Students applying for scholarships and admissions are under immense stress. They need a system that feels clear, simple, and supportive, so they can focus on writing rather than logistics. Editors, meanwhile, face high workloads during peak deadlines, often reviewing up to 170 essays per day. The tension was between providing personalized, high-quality feedback for students and helping editors work efficiently at scale. If we failed to balance both, students risked weaker applications, while editors risked burnout.
Darius, our primary persona, represents our students that need support with school admissions and scholarship applications. Their needs are a system that is clear, simple, personalized, and relevant. On top of that, they also need support with staying focused and motivated as it's an extremely stressful time for them.
Through a UX audit, I found that the essay review process relied on three disconnected systems:
The result: a workflow that was functional but clunky and error-prone. Students had to re-fill forms for each submission, editors lost time chasing permissions, and both sides struggled with transparency.
From interviews with students and editors, I uncovered two recurring pain points:
"I have a hard time knowing which essays I have submitted because all I see is the Google Docs links."
"Sometimes the editor comments are not consistent and I end up receiving a lower score on my essay."
As I wasn't as familiar with the essay editing workflow, I also booked a meeting with our essay editor leads in order to understand their needs and frustrations with the current workflow.
"Students often forget to give access their Google Docs which leads to a delay in essay editing."
"Sometimes students would delete our scores and comments on the Google Docs which result in inconsistent scores."
The tension was clear: students wanted consistency and visibility, while editors needed reliability and control. Without fixing these gaps, trust in the review process—and students’ outcomes—was at risk.
For this project, I led the end-to-end design process, interviewing both essay writers and editors, identifying user pains, and iteratively designing a more efficient and user-friendly review process.
My team: Patrik Lau, Junior Designer | Jake Guy, Product Manager | Adam Griffiths, Lead Software Engineer | Karen Garcia, Customer Success Manager.
Clickthrough prototype coming soon.
To move from problems to solutions, we reframed our research into How Might We statements.
For students, we asked:
How might we reduce the steps in submission?
How might we make it easier to track essays?
For editors:
How might we ensure consistent access and standardized feedback?
These statements became anchors in our whiteboarding sessions, keeping us focused on solving for both sides of the workflow.
In collaboration with our PM and engineering manager, we mapped out the technical constraints and opportunities. We explored several approaches before landing on a hybrid solution:
This balance gave us more control over the experience without introducing heavy new systems for students or editors.
I built early wireframes and tested them with five students. Their feedback guided several iterations:
On the submit writing feature, an initial visual element distracted from the core task. I replaced it with a split-screen layout, so students could see key info alongside the submission form.
On the essay management page, students found the new system confusing at first. I added tooltips and inline explanations, making the flow more self-explanatory while easing the transition from the old system.
We validated changes again in our multi-dev environment before release, surfacing usability issues early and prioritizing fixes or future enhancements.
Students were coming to the system during stressful, high-stakes periods. Instead of adding visual delight that distracted from the task, we prioritized layouts and interactions that kept the submission process clear, direct, and focused on the essay itself.
Because students were used to the old system, the new workflows initially felt unfamiliar. We added tooltips, inline explanations, and contextual guidance to ease the learning curve—helping users feel confident without needing external support.
Rather than reinventing the process, we leaned on familiar tools (Google Docs, Trello, Zapier) while taking ownership of the experience where it mattered. This approach gave editors reliable access and standardized feedback, while keeping students in a flow they already knew.
Asking precise questions about technical constraints helped me negotiate scope and timelines with the team, ensuring we could expand features without derailing delivery.
Early alignment with stakeholders and engineers was critical. Co-creating solutions prevented surprises later and built shared ownership of the outcomes.
Researching design patterns from systems like Material Design, Polaris, and Carbon showed me the value of standing on the shoulders of giants—borrowing proven practices instead of reinventing from scratch.
Senior Product Designer with a business and marketing background. Driving vision through validated insights, fast collaboration, and prototyping with care.
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