Promethean ActivSuite™

Unifying a Fragmented Product Portfolio

As Director of Product Design, I led strategy, design, and testing across the entire product experience.

PRODUCT VISION & STRATEGY

USER RESEARCH

DESIGN DIRECTION

Overview

By 2021 when I arrived at Promethean as the Director of Product Design, Promethean’s once-pioneering hardware business had become oversaturated and commoditized, making it clear the company needed to diversify in order to remain profitable. With panels in over 1.2 million classrooms worldwide, the company had huge reach and an active user base. The natural business evolution was into SaaS paid software and my role was to figure out what that might look like.

My first step was to research how our software was performing for the business, teachers, and IT administrators. What I found was a scattered portfolio of dated and visually disparate apps that were costly to maintain, confusing to use, and generated no revenue.

The free apps bundled with panels when I arrived. Software design was never a core competency of the organization, so the foundations needed to succeed in that arena needed to be built.

The Business Challenge

Promethean’s hardware-only business model was under pressure. Panel sales were stagnant, the market was declining, and the competition was fierce.

On the software side, there were further challenges:

Free apps bundled with panels consumed resources without generating income.
Overlapping products (ActivInspire™ and ClassFlow™) competed with each other, splitting the customer base.
No design system meant apps were visually and functionally inconsistent, and costly to create and upkeep.

The company needed a new business model: a SaaS suite that could generate recurring revenue and deliver consistency across the portfolio.

Mapping the portfolio across a teacher's day revealed the cost of fragmentation — overlapping tools, no integration, and no path to revenue.

The Teacher Challenge

What I found in interviews and observations was that teachers had fundamentally different ways of working — some mirrored their laptops onto the panel, others used the panel as a standalone device. In both cases, the experience was fragmented and frustrating:

"Dumb" display → when laptops were mirrored, the panel was just a projection. Teachers had no private “teacher view,” and personal notifications often popped up in front of students.
No cross-device sync → lesson creation at home and teaching in class were disconnected. Work done on a laptop couldn’t seamlessly appear on the panel.
Disjointed workflows → timers, spinners, annotation, polling, and other classroom tools lived only on the panel. They couldn’t be added to lessons or prepped ahead of time.
One view only → without dual teacher/student views, it was hard to multitask or manage lessons discreetly while teaching.
Dated and inconsistent → our apps were clunky and dated, as if they were made by different companies. It wasn't a joy to use them.
Steep learning curve → inconsistent, complex, and non-standard UX led to high abandonment; 73% of ActivInspire users dropped off after just four uses.

The IT Admin Challenge

IT teams struggled to manage a fragmented system that didn't always satisfy teacher's needs. Our apps were difficult to install and upkeep, creating constant headaches:

Too many installs and updates → dozens of separate apps had to be deployed and maintained across hundreds of panels and teacher devices.
No interoperability across devices → Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome, or mixed fleets of both created further confusion and support requirements.
Inconsistent UX → each app had its own UI and quirks, making training harder and support tickets more frequent.
Split customer base → large groups of teachers were invested in either ActivInspire™ or ClassFlow™, locking admins into supporting both, even though they overlapped in purpose.
No cloud management → with tools living only on panels or desktops, there was no centralized way to manage accounts, permissions, or data.
High support costs → the burden of updating, onboarding, and troubleshooting fell on IT teams, stretching resources thin.

Security gaps → shared panels left open were a constant privacy issue

This patchwork left admins with more to manage, train, and support, without giving schools the simplicity or confidence they needed from classroom technology.

Research and Insights

To validate the pain points surfaced in interviews, we ran a quantitative survey and structured the findings around jobs-to-be-done. This confirmed that teachers and admins weren’t asking for more apps — they needed a way to simplify, connect, and orchestrate the tools they already relied on.

Quantitative research confirmed teachers’ top jobs-to-be-done, reinforcing the need for unification over new authoring tools.

Root Cause

All of these challenges traced back to the same issue: Promethean’s apps had been built in silos over time, each by different teams, without a shared vision or design system. What started as well-intentioned add-ons to support hardware sales had grown into a fragmented, unsustainable portfolio.

When I stepped back and mapped the problems across business, teachers, and IT, the insight was clear:

The solution wasn’t more apps — it was unification and simplification.

The Solution - One Suite to Bring it all Together

From disparate, disconnected apps to a unified suite.

One install, one login, one menu.
Cloud sync across devices prep at home, teach in class.
Centralized management so IT admins could stop juggling installs and logins.
Hidden complexity no learning curve to use our tools.
Consistent design and functionality for a modern, accessible experience.

This became the foundation of ActivSuite: Promethean’s first SaaS platform.

Introducing ActivSuite™

Promethean
ActivSuite™

For Teachers

One menu, one login, + cloud-connected apps that work across devices and panels.

For Admins

Simplified deployment, centralized security, fewer installs to manage.

For Promethean

A true SaaS solution transforming free, inconsistent apps into a unified, revenue-generating platform.

Explore ActivSuite™

Timer

Spinner

After_NoLaptop

Timer

1/8

See It In Action

Outcome & Reflection

The Vision

ActivSuite™ was conceived as a win–win–win: a SaaS platform that simplified workflows for teachers, reduced IT burden, and created a scalable revenue model for Promethean. The design strategy was strong, the user need was clear, and the business case was compelling.

The Reality

Execution didn’t fully deliver on that vision. Development quality, complexity across platforms, and a misaligned interpretation of “MVP” led to a release that was difficult to install, lacked enough value to hook users, and shipped with flaws that eroded trust. While I advocated for better quality control, earlier user testing, and a phased release model, those changes weren’t adopted. The result was a launch that underperformed and a missed opportunity for the business.

What I Learned

This experience sharpened my conviction around how design leadership contributes beyond the interface:

MVP must mean value, not “broken.” MVP is about delivering the core of the idea flawlessly before building upon the foundation. (small in scope, but big in value)
Quality is non-negotiable. Users aren’t QA testers. Shipping flawed builds erodes trust faster than any new feature can restore it.
Include users early. Internal alignment isn’t enough — real classrooms should test prototypes long before launch.
Play before pay. A demo or free tier creates adoption and feedback before asking for payment.

Reflection

While ActivSuite didn’t succeed in execution, it was an invaluable learning experience. It reinforced my ability to define vision, unify strategy across business and user needs, and advocate for product integrity. It also taught me hard lessons about influence, alignment, and the realities of scaling a design vision into shipped software — lessons I carry forward into every role.