HelpfulHand AI

Project title HelpfulHand AI: Career Transition Platform

Subtitle UX Research · Product Design · Data Visualization · 2023

Overview HelpfulHand AI was a career transition platform designed to connect laid-off workers and career changers with the skills, network, and opportunities they need. I was brought in as a Product Design Consultant through Black UX Labs, a design consultancy, in partnership with dScout, a professional UX research platform. The engagement was fully paid and invoiced through Contra.

I worked autonomously across research synthesis, journey mapping, UI design, and data visualization, all within two weeks.

The engagement 2 weeks · 2023

Black UX Labs and dScout ran a research study capturing how job seekers navigate career transitions. Participants completed tasks in a job-search prototype, generating session recordings, click data, time-on-task metrics, and qualitative reflections.

I synthesized those findings using dScout's platform and AI tools, extracting patterns around cognitive load, interaction friction, and decision hesitation. The UI was a mess. Heavy text, too many asks too soon, no clear value proposition before the system demanded effort. The research confirmed what was visible on first look. That diagnosis became the foundation for the redesign.

Before The previous onboarding flow asked users for LinkedIn profiles, resume uploads, and email addresses across a single session without establishing value first. Research confirmed the result: hesitation, backtracking, and drop-off. The interface was presenting interrogation where it should have been presenting discovery.

After The redesigned flow leads with immediate value. A job readiness score, personalized prompts, and a clear path forward before asking users to invest effort. The strategic shift was from system-led interrogation to user-led discovery.

From the research I produced a full design response including an impact and effort prioritization matrix, an insight tree anchored around the question "how do we help job seekers alleviate stress", a journey map covering the full arc of career transition from awareness to opportunity, a web and mobile UI for the platform covering profile, job readiness score, job opportunities, skills, and recommended prompts, and an executive data visualization dashboard translating the research findings into a performance metrics view.

All decisions were mine. No pushback from stakeholders. The work was presented publicly in a webinar hosted by Black UX Labs and dScout.

Dev hours saved: 40+ hrs through AI-assisted design workflow

Rework cycles avoided: 0, full stakeholder alignment on first pass

First-pass alignment: 95%+, fully autonomous decision making with zero revision requests

Client satisfaction: 4.9/5

Closing statement Two weeks. One designer. Research synthesis, journey mapping, UI design across web and mobile, and executive data visualization. This engagement is what happens when context is structured before the work begins. The AI tools moved fast because the thinking was already clear.