Case Study UI / UX for AI 2026 General Assembly · Capstone

Synthread —
turning scattered feedback into decisions.

An AI tool that turns scattered, conflicting design feedback — from Figma, Slack, docs and meetings — into one clear, evidence-backed plan, while the designer stays in control.

RoleSole designer · Concept, IA, UI, prototype
ToolsFigma · HTML/CSS · Generative AI
DurationCapstone · 2026
DeliverablesConcept, persona, journey, hi-fi prototype, deck
Live · Interactive prototype

Here's what got built — a working desktop tool.

A hi-fi prototype that ingests 32 scattered comments from Figma, Slack, docs and meetings, and organizes them into five ranked themes with cited research. Click around, or scroll to the full-size version at the end.

See the full flow ↓
Project prompt
Design an AI-powered product experience that earns user trust, balances automation with user control, and could scale across a team.

Four goals I kept coming back to.

An AI that organizes feedback only helps if people actually trust it. These four goals held that tension throughout.

01

Give designers their time back

Turn the busywork of collecting and reconciling feedback into the work of deciding.

02

Make the AI trustworthy

Every claim should be visible and sourced — never a black box.

03

Keep the human in control

The AI proposes with evidence; the designer always makes the call.

04

Scale consistently

One predictable model across tools and teammates — design-system thinking for AI output.

Designers spend more time collecting feedback than acting on it.

After a review, feedback lands everywhere at once — and the real work, deciding what to change, gets buried under the busywork of gathering it. Three frustrations show up every time.

One design review · 32 comments · 4 tools

Figma
1 "Make CTA bigger."
"Move logo left"
"Add more spacing"
Slack
"Rethink the hierarchy"
1 Loudest "TRY SMALLER CTA — this is huge!!"
Docs
"Colour feels off"
"Consider dark mode"
Meetings
"Loop back on nav"
"Sales flagged confusion"
● Scattered

4 tools, 32 comments, none talking to each other.

1 Contradictory

"Bigger" (Figma) clashes with "smaller" (Slack) — no flag until too late.

● Loudest wins

Volume beats the weight of evidence.

Meet Maya — the designer this is really for.

Maya
Chen.

Maya Chen

Senior Product Designer · 6 yrs · Brooklyn

Maya leads two product areas and runs the weekly design review with PMs, engineers and a researcher. She wants to ship confident decisions fast — but loses her mornings reconciling feedback before she can act on any of it.

PrioritiesEfficiency · Detail · Evidence
Works withPMs · Engineers · Research
Tools dailyFigma · Slack · Notion · Dovetail
StyleDecides fast, defends with data
Goals
  • Ship confident decisions fast
  • Make sure feedback is addressed
  • Defend choices with evidence
Frustrations
  • Feedback scattered everywhere
  • Contradictions surface too late
  • Hours lost just reconciling

Where it breaks down today.

Mapping Maya's current flow showed exactly where a tool could help — her emotion bottoms out right at “make sense” and “decide.”

Scenario · Reconciling feedback after a design review
Step
1Review
2Hunt & gather
3Make sense
4Decide
5Act & defend
Quote
“Feedback's flying in from everywhere.”
“Now where did everyone put it?”
“What actually matters here?”
“What do I fix first?”
“Now I have to defend the call.”
Pain points
All at onceNo order, no priority.
Manual & scatteredChasing four tools.
Contradictions hiddenNothing flags clashes.
Loudest winsNot evidence-led.
Rationale lostHard to trace back.
Emotion
🙂
😕
😩
😟
😮‍💨

How might we…

Three questions that opened up the design space.

01
How might we turn scattered, conflicting feedback into a confident, evidence-backed decision?
02
How might we surface what matters — and where people already agree?
03
How might we let AI organize, while the designer stays the decision-maker?

Synthread connects your tools, does the synthesis, and leaves the decision to you.

Six things it does — and shows its work for each.

01
Ingest

Connect Figma, Slack, docs, meetings once.

02
Cluster

Group comments by meaning, not keywords.

03
Detect

Flag contradictions and show both sides.

04
Surface

Highlight where people already agree.

05
Grade

Rank by impact, frequency, stakeholder weight.

06
Cite

Ground recommendations in real UX research.

Intake
Organize & resolve
Rank
Prove

All six visible in the live prototype below.

See it work ↓
The design principle

The AI proposes with evidence.
The human decides.

Every claim shows its receipts.

Because the AI gives direction, it has to prove it. Two mechanisms carry the whole trust story.

AI processes a comment
Has enough evidence?
YES NO
Proposes with receipts

Theme 04 · CTA hierarchy

Reduce visual weight of primary CTA.

MC
KZ
PS
3 sources
Confidence82%
Cited: Nielsen Norman “Visual Weight”

Trust. Every claim is traceable.

Asks for context
!Needs context

“The hierarchy feels off, we should rethink it.”

Source: Meeting notes · no pin
Confidence24%
Which screen?Assign ↗

Graceful failure. When unsure, it asks.

The designer decides — with receipts, either way.

Designed as a system, not a screen.

A restrained, cool “tech” palette with one electric accent — and semantic colors that mean the same thing everywhere.

Type scale
Display
Heading
Body — clear and readable.
Caption · source chip
Semantic color
IndigoAI & primary
AmberConflict
TealConsensus
InkText

The whole flow, interactive.

Connect sources, see feedback pinned on the design, watch chaos become ranked themes, resolve a conflict with cited research, and leave with a prioritized plan. Tap around — it's live.

Walking through the flow

It starts on the synthesis view — 32 scattered comments organized into five ranked themes — and lets you explore every part of the product from the sidebar.

  • Sources — connect Figma, Slack, meetings & docs
  • Design — comments pinned to the actual screen
  • Synthesis — 32 comments become 5 ranked themes
  • Theme detail — conflict, cited research, options
  • “Needs context” — unplaced feedback, flagged not guessed
  • Action plan — prioritized, editable, traceable
Open full prototype

Where I'd take it with more time.

01
Test with real designers

Validate the conflict component — do the transparency cues actually land, or just look reassuring?

02
Onboarding & connect flow

Design the first-run experience of connecting sources for the first time.

03
Empty & error states

Build out low-confidence, no-evidence and failure states more fully.

04
Team-scale governance

Explore how the theme taxonomy stays consistent across a whole design team.

End of case study

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