The WGU Achievement Wallet was designed to help students showcase their full range of skills to potential employers. A user experience review identified polish needed before it reached half a million students.
UX Design
UX Research
UX Reviewer
2024 to 2025
Western Governors University (WGU) alumni needed a way to showcase the full array of skills they developed to employers. The WGU Achievement Wallet was designed to meet this need because a resume isn't enough to reflect all that a person offers. This digital skills wallet offered 500,000 alumni a way to showcase their capabilities in ways a resume can't.
Employers typically hire based on experience as a proxy for skills. The WGU Achievement Wallet expands access to opportunity by shifting the focus from experience to skills. A paradigm shift this big and a resource this innovative only works without friction. That means using everyday language instead of insider terms and making sure every part is easy to use. A final user experience review prepared the Wallet for launch.
The review was done by someone who was both a WGU graduate and the Wallet's target user, pairing user experience and human resources expertise. That rare pairing allowed WGU to refine the product in a way that balanced both the employer and job seeker perspectives.
Every feature of the Wallet served the real goal: closing the gap to a better career. Alongside big ideas came a set of smaller, concrete fixes to keep the tool trustworthy and easy to use. The Achievement Wallet launched to half a million students, ready to help them show what they can do and shape where they go next. The work also opened doors: an invitation to join a Forbes feature with WGU leadership and a WGU series on building the skills ecosystem.
