Digital canvas MVP
First steps in digital drawing, right inside the Simply Draw lesson.
First steps in digital drawing
Simply Draw teaches drawing with pencil and paper. The digital canvas adds drawing with a digital pen on iPad, right inside the app. It was never meant to compete with professional drawing apps. Its job is to help learners take their first steps in digital drawing without overwhelming them with technical features.
It also brings a new style into Simply Draw: drawings in full color, something pencil and paper can’t offer.
Who it’s for
Age: 15–35
Level: Drawing beginners, new to digital drawing
Motivation: Learning to draw digitally
- My role
- Product manager and design lead
- Platform
- iPad with a digital pen
- Scope
- The MVP of the in-lesson drawing canvas: layout, video, tools, layers and guided steps, plus the digital courses
Ask first, then choose the path
Not every learner has a digital pen, and some who do still prefer paper. So we added one question to onboarding, “What drawing method do you prefer?”, and the answer sends each learner to the path that fits them. Learners with an iPad and a digital pen take the digital path, where courses end in a color drawing. Everyone else stays on the paper path, with the iPad as their teacher.
Progress you can see, one drawing at a time
The course map is a path of the drawings learners will make. There’s almost no text on screen: size, movement and sound carry the message. Small drawings build confidence fast, and skills come in bite-sized pieces along the way. Every item previews the color drawing it leads to, so the outcome comes first.
The whole drawing in view, one small step at a time
The course screen lays the whole drawing out as a path of steps. Each step is a big round thumbnail of the drawing at that stage, so learners see where they are and what the next few minutes will add. A progress ring and a short duration on every step keep each one small and finishable, and the thumbnails show the color result before a single stroke, which is the reason to pick up the pen.
- One drawing, shown stage by stage
- Short timed steps with a progress ring
- Thumbnails preview the color result
The teacher on one side, your canvas on the other
Going digital didn’t change how Simply Draw teaches: every step still draws from a reference, with the teacher right beside the learner. One screen holds the whole lesson. The video plays next to the canvas, so learners never switch apps or lose their place, and every tool sits in one dark bar above the work.
Follow the teacher at your own pace
Drawing takes longer than watching. The player had to make it easy to go back over a step, or wait for the learner, without taking space from the canvas.
Just enough tools to draw along
Drawing with a digital pen is a hurdle of its own: it feels and responds differently from pencil on paper. We wanted learners to get used to that feeling first, without technicalities they don’t need yet. So beginners get a few tools with simple choices instead of a full toolbox, enough to slowly build a foundation in common digital drawing skills.
Real layers, introduced gently
Layers let learners sketch, ink and color without ruining the step before. They start with a single layer and grow into the full set of options as the lessons need them.
A canvas that adjusts to the way they draw
During the lesson, the canvas waits for one action at a time and turns like paper to a comfortable angle. When learners draw on their own, it gives them the whole screen, with zoom, undo and redo on gestures they already know.
One step at a time
A catch-up card under the video asks for a single action, like “Draw the horizontal line as you see in the reference”, and the video goes on once the learner taps I’m done. The canvas turns like paper to find a comfortable angle, and Reset canvas sets it straight again.
Familiar gestures
Without the video, the drawing gets the whole screen, and the canvas answers to the gestures people already know: a two-finger tap undoes, three fingers redo, and a pinch zooms. Each time, a small tag names what just happened, like “Undo brush”, so learners always know what the app did.
Every drawing adds to their progress story
The last step of every lesson: the finished drawing lands in the learner’s journal, a digital sketchbook of their work. It reflects their progress, and the drawings waiting ahead keep them going.
A strong start for a small audience
More people chose pencil and paper than the digital path. Those who went digital were older than the paper learners, as we had assumed, and their first weeks looked good: a high completion rate for the first drawing, a high rate of starting a second one, and conversion to premium on par with the paper path. Over time, though, they churned faster and were less engaged.
What worked
- The audience we aimed for. Digital learners were more mature in age than paper learners.
- Quick first wins. High completion of the first drawing, and most went on to start a second.
- The same willingness to pay. Conversion to premium matched the paper path.
What held it back
- Faster churn. Digital learners dropped off sooner and were less engaged over time.
- A small share of users. Far fewer people chose the digital path than the paper one.
- No lift in adult downloads. The digital path didn’t bring more adults to the app.
The decision
With a small audience and no growth in adult downloads, a second drawing experience wasn’t worth the cost of maintaining it. We eventually removed the digital path.
What the digital canvas taught us
As product manager and design lead, I scoped the MVP around one idea: help young adults take their first steps in digital drawing without leaving the lesson. The design held up. Learners finished their first drawings, started a second and paid for premium like everyone else. What didn’t hold up was the bet behind it: a digital path on its own didn’t bring more adults to Simply Draw, and the few who came didn’t stay long enough to justify a second drawing experience.
- Keep the teacher in the room. Video and canvas on one screen kept the lesson intact, and it showed in how many learners finished their first drawing.
- Familiar tools, not a toolbox. One bar with panels under their buttons, and layers only when a drawing needed them, was enough for a first step.
- Validate the audience before the feature. Older learners did choose digital, but not enough of them existed. The real question was acquisition, not the canvas.
- Small bets are cheap to end. A tightly scoped MVP made removing the path a clean decision instead of a sunk cost.
