Viacela

Viacela AI Reflections: capturing authentic student voices

Viacela AI Reflections: capturing authentic student voices

Platform

Desktop and mobile web

Timeline

Oct 2024 - Jan 2025

Core responsibilities

UX/UI design, direction, design system

Role

Founding product designer

Title

Client

Student-friendly LLM built with OpenAI and Anthropic models

Viacela is an AI-powered platform designed to amplify students' authentic voices. By fostering frictionless reflection, we create dynamic profiles that capture both tangible achievements and intangible growth, empowering educators to personalize support and guiding students toward career readiness.

I was brought on as the founding product designer and leading design voice with Richard Freling (prev CTO of Command Bar) and George Tang to design the Viacela MVP for beta launch in January.


Problem

On average, students receive only 40min of career counseling per year

Educators are unable to deeply understand a student's strengths, developmental areas, and aspirations. Traditional methods fail to provide personalized, actionable insights, leaving students without the tailored support needed to navigate individual pathways and achieve career readiness.

Schools lack the staff and resources to ensure every kid's needs are visible and supported.


My role

Evolving a demo app to MVP for live user testing

As the Founding Product Designer at Viacela, I worked closely with the CEO and founding engineer to define the MVP's goals and scope. In a highly ambiguous environment, I led structured brainstorming sessions to align the team's vision and clarify objectives. I introduced structure to our workflows by creating internal documentation and SOPs. Collaborating with the founding engineer, I ensured designs balanced innovation with technical feasibility, leveraging a deep understanding of LLM capabilities. I also drove ongoing discussions to prioritize features that would balance client needs with student engagement, aiming for product-market fit.

Current demo


Business requirements

Designing responsive experiences for 3 users: students, teachers, and parents

Define UI/UX experience and create high fidelity and responsive designs, optimized for mobile and tablet use:

Student interface

  • Daily reflections

  • Viewing past entries

  • Viewing the latest AI-generated profile

Admin & teacher interface

  • Viewing student data, surveys, and profiles

  • Validating and confirming upcoming AI-generated survey questions

  • Validating and confirming upcoming AI-generated student profiles

  • Suggesting questions/edits

Parent interface

  • Viewing student profile

  • Suggesting questions/edits


📱 Final MVP - Mobile web

Student flows

The final design for Viacela guides students through a seamless reflection process to foster self-awareness and personal growth. Key features include dynamic profiles that evolve as reflections are submitted, an AI-driven question-generation system that identifies gaps in student data and provides personalized prompts.

Admin & teacher flows

The teacher dashboard in Viacela allows educators to review student reflections without seeing the questions, approve AI-generated prompts to reduce bias, and provide personalized feedback on student profiles. Parents have a similar view but only for their child, creating a supportive, collaborative system for student growth.


💻 Final MVP - Web

A peak at the web experience


✦✦ The process ✦✦

Want to learn more? Let's chat!

I'm happy to walk through details of my design process through a discovery call. You can reach me at renali.2938@gmail.com or schedule a time on my Calendly.