The Academy for Coaching Excellence (ACE) offers programs in leadership development, personal growth, and coach training, all rooted in an ontological approach that explores what it truly means to be human.
When ACE reached out, they were undergoing a leadership transition. The new leadership wanted to rethink the positioning of their coach training program. Previously, they targeted a broad audience—anyone interested in becoming a professional coach. Moving forward, the vision was to position ACE as the go-to coaching school for "social change-makers"—people committed to driving social change and justice.
The first step was to refresh the webpage for ACE's coach training program to better align it with the motivations, goals, and needs of "social change-makers". Working closely with the new leadership, we reimagined the user experience, brand, and content strategy to better engage this audience and position ACE as a leader in this space.
To engage “social change-makers,” we first needed to understand what drives them. This meant uncovering their motivations, goals, pain points, and needs—and how these aligned with their pathways to and experiences of ACE’s coaching program. We conducted 3 stakeholder interviews and 11 in-depth interviews with current and past students of ACE’s coach training program, along with graduates from competitor programs who fit ACE’s definition of a "social change-maker".
At the time, stakeholders had only a broad hypothesis about their target audience, supported by limited market validation they believed was incidental. That being said, a key insight they shared was the possibility of subsets within this group, each with different levels of initial interest in coaching as a tool or career for social change. We set out to validate this assumption and understand what these differences might mean in terms of goals and journeys. To do this, we created simple customer journey maps for each student we interviewed.
We compared the journey maps to find commonalities and patterns. Key factors we analyzed included their mental models around coaching before discovering ACE, their context and goals when first engaging with ACE, their initial touch-points, and the steps they followed throughout their journeys. From this analysis, we identified three distinct clusters within the target group.
Simple individual journey maps helped set the foundation for trend analysis
So far, we knew the clusters differed in their paradigms around coaching, motivations, and goals. We wanted to pinpoint these differences and gain more understanding about each cluster. Using affinity mapping, we examined each cluster’s considerations, emotions, and thoughts at every stage of their journey.
While comparing the journeys in Step 3, we uncovered a key insight:
They weren’t initially aware of or interested in its coach training program—or even in becoming a coach. Yet, through these indirect connections, they eventually discovered and committed to the program. This raised important questions:
What shifted their perception of ACE’s coach training program from irrelevant to relevant?
What revealed becoming a coach as a viable option for those who hadn’t considered it initially?
To answer these, we focused on identifying "defining moments" during the affinity mapping exercise. These are pivotal experiences that changed perceptions and priorities, transforming unawareness or disinterest into intentional engagement.
The affinity map exercise refined the clusters into three distinct personas within the broader "social change-maker" group. The fundamental difference between them is their initial perception of coaching. This dictates how they first engage with ACE, why, and their readiness to recognize coaching's application in social change (a key "defining moment"). These factors in turn shape the length and progression of their journey to engagement.
The "Fledging Coach": Trainers, educators, group leaders, mentors, or facilitators in the social change space. They seek coaching skills to enhance their effectiveness. Since their work already mirrors aspects of coaching, they easily see its application in social change and engage directly and intentionally with ACE’s coach training program.
The "Explorer": They are searching for a career path that aligns with their skills, values, and lifestyle while contributing to social change. Their engagement begins indirectly, often through being coached by an ACE graduate to clarify their purpose. They may not initially see coaching's application in social change and view it as a viable career option. But their focus on finding the right path makes them more receptive to recognizing its potential. Once they make the connection, they engage with ACE's coach training program intentionally.
The "Doer": These are the people in the trenches of social change work that are struggling in their current roles. They initially engage indirectly, seeking support from an ACE graduate to manage burnout and realign with their values. At first, they see coaching and therapy as interchangeable and don’t recognize coaching’s broader application. Unlike the "Explorers", they aren’t actively looking for career options, so their realization comes later in their journey. They need more touch-points and to make the connection and engage directly with ACE’s coach training program.
To validate these personas, we cross-referenced them with motivations, goals, and behaviors identified in past student applications and graduate feedback provided by ACE.
During our affinity mapping exercise, we identified four "defining moments" that play a crucial role in shaping the target audience's decision to engage with ACE’s coach training program. These moments appear in different combinations within each journey, depending on the persona associated with it.
Witnessing the presence of ACE coaches: Target students often felt inspired after interacting with or observing coaches trained under ACE's ontological framework. They were especially drawn to the sense of spaciousness, groundedness, and ease these coaches exuded, often thinking, “How can I be more like that?”
Experiencing personal transformation: Target students coached by an ACE graduate or involved in ACE’s other programs often notice the clarity and growth they’ve gained through ACE’s ontological framework. This sense of achievement builds their trust in ACE’s approach and sparks the desire to help others experience this clarity.
Recognizing ACE's coaching approach as a tool for social change: Many target students experience an "aha" moment when they realize they can use ACE's ontological coaching approach to help other social change-makers achieve personal transformation, empowering them to tackle social issues with greater clarity and less struggle. This shifts coaching from being just about personal or professional growth to a tool for creating social impact at a systemic level—aligning perfectly with the students' mission and bringing coaching into focus as a career choice.
Receiving support that well exceeds expectations: Cost is one of the biggest concerns “social change-makers” face during the consideration stage. ACE addresses this with its sliding scale tuition, allowing people to pay based on their financial situations. On top of that, through informal, often offline conversations, ACE uses its own framework to coach prospects through raising the funds they need to afford the program. This level of genuine support exceeds expectations, creating a memorable experience with ACE and setting it apart as the clear choice among coaching programs.
Each of these moments creates a dramatic arc in the journey of prospective students, building momentum toward their commitment to ACE's coach training program. To engage target prospects and inspire action, we developed a “moment-building” design strategy that lets them experience these moments directly on the webpage or easily access opportunities to encounter them through the webpage. To bring this strategy to life, we turned each defining moment into a design opportunity.
The connection between ontological coaching and social change wasn’t made explicit for the target audience. Instead, this understanding came about incidentally, either through participating in its other programs or by working with ACE graduates. This was especially true for the "Explorer" and "Doer" personas. To make this connection clear as a way to drive engagement through the webpage, we designed a "story exhibition" feature that showcases real examples of how ACE graduates use ontological coaching to create social change. Here’s how we structured the feature and the thinking behind it:
Each story emphasizes three key details upfront: the social cause the graduate is contributing to, their previous role, and their current role. This shows how ACE’s coaching framework can be applied to a wide range of causes and makes it clear that anyone, no matter their background, can learn and use it to drive impact in different ways. It also helps visitors relate to the stories by seeing themselves in similar paths or recognizing causes they care about, making the connection to coaching more personal and engaging.
When visitors click on a story, the card expands to reveal specifics: what the graduate learned, how they applied it, and the impact it created. This helps make the connection between ACE’s coaching framework and real-world results clear and concrete.
The "defining moments" of being inspired by ACE coaches' presence and recognizing the clarity achieved through ACE’s framework are deeply experiential. While some aspects of these moments can be digitized, their real impact comes from direct experience. So, instead of trying to replicate them on the webpage, we focused on creating opportunities for visitors to connect with an ACE coach. For example, we included options for visitors to reach out with questions after exploring the webpage or to experience the ACE framework firsthand through a free coaching session with an ACE graduate.
The sliding scale tuition and hands-on support from the ACE team are pivotal in helping prospects commit to the program. But these elements are either presented in a convoluted way or not mentioned on the webpage at all. As a result, many prospects only learn about them or fully appreciate their value during in-person conversations.
To bring this moment online and engage prospects earlier in their journey, we designed a solution to highlight and clarify ACE’s sliding-scale tuition model. We created an interactive form that lets prospective students customize tuition based on their financial situations. Below the form, we included resources to guide them through financing, such as examples of successful fundraising campaigns by past students.
We were intentional with the language, making sure it mirrored the spaciousness and ease that ACE coaches bring around overwhelm, reflecting the same calm, grounded presence that draw prospects to ACE.
Although the project scope was limited to redesigning a single webpage, ACE saw this as an opportunity to rethink its visual direction to better align with its new positioning. We began by reviewing data from stakeholder interviews to understand ACE's ins and outs—its founding story, the leadership transition, current challenges, vision, approach to coaching, programs, and, specifically, the courses within its coach training program.
We combined these insights with findings from the persona development process and competitor analysis to create a list of brand attributes that encapsulated ACE’s essence. Using this list, we explored visual concepts while factoring in stakeholder preferences gathered through a mood board.
The process was challenging. The main problem we set out to solve was: How might we balance ACE's calm, spacious presence with the boldness of its rigorous curriculum and commitment to social change? To achieve this, we had to decide which visual levers to pull to represent specific aspects of ACE's brand personality. Our goal was to reflect every attribute, avoid overemphasizing any one, and ensure the emphasis aligned with ACE’s priorities. This meant a lot of experimentation with individual elements and how they worked together on the webpage. A key source of inspiration came from brands in other industries that have successfully brought "human" and "authenticity" to spaces traditionally dominated by a "results-driven" or "robotic" approach.
Here's a snippet of what we delivered:
A new color system that captures the easy, spacious, and calm presence of ACE’s coaches—qualities that inspire action—while adding boldness and rigor to reflect the collective tenacity for social change and the precision of ACE's science-based ontological approach
A humanistic typeface that embodies the warmth, supportiveness, and compassion experienced within ACE’s community
A photography style that feels authentic and grounded, showcasing genuine moments from ACE’s coaching classes through muted, full-bodied imagery, while emphasizing diversity and inclusive nature of ACE
Illustrations, a rarity in the professional coach training space, that use the full color palette and juxtapose minimally realistic characters with open horizons—creating a look that is warm and friendly yet empowering and polished
We launched the redesigned webpage in July 2021. A few months later, we learned the leadership transition had fallen through, along with the plan to reposition ACE’s coach training program. The webpage was revamped to reflect the current leadership’s vision, which was completely different from what we’d created. Even so, we loved working with the ACE team and learned so much through the process. It’s a project we’re proud to have been part of.
