Redesigning Rubrics

What?

Introducing colors to visually distinguish criterion groups

Why?

Criterion grouping was a new feature that could give the rubric experience a meaningful point of differentiation from competitors. However, we needed a way to introduce this visual grouping without significantly increasing the technical scope.

How?

Given the technical constraints and delivery timeline, I introduced color as a lightweight visual grouping mechanism. This allowed criterion groups to be clearly distinguished without requiring backend changes or restructuring the underlying data model.

For this specific use case, I also extended our existing design system with a dedicated Rubrics colour palette of 10 colors, each with 90+, Light, Main, Dark and Text variants. Each variant had a defined purpose across different states and contexts, allowing the colors to remain consistent, accessible and scalable.

What?

Allowing rubric cells to be excluded from grading (Example developmental rubric)

Why?

Developmental rubrics can intentionally leave certain cells ungraded when a criterion doesn’t apply to a particular year or term. The existing workaround was to set the cell’s score to 0.

However, this created a logic problem: 0 was still treated as a valid score. So a sequence such as 0, 5, 0, 7, 6, 10 can be added without triggering an error, even when some of those cells were intended to be blank. The workaround therefore blurred the difference between “not applicable” and “scored 0.”

How?

I introduced an “Include for grading” control for each rubric cell. All cells are included by default, but when a user excludes a cell, an alert confirms the change and the cell becomes blank in the rubric grid. Excluded cells are also removed from the grading and score logic, ensuring score sequences are calculated correctly.

What?

Adding, editing and maintaining content descriptors with ease.

Why?

Schools found it difficult to understand how content descriptors could be added. Although drag-and-drop functionality already existed, there were no clear indicators to signal this interaction.

When the content descriptor modal was open, users could no longer see the criteria, grading scale or score, making it harder to understand the context while adding or editing descriptors.

How?

I introduced an inline CRUD grid to make adding, editing and maintaining content descriptors straightforward. A dedicated drag handle was added to the grid to make the existing drag-and-drop interaction discoverable.

I also surfaced the criteria and grading scale in the side panel header, keeping the necessary context visible while users worked on their content descriptors.

What?

Allowing staff to partially grade content descriptors within a criterion.

Why?

Some criteria contain multiple content descriptors, but students may only demonstrate some of them. Previously, grading the criterion applied to all descriptors, giving staff no way to record partial achievement without affecting the existing scoring logic.

How?

I introduced independent checkboxes alongside the existing grading controls. Staff can select a grading level as usual, then mark the relevant content descriptors separately. These selections don’t affect the criterion or overall score, and selected descriptors are bolded in downloaded rubrics to make partial achievement visible.