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A 10-month research-driven capstone with Salesforce Trailhead. We redesigned what happens after mastery, building two AI-powered features to re-engage the platform's most valuable users.
Salesforce Trailhead is a free learning platform used by millions of professionals to get certified and build careers in enterprise software. Through guided modules, hands-on challenges, and community forums, it takes beginners to certified experts. But that's exactly where it stops working. Once a user earns their certifications, the loop has nowhere to go.
To understand why expert users disengage, we conducted two rounds of semi-structured interviews with 11 power users across 5 regions: US, India, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East. These weren't passive participants. They were full-time Salesforce professionals who had built their careers on Trailhead and then moved on.
"I used to check Trailhead every morning. Now I just open ChatGPT when I have a Salesforce question. It actually knows what I'm asking."
Disengage after hitting major milestones like certifications. The platform has no next chapter for them
Supplement Trailhead with ChatGPT, YouTube, and Slack. They need faster, deeper answers than the platform offers
Find the content too shallow for their level. Beginner-oriented modules feel like a step backward
Are unhappy with personalization recommendations. The system doesn't know who they've become
Drive advanced users to keep returning to Trailhead with deeper, relevant, and career-aligned experiences?
Ideation began with those five engagement requirements as hard constraints. We weren't looking for the most ambitious idea we were looking for the smallest intervention that would create a genuine reason for a power user to return. Across whiteboard sessions, affinity maps, and structured concept rounds, two directions consistently held up against user needs and technical feasibility.
Whiteboard synthesis, affinity mapping, and concept development across team ideation sessions
An AI-powered workspace that answers real Salesforce problems in plain language. Addresses the "I just use ChatGPT" behavior by keeping expert knowledge inside the Trailhead ecosystem.
An adaptive career layer that shows what changed, where you stand, and what to do next. Creates a weekly visit habit instead of waiting for a new certification cycle.
Two features. One purpose: give power users a reason to open Trailhead for something only Trailhead can give them.
01 Feature One
An AI-powered workspace where expert users describe a real Salesforce problem in plain language and get a structured, expert answer calibrated to their certification level and Salesforce release. Includes an expertise depth toggle (Novice, Intermediate, Professional), version-specific flagging, and a one-click community escalation path when the AI isn't enough.
Type your problem in plain language. Get a structured, expert answer from Salesforce's full knowledge base, calibrated to your certification level and current release.
Adjust the depth toggle to Novice, Intermediate, or Professional — never over-explained or underserved.
Still stuck? Solve drafts a Trailblazer Community post, pre-filled and ready to publish — expert help, inside the ecosystem.
02 Feature Two
An adaptive career layer that tells you what changed, where you stand, and what to do next. One personalised action per visit, tied to certifications, recent Solve sessions, and Salesforce release changes. Agentforce surfaces trending skills for your role, shows your current standing in the market, and generates custom Trailmixes to close skill gaps. Each visit becomes more valuable than the last.
Trails recommended based on chats with Trailhead Solve.
Agentforce identifies trending skills for your role, shows your current standing in the market, and enables you to generate custom Trailmixes to close skill gaps.
We designed for the specific moment the platform was losing its users. Not the beginning of the journey the platform handles that well. The gap was after mastery. After the certifications. After the content stopped feeling relevant.
The engaged state. Users join to learn completing trails, earning badges, working toward certifications. The loop is clear and the product serves them well.
The drop-off. Once certified, users hit a wall. Content feels too basic, and when real work problems come up, they turn to ChatGPT, Google, or Slack instead.
Closing the loop. Trailhead Solve brings experts back with accurate, Salesforce-backed answers. The Personalised Dashboard then nudges them toward relevant trails, turning a one-off visit into re-engagement.
The metric that mattered wasn't task completion time. It was whether the product created a new reason to come back. We ran two rounds of evaluation: one internal, one external, before any result was claimed.
We built 12 AI agents from our research data to simulate power user behavior and stress-test prototype flows before any real participant encountered them. Edge cases, knowledge gaps, and escalation paths were all tested in simulation first.
8 Salesforce power users, approximately 30 minutes each. Where participants would normally open ChatGPT, we asked them to try Solve first giving us a live substitution signal and direct comparison data.
At the IU Capstone Event, we presented our work in front of industry professionals, faculty, and fellow students. Out of all capstone projects across the program, the audience voted us People's Choice Award, a moment that made 10 months of research, iteration, and late nights felt worth it.
Scale testing globally with certified professionals. Refine Solve's answer quality using structured feedback loops. Pitch an integration roadmap to the Salesforce Trailhead product team.
Designing a gamified digital experience to make Black history accessible and engaging.
→Small businesses deserved a page that spoke their language. We rebuilt it.
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