A Wide World of Learning

Designing a Teacher-First Platform from Scratch

BBC came to the partnership with a clear vision: their curriculum-rich content deserved a dedicated platform built specifically for teachers. The opportunity was massive—creating a comprehensive educational platform that could serve classrooms worldwide.

Designing from the ground up meant solving for:

• How teachers actually search: Creating intuitive ways to filter and find resources among 1000+ pieces of content.
• Clear content identification: Ensuring teachers instantly know if they’re looking at a video, lesson plan, or printable.
• Sustainable content management: Developing a system BBC could update and expand without constant developer support.
• Universal accessibility: Building in standards that would serve all students from day one.
• Scalable design: Creating a framework that could grow with BBC’s expanding educational mission.
• Sponsorship support: Designing layouts that allow for sponsored content and ad placements to help BBC keep the platform free for teachers without compromising the experience.

Creating a platform of this scale requires thinking through thousands of small decisions that shape the user experience. That's where our expertise comes in—we specialize in mapping out these details to ensure every feature works seamlessly for teachers and students.

Think First, Design Second

Discovery is where our real work begins. We invest deeply in understanding every angle of a project before touching a single pixel. For BBC’s new learning hub, this meant structured workshops, stakeholder alignment sessions, and systematic questioning vital to future design decisions.

Senior Project Manager Drew O'Connor and Product Design Lead Kat Bigelow led workshops that brought BBC's internal teams together to shape the platform’s direction. We practiced reflecting ideas back to stakeholders, making sure everyone understood the vision before moving forward. 

This process helped us think through the complexities hiding in seemingly simple features. For example, when designing the playlist functionality that would create custom collections, key questions emerged:

• Could playlists include printables alongside videos?
• How would a printable function work in a playlist?
• What would students experience?

Working through these details together, we established clear parameters: playlists would contain only playable content, i.e., videos and audio clips. This kind of systematic thinking happened across every feature, from search filters to sharing tools. We anticipated and solved problems before they could impact the user experience.

Testing with Real Teachers

We tested prototypes with K–12 teachers independently—no hand-holding, no guided tours. Teachers navigated solo, revealing whether the information architecture truly made sense. They validated our approach and helped us refine crucial details—like choosing "Save Resource" over "Favorite" based on teacher preferences.

Modular Design: Build Once, Use Everywhere

We designed BBC’s content management system using modular design principles. Instead of creating hundreds of unique pages for thousands of resources, we built a system of reusable design blocks that the BBC team could arrange like LEGO pieces.

Here’s what makes modular design perfect for BBC’s new platform:

• Update once, change everywhere: Edit a button style in one place, and it updates across all 1000+ resources.
• Content independence: BBC's team can build new pages by selecting pre-designed blocks in their CMS—no developer needed.

• Guaranteed consistency: Built-in constraints (character limits, color rules, layout templates) ensure professional design standards.

   

While the BBC team has the flexibility to choose layouts based on their content needs, we built in smart constraints. BBC focuses on their content while the system handles design consistency.

Smart Content Organization

Working with Atomic, we created an intuitive browsing system designed for how teachers actually search:

• Precise filtering by grade band, subject, and content type
• Intelligent tagging that surfaces only relevant results
• Clear visual labels that instantly communicate whether something is a video, lesson plan, or printable

Teacher Personalization Tools

Understanding that every classroom is different, we build robust personalization features into the platform:

• Smart playlists limited to video and audio content (ensuring everything is playable)
• Save and organize functions for building custom lesson collections
• Easy sharing tools for distributing curated content to students

BBC can also create seasonal collections, like Black History Month resources, to feature on the homepage.

Accessibility as the Foundation

We built accessibility into every component from day one:

• Proper color contrast and readable type sizes
• 48-pixel tap targets for mobile devices
• Keyboard navigation paths for every interaction
• Screen reader optimization throughout
   

When these standards live in the design system itself, every new page BBC creates is automatically accessible.

A New Chapter for BBC Learning

The BBC Learning Hub launched as a comprehensive ecosystem built specifically for educational content. What began as a vision for better teacher access became a fully-realized platform that serves educators worldwide.

The collaborative process itself evolved throughout the project. Meetings quickly became efficient working sessions. By project end, teams were problem-solving asynchronously, with BBC stakeholders confidently navigating the design system.

The new platform delivers exactly what teachers and BBC needed:

For teachers:
 

• Fast, intuitive resource discovery designed for classroom workflows
• Personalized collections for their specific teaching needs
• Confidence that all resources meet accessibility standards
• More time teaching, less time searching

For BBC:

• A dedicated education platform that showcases their content properly
• A CMS-powered system where content updates happen in minutes
• A scalable foundation ready for future growth and features
• Empowered internal teams who can manage and expand content independently
• Built-in support for sponsored content, ensuring long-term sustainability without compromising the teacher-first experience
   

The BBC Learning Hub represents their commitment to education made tangible. Teachers now have a dedicated home for BBC's extraordinary educational content, built specifically for how they work.

Building for the Future of Education

For education publishers and content-rich organizations, the BBC Learning Hub demonstrates how strategic design systems create lasting value. By investing in modular design and teacher-centered thinking from the start, organizations can:
 

• Launch with content publishing workflows that take minutes, not hours
• Ensure brand consistency across thousands of pages automatically
• Scale confidently as content libraries grow
• Empower internal teams to manage content independently
   

Backpack's approach combines teacher-informed design, scalable systems thinking, and collaborative partnership. The result is a sustainable platform built to evolve with BBC's content and teachers' needs for years to come.

Let’s talk about how we can bring your next big education idea to life—with teachers at the center.