What I owned
I led product design across B2C and B2B: consumer AI chat, enterprise dashboards, payment flows, onboarding, and multiple partner portals.
Back to work3 min read01 / 05
Tutoruu · 2024Product Design · AI · EdTech · 2024
A Forbes startup had a design problem. I was the only designer.
Solo product designer for a Forbes 30 Under 30 startup, working across AI chat, payment flows, and a multi-brand design system.
Four product surfaces, one designer, and no shared system.
%20%
engagement lift after landing redesign
- Role
- Solo Product Designer, all B2C + B2B
- Duration
- Feb 2024 – Feb 2025
- Platforms
- Web · Mobile · Admin · Partner portals
- Industry
- EdTech · AI
The setup
Tutoruu builds AI tools for university students and white-label platforms for institutional partners. I led product design across consumer AI chat, enterprise dashboards, payment flows, onboarding, and multiple partner portals. The work needed a shared system and clear journeys for different audiences.
Role & constraint
The constraint
No design system, frequent product changes, and payment expectations shaped by Egyptian students who use InstaPay and Fawry alongside credit cards.
The problems
What was actually broken.
Problem 01
The landing page was bleeding users
Hotjar heatmaps and Mixpanel data told a clear story: high bounce, low conversion. The page tried to serve B2B and B2C at once, and failed both. Users didn't know if they were a student or an institution.
Problem 02
Ruu AI wasn't delivering its core promise
Users engaged with the AI chat, then left frustrated. Session recordings showed why: they didn't know how to prompt it. Vague questions in, poor results out, churn. The AI was fine. The UX around it wasn't.
Problem 03
High payment drop-off
Sales flagged it, Mixpanel confirmed it. Users reached the payment screen and stopped. The platform only accepted credit cards, but the demographic was Egyptian students, low card penetration. The friction was structural, not superficial.
Problem 04
No design system = everything was slow
Multiple products, multiple teams, zero single source of truth. Every brand update meant manual rework across every product.
The decisions
From evidence to a design decision.
Listen
Hotjar heatmaps, Mixpanel funnels, and session recordings named the real problems, before I touched a pixel.
Reframe
Turned every metric drop into a UX hypothesis, not a visual tweak. The AI didn't need fixing; the path to it did.
Ship & iterate
Card sorting → redesign → usability testing → two iteration rounds, all in production with real users.
The solutions
What I actually did about it.
01Solution 01 / 04
One landing page. Two clear paths.
Students and institutions needed different journeys, not one shared pitch.
I mapped both audiences, validated the structure with 8 users through usability tests and interviews, then refined the redesign in two rounds.
Reported 20% engagement liftclearer B2B/B2C split
preview soon
02Solution 02 / 04
Ruu AI: Presets & Mini Ruu's
Users lacked prompting skills, not willingness. The fix wasn't a better AI. It was a UX bridge.
Designed pre-built prompt templates delivered through low-friction modals, so users had a clear way to begin the AI conversation.
Guidance before a blank chat input
preview soon
03Solution 03 / 04
Payment flow overhaul
Students don't use credit cards. They use InstaPay and Fawry.
Added both rails, then restructured pricing tiers using anchoring and the decoy effect.
InstaPay and Fawry launchedinternal Mixpanel and sales reporting
preview soon
04Solution 04 / 04
Multi-brand design system
Built a variables-based token architecture with multi-brand theming, exported to JSON for developer handoff, and validated in a private Storybook.
Shared tokens and components for multi-brand handoff
preview soon
By the numbers
%20%
reported engagement lift
2
new payment rails added
1
solo product designer
Project period: Feb 2024 – Feb 2025
The AI was fine. The UX around it wasn't.
Gallery
A closer look.
Key visuals from the project, then the individual decision screens. Full-fidelity shots of those are coming soon.
Reflection
What I'd carry forward
I would establish the system before expanding the screens, so brand changes and handoff start from a shared foundation.
Related work