].”
“The burden of proof [in parole hearings] is huge. […] It’s so hard to keep track of all the work you are doing when you are bouncing between programs.”
“You have a limit to how much property you’re supposed to have [so] I had to figure out how to make photocopies [and] how to keep them.”
PROBLEM Despite having valuable data on their learning progress, UnlockEd offered no way to export learning activity. Therefore, learners had to manually summarise their rehabilitation journey and keep detailed paper records to evidence their progress.
SOLUTION An exportable, printable report that compiles programme details – including course certifications, total hours, and other recognitions – makes it easier for learners to present their overall progress against rehabilitation goals during parole hearings.
The Outcomes
1) STAKEHOLDER FEEDBACK AND BUY-IN
We received positive feedback from the client and this flow was queued for release on UnlockEd in Q2 of 2025.
"Edward was kind, collaborative, and deeply thoughtful in his design approach, bringing clarity to complex ideas through intuitive user flows, clean interfaces, and a strong eye for detail. His presence made the work better and the process more enjoyable. We would love the chance to work with him again." - Nokie Rae (CTO, UnlockedLabs)
2) FOLLOW UP ENGAGEMENT
Based on the quality of our work, I secured a new project with UnlockedLabs to design an Educational Outcomes Analytics Dashboard for their super-admins and sales teams.
3) IMPROVED PAROLE PREPARATION
Provided learners with a structured programme-level view, reduced manual tracking efforts, and introduced an exportable progress report for easier parole preparation.
Want to know more?
If you have any questions about this project, reach out and let’s set up a call.
- Email me at: edwardfraser@berkeley.edu
- Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/edward-fraser/