Coursera
Global Skills Report
Coursera's global skills data covered 100 countries and 124 million learners. The problem was that it lived in an 81-page PDF nobody actually read. I turned it into an interactive experience that leaders could explore on their own terms.
Enterprise SaaS
Interactive data
Information design
Data Product
THE CHALLENGE
Valuable Data,
Buried in a PDF
Coursera's Global Skills Report contained powerful benchmarking data across 100 countries — but 81 pages of static content meant most readers never got past the global overview. Executives needed quick orientation. Analysts needed regional comparisons. HR leaders needed country-level specifics. Everyone got the same linear file.
KEY INTERACTION
Designed to Reward Curiosity
Every interaction state was mapped before a single component was built — default, hover, zoom, select. Each state reveals only what the user needs in that moment. Nothing more. The map isn't just a visual.
It's the navigation.
THE SYSTEM
Every State Considered. Every Component Reusable.
Before a single component was built, every map interaction state was defined — default, hover, zoomed, selected. Each state reveals only what the user needs in that moment, nothing more.
The same logic carried through to the full regional ranking system. One set of components powered every region, every country ranking, and every skill category view — no bespoke patterns per section.
Progressive disclosure
Hover to preview
Click to commit
EVERY SCREEN
The Same Data, Any Device
The interactive experience was built to work as well on a phone as on a desktop — same regional exploration, same country comparisons, same data depth. The map adapts; the interaction model doesn't.
Context over abstractio
Workflows over isolated features
Guidance over explanation
OUTCOMES
From Static to Explorable
81 pgs
→ one explorable experience
100
countries · one intuitive interface
Presented to Coursera's design, content strategy, and product teams — and replaced the PDF as the default entry point for enterprise audiences.
Design tradeoff
Exploration over prescription. A linear narrative would have been easier to control — but it would have served no single user well. Making the data navigable traded authorial control for user agency, letting executives, analysts, and HR leaders each find the value most relevant to them.
