DataCamp Mobile Home: From Content Overload to 7% Course Lift

9.3% of users opened the home screen and did nothing.

Not because they were lost. Because the screen organized content by courses, and users think in actions.

I restructured the entire screen around three verbs: learn, practice, review. That mental model shift drove every design decision and lifted course engagement by 7%.

The home screen organized content by course type. Python courses here. SQL courses there.

But users do not open an app thinking "I want to navigate my course catalog." They think: I have 10 minutes, what can I do right now?

Each course card presented multiple actions without clear hierarchy. Users faced decision fatigue at the card level, unsure which action matched their intent.

9.3% bounced without doing anything. For a subscription app, every bounced session is a missed opportunity for learning momentum — the behavior that drives long-term retention.

I restructured the screen around three actions: learn, practice, review. Continue learning carousel at the top. Two entry points for practice and reviews via bottom modals. Header thinner, XP and streaks front and center.

I would add a practice content coverage check before shipping. The design assumed practice would work for every course. It did not. A simple availability check in the modal logic would have prevented the XP dip and the stakeholder concern. The fix was easy once we found it, but I should have anticipated the edge case.