Designers
Maysan Nirlo, Mihran Siddiqui, Aarti Sapkal, Kriti Arora, Annie Pinson, Joelson Leal, Sanjana Shah
Year
2025
Category
New Talent
Country
United Kingdom
School
Goldsmiths, University of London
Teacher
Rabail Tahir
Three questions to the project team
What was the particular challenge of the project from a UX point of view?
One of our main UX challenges was striking the right balance between accessibility and academic accuracy. We aimed to make complex research findings easier to grasp, without oversimplifying the scientific content. At the same time, it was essential to build trust by ensuring that users could easily verify the information they read. To support this, we designed the interface to offer quick access to full papers. Throughout, we focused on creating a seamless microlearning experience that maintained the depth and integrity of academic knowledge.
What was your personal highlight in the development process? Was there an aha!-moment, was there a low point?
As we explored the state-of-the-art academic tools, we felt overwhelmed by the numerous options already available, and for a while, that made our idea feel redundant, a clear low point. However, through user research, we found our niche. We observed how researchers interact with papers and noticed a pattern: when looking for key information, many skipped the abstract and scrolled directly to the results. That insight sparked our breakthrough. Why not surface the findings first? That moment of thinking outside the traditional format of title and abstract became our highlight. It was a moment of shared insight for us as a team, and it completely shifted how we saw the problem and what our solution needed to be.
Where do you see yourself and the project in the next five years?
In the next five years, we envision this project becoming a widely adopted platform, not only for students but also for lifelong learners and educators seeking reliable, accessible research insights. With limited resources, we’ve already laid a strong foundation, but with more time and funding, we could enhance its features, refine the AI feature, and broaden accessibility. We aim to continuously improve the app over the next five years, developing it into a scalable, intuitive, and ethically designed product that empowers users worldwide to learn more in less time.
