Ask Skye
Role
Lead UX & Interaction Designer
Company
Scooler AI
Year
2024
Scope
Description
Ask Skye is the agentic intelligence layer at the core of Scooler AI. While most EdTech platforms bolt AI on as a side-car feature, Scooler moved to place Skye at the centre of its infrastructure — a persistent, context-aware guide that powers the four pathways for student mobility: Assessment, Student Digest, Roadmap, and Feedback.
Ask Skye — Hero prototype
Prototype coming soon
Ask Skye — Scooler AI, 2024
The Pivot
From “Chat” to agentic agent
While many EdTech platforms use AI as a bolt-on feature, Scooler made the deliberate move to place Ask Skye at the core of its infrastructure. My task was to design the UX for this shift — ensuring Skye felt less like a search bar and more like a collaborative partner.
The Vision
Powering the infrastructure for student–agent collaboration.
The Goal
Moving beyond Q&A to a system that understands four pathways: Assessment, Student Digest, Roadmap, and Feedback.
Competitive Research
Breaking the “blank page”
I conducted deep-dive research into Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT), and Microsoft Copilot to identify friction points in high-intelligence models. Three consistent problems emerged.
The Cognitive Load Problem
General-purpose AI often presents a "blank page" that overwhelms students who don't know the "perfect" prompt.
Context Fragmentation
Competitors often lack a 'memory' of a student's specific academic journey — visas, essays, and sentiment — in one view.
The Interface Gap
Most AI interfaces are text-heavy and "business-cold," lacking the empathetic touch needed for students navigating life-altering moves.
Design Execution
A distinctly different interaction
Based on those findings, I designed Ask Skye to be context-aware and proactive — two qualities absent in competing products.
Multimodal Input & Specificity
Instead of a wide-open text box, I implemented tailored entry points. Skye is integrated into specific workflows — "Review Essay" or "Immigration Manual" — so the AI already knows the context before a student types a single word.
Using the "Four Pathways" model to categorise Skye's intelligence, making capabilities visible and accessible rather than hidden behind a cursor.
Multimodal Input & Specificity
Prototype coming soon
Human-AI Synergy (Agentic Workflow)
I mapped out interactions where Skye doesn't just answer — it acts. Student Sentiment Tracking lets Skye monitor stress and anxiety levels in communications and flag them for human counsellor intervention.
Proactive nudging pushes timely alerts — visa deadlines approaching, new scholarships matched — without the student needing to ask.
Human-AI Synergy (Agentic Workflow)
Prototype coming soon
The Result
Intelligence with empathy
By moving away from the generic chat model used by market leaders, we created a tool that feels native to the international student experience. Ask Skye now serves as a persistent guide that unearths the best outcomes for students by combining massive data processing with a deeply human-centric UX.
Usability Win
Reduced "prompt fatigue" by providing context-specific AI entry points that remove the cognitive burden of composing the right query.
Brand Win
Established Scooler as an "intelligence-first" company, moving beyond the cluttered EdTech status quo and setting a new interaction standard.