Scooler AI
Role
Founding Product Designer
Company
Scooler AI
Year
2023 – 2024
Description
Scooler is an AI-powered cross-platform built for international students navigating the study abroad journey — from finding the right school to submitting a standout application. As the founding designer, I was brought in to establish a scalable design infrastructure and take the product from early MVP concepts to polished, functional experiences. My work spanned end-to-end product design: building the design system, shaping information architecture, and delivering high-impact features for a global student audience.
Scooler AI — Landing page, 2024
The Challenge
Building intelligence infrastructure from zero
International students face a uniquely complex journey — navigating foreign admissions systems, writing application essays in a second language, understanding visa requirements, and finding the right university fit, often without a strong support network. Scooler set out to solve this with AI — but the design challenge was equally complex: building an entirely new product experience from scratch, establishing scalable design conventions, and shipping meaningful features quickly in a fast-moving early-stage environment.
Constraints
- Solo designer — responsible for everything from design system to final UI polish
- Moving target: product direction evolved rapidly as the team validated the market
- Global audience with varied tech access, requiring accessible and performant UI decisions
- Tight build cycles meant design had to be highly systematic to scale with engineering speed
- No established brand identity at the start — foundational visual language had to be created in parallel
My Approach
Systems thinking first, features second
Before designing any screens, I established the design foundations — a colour system, type scale, component library, and spacing framework. This upfront investment made it possible to move fast without creating design debt.
From there, I focused on the three core student jobs-to-be-done: discover the right school, write a competitive application, and navigate the logistics of arriving. Each feature was designed to reduce friction at a specific point in that journey.
Key Features
Six flows, one coherent system
Landing & Onboarding
A lightweight landing page and sign-up flow that communicates Scooler's value proposition at first glance and gets students into the product quickly.
Sign Up Flow
A clean, step-by-step sign-up that reduces friction by collecting only what's necessary upfront — email first, profile details later.
Student Dashboard
A personalised home base surfacing immigration guides, profile completion progress, and quick access to key tools — all in one glance.
Major Explorer
A multi-step quiz that helps students discover the right academic majors based on interests and strengths — making a complex decision feel approachable.
Essay Review — Input
Students paste their essay and topic, and the AI review engine processes it instantly — no file uploads, no friction.
Essay Review — AI Feedback
Granular scoring across Writing, Delivery, Engagement, and Confidence, with Strategic Insights and a Feedback Guide that helps students take immediate action.
Design System
Scooler colour language
The palette was built around Scool Blue (#002ED4) — energetic and trustworthy — paired with a soft light blue for backgrounds and a range of semantic secondaries for data, states, and product personality.
Scool Blue
#002ED4
Light Blue
#E3E9FF
Navy
#00135A
Bright Blue
#4597F5
Sky
#ACD5F6
Mint
#8BFF85
Amber
#EB9B42
Charcoal
#33393C
Purple
#8042EB
Coral
#EB4261
Takeaway & Reflection
What I took from building 0-to-1
Working as the sole designer at an early-stage AI company taught me that the most valuable design skill at that stage is judgment under ambiguity. With no established patterns to reference and a fast-moving team, I had to make confident decisions with incomplete information — and then iterate quickly when the picture changed.
Building the design system first was the single best decision I made. It compressed the cost of every subsequent feature and gave engineers a shared language to work from. I'd repeat that investment on every 0-to-1 project.
And working with international students reminded me that clarity is the most human design choice. When someone is navigating a foreign education system in a second language, every moment of confusion has a real cost. That kept me honest about simplicity.