Generative AI for personalized college applications
Overview
In the summer of 2024, I worked as the founding product designer at Clab AI, an AI-driven platform for college applications. Part of my responsibilities included creating and launching an AI-powered essay writing tool for college applications. The primary objective of this feature was to support effective brainstorming and provide personalized guidance to enhance the student writing process. Despite a tight three-week deadline, the MVP was successfully launched in July 2024.
Impact
The MVP of the essay writing tool feature was launched in August, 2024. Give it a try here!
Role
Founding product designer
Team
Product manager
Front-end and AI engineers
Scope
Feature scoping, user research, rapid-prototyping, design reviews
My learnings and growth
Best Practices in AI Design
One of my biggest challenges and learning experiences was self-teaching how to design for AI. In a field where most are beginners, I’m fortunate to have gained hands-on experience. I now understand the basics and apply best practices like maintaining user trust and reducing misinformation in AI design. Our team fostered a collaborative environment, sharing resources on new trends, technologies, and AI tools. While the road ahead is long, it’s incredibly exciting!
User-Focused Design for Startups
As securing our first customers and funding was a top priority, we focused on deeply understanding the needs of our customers (high schools) and gathering insights from universities regarding AI policies. We maintained close communication with U.S. high schools and collaborated with the University of Vanderbilt’s admission office. This approach ensured our product stayed aligned with the latest AI policies and regulations, keeping us on track with features and algorithms that mattered most to our users.
Strategic Feature Prioritization
With a tight timeline to ship the new version for the 2024 college application cycle, our team faced the challenge of prioritizing key AI features that addressed our users’ biggest pain points. Through user research and continuous feedback, we were able to focus on iterating on the essay writing tool for the student portal, the recommendation letter writing tool, and the student management tool for the school counselor portal.
Documentation and Collaboration
Our core team works across different time zones and schedules, making clear documentation and written communication essential to maintaining efficiency. Throughout the process, I found that being conscientious, clear, and specific was key to successful collaboration.
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