If anyone doubts that “Learning will never be the same,” then go work for Knewton. I was a Product Development intern for the company this past summer and can vouch for that statement as someone who was on the inside. Why should you believe me? Because my role at Knewton was to head up a User Experience initiative meant to guide future redesigns of the GMAT course and the LSAT course. Having this very unique position in the company allowed me to talk to every content developer, every teacher, every engineer, and most importantly, a ton of students. My goal was to listen to every piece of feedback available about our products and itemize them into specific redesign recommendations.
I am back at school—a senior studying Human Computer Interaction and Business Administration at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. These specific academic disciplines have given me a pretty solid handle on interpreting users’ actions and emotions both qualitatively and quantitatively through statistics. What I found from a detailed analysis that included 40% of Knewton’s student population is mindboggling!
Knewton students are unanimously impressed with the course and would refer both the GMAT and LSAT courses to a friend.
Certainly, the courses have their usability issues, and there were some major areas that Knewton is already working to improve upon. But that statistic above is nearly unheard of and I can tell you honestly that every employee appreciates such a high degree of customer satisfaction. Many of the employees became friends of mine and I have to say: I have never seen such smart people work so hard on helping make other people smarter (of course it’s debatable whether GMAT or LSAT content actually are a reflection of intelligence)!
I remember asking the CEO Jose, after an intense game of Ultimate Frisbee, when we will be dropping our “startup” label. Well after the review in BusinessWeek and two tested, robust products, I think we can agree that day is coming soon!
On a final note, I had possibly one of the best summers I could imagine working with Knewton. Not just because of the exciting work I was involved in and the great NYC location, but the awesome people sitting in that office and culture they created. I have to say tech is the way to go, and I made sure to rub it hard in my finance friends’ faces. :)
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the lad seems nice. i’d like to go on a walkabout through london with him.