Athenic AI

During a summer internship at Athenic AI, I joined as the sole Product Designer to improve the onboarding experience for a natural-language data analytics platform. The product targets business owners without a technical background, letting them ask data-related questions and receive AI-generated insights in seconds. My role was to identify friction points in the current experience and design solutions to reduce the steep learning curve for new users.

Athenic AI harnesses the potential of AI technology for data analysis, catering to business owners without a technical background. Users can simply enter their data-related questions, and Athenic AI delivers insights within seconds. However, for new users, navigating an AI tool can be challenging. As the Product Designer, my objective is to identify and understand the friction points in the current user experience and devise design solutions to enhance its user-friendliness.

Athenic AI collects recordings of user sessions for UX analysis. I reviewed over 100 sessions and defined the user journey in steps, from logging in to creating a project and generating data visualization. Based on my observations, most users only complete the first couple of steps in the journey, getting stuck due to the long learning curve.

After understanding where the users are getting stuck, I further dug deeper into which specific segments or interfaces are causing the friction. And I started to collect ideas of designing solutions to improve the user experience. After presenting the ideas to the cross-functional team, we reached an agreement on what changes Athenic platform should have.

Based on the insights I gathered from session analysis and brainstorming, I created low-fi wireframe of the platform focusing on a layout reorganization. In the new layout, each individual page are clearly structured in the sidebar on the left. Inside each page, the users can find helpful guidances which are designed for new users to get started.

• Data Source Page
• Select Data Connector Page
• Configure Data Source Page
• Choose Template Page I
• Choose Temple Page II
• Project Page

Furthermore, I created prototypes for new design and features. The new designs focus on providing more guidance for users to reduce the learning curve, get the desired data insights and become a loyal customer.

Working at a start-up as the only Product Designer brought lots of challenges. It was a great experience for me to seek help from many different mentors and friends, learn from peer's opinions and suggestions. I also got to gain experience in a fast-paced, innovative environment.