Digestible Academic Research for Designers

Paper2Card
Repository

Hilights

Led UX and UI design for a 4-month repository system that transforms academic papers into digestible design cards using AI, making research insights more accessible to designers. The solution combines OpenAI’s GPT with a custom design system to automate card generation while maintaining consistency.

  • Time: Mar – Jun 2024 (10 weeks)
  • Role: Lead UX Designer
  • Involvement: Research, UX Design, UI Design
  • Team: 1 PhD Student (Product Owner), 2 UX Designers, 2 UI Designers, 1 Engineer

tl;dr

In Summary, here's what I accomplished:

  • Conducted preliminary research with 12 UX researchers and designers to identify key card components and information hierarchy needs
  • Designed a two-sided card system solving information overload while maintaining academic credibility
  • Built a consistent design system with Tailwind CSS to ensure scalable card generation

Paper2Card is a platform that uses generative AI to transform design implications from academic papers into visual, easy-to-understand design cards. 

Led by Donghoon Shin, with faculty advisors Gary Hsieh and Lucy Lu Wang, this project aims to make academic design insights more accessible and impactful for practitioners.

My Story with Paper2Card

I joined this project to create a repository interface presenting design cards generated by AI from HCI academic papers. 

Research

Primary Research Analysis

Our team analyzed interview data collected by Donghoon using affinity mapping. Given that our target audience is designers, I suggested organizing the sticky notes with quotes according to the Double Diamond Design Process.

Affinity Diagram_Research Design
Affinity Mapping based on Design Process
Design Practitioners Want/Need:
  1. Find methods for conducting secondary research.
  2. Discover knowledge and methods adaptable to their research and design processes.
  3. Gather/share their findings and insights efficiently.
  4. Draw inspiration from academic papers.
  5. Access theories that can substantiate their designs.
How might we translate academic research
into actionable design insights

💡 allow designers to discover and draw inspiration from relevant papers

💡 enable designers to gather, share, and substantiate their design decisions with academic theories and methodologies

Ideation

Constraints:

With our “How Might We” question, we’re ready to begin the Ideation phase. Our approach is constrained by the need to build upon the existing “Paper2Card” AI developed by our PhD student.

Room for Creative Exploration:

For this repository, I led the team in determining our next step: identifying essential user stories tailored to our target audience—designers. I proposed we start by sketching ideas, a method that would quickly synthesize everyone’s thoughts.

Prototype

There are more content coming up! 👷‍♂️