Design
LaunchPad: College App Companion
Led the research, synthesis, UX, and UI design of a digital experience aimed at simplifying the essay writing process for high school seniors applying to colleges. I created both desktop and mobile screens using Figma, focusing on user flow and design iteration based on real user feedback.
Overview
Challenge
High school students applying to college face numerous challenges in organizing and managing their applications. Here’s how these challenges manifest:
Solution
Centralized Workspace
A single, user-friendly platform where students can manage everything related to their college essays: deadlines, extracurriculars, and college-specific opportunities.
Personalized College Research
Users can upload their resumes, interests, and target schools to receive curated recommendations for labs, professors, clubs, and other opportunities to make informed decisions about the activities they may want to engage in on campus.
Integrated Writing Space
Users can draft and refine their essays while viewing relevant school information, such as professors’ research and club offerings, directly within the same platform to contextualize their writing.
Streamlined Process
The platform will offer a guided process to help students organize their applications and reduce stress so that they can focus on creating strong, personalized applications without worrying about managing multiple platforms or tabs.
Research
Inconsistent Research Sources
How might we design a discovery tool that automatically aggregates and filters relevant labs, professors, and clubs by school and interest area, so students can find opportunities faster?
Repetitive Essay Content
Fragmented Application Tracking
Design
Sketches
Low-fidelity Wireframes
High-fidelity Design (V1)
User Testing
Results
Click through my Figma prototype to view the final high-fidelity desktop screens (or access it via the Project link at the top of this page)!
Below are screens I developed to showcase LaunchPad as a mobile app.
LaunchPad is a successful solution because it iterates based on user feedback, ensuring an intuitive flow and consistent visuals. The careful attention to font consistency and design elements enhances the user experience. Extensive user research and testing helped refine the optimal user flow, validating a clear need for the solution in the college application process.
Next Steps:
Vibe code the project to create a functional MVP beyond the Figma screens.
Gather more unbiased user feedback to identify further improvements.
Scrape necessary data to build out a working version of the app, ensuring scalability and practicality.
