Stella

My Role

Lead UX Designer & Researcher

Worked with: PMs, engineers, designers, directors, leadership

Timeline

June 2025 - August 2025

Tasks

Led UX design and research
Storytelling
Envisioned potential future-state
XFN collaboration
Prototyping and development

Tools Used

Figma
Roo Code
Adobe Photoshop

Context (WIP)

As part of my internship, I along with a PM intern and engineering intern were brought together by senior leadership to create a product that would allow care managers to do their jobs more effectively. In addition to hospital work, Blue Shield’s care managers use digital platforms to asses and administer care for their patients. However, digital care is largely impacted by data delays, with care managers often receiving the data they need weeks or even months late, which negatively affects both manager and patient, especially if the data is no longer accurate.

The Main Problem

Care managers don’t receive data on time. (WIP)

My Deliverables

What Did I Do?

3 Screens

I designed 2 chatbot screens and one future-state integration mockup.

1 Design System

This project was created under the company Stellarus, the technology arm of Blue Shield. I created a new design system combining elements of Blue Shield for the new Stellarus product.

In addition to designing the product, since we had such a short amount of time to present it I worked directly with the engineering intern to aid in the development of Stella through Roo Code and minor CSS.

A Lot of Roo Code

The Solution (WIP)

Stella

A generative AI chatbot that allows care managers to instantly access vital patient data to better administer individualized care.

*Screens partially blurred to protect NDA

*No real patient health information is shown here, the display text above is pulled from a JSON document containing artificial patient data

Research

Synthesizing Existing Assets (WIP)

Blue Shield of California has already done research on this problem space in the past to create on a separate platform which is where care managers do their work from today. I worked with the UX team to synthesize this existing data and determine what issues that care managers now face today working with their new platform.

The Main Issue

  • Access to data is too difficult, it takes far too long for care managers to gather the information they need to carry out their jobs effectively. This is due to data being restricted at Blue Shield, in order to get access to a spreadsheet of patient data for example a care manager would need to email whoever is in charge of managing all patient data and wait for approval then wait for the data to be sent.

Target Users

  • Care managers at Blue Shield of California (internal company usage only)

Iterations

Design Changes

  • Added a bio section to allow more personalization and better reflect social media apps students use everyday

  • Replaced text input fields with buttons to create a quicker, more intuitive onboarding flow

  • Adding app branding removes unnecessary whitespace and reinforces the product’s identity

Revamped Onboarding

92% of users preferred Screen B

Challenges

Challenges (managing scope creep, database issues, development headaces)

This was a project given to us with only one sprint to complete. Earlier on during our internship we knew the UX, PM and engineering interns would be collaborating on a project as a group of 3 to create a new product. Initially, due poor communication from upper management we had to deal with product requirements changing weekly or even multiple times during the week while in our initial product exploration phase. There were 4 different PRDs created by our PM intern for 4 different projects in the first 4 weeks of my internship.

Project Impact

Informing Blue Shield’s Future

Here are some future outcomes of this project and how it could help the company.

of users could find and communicate with a mentor and mentee

80%

80%

of users could find and communicate with a mentor and mentee

With a team of 3 interns, we were able to get this project to a working state in only 2 weeks thanks to the assistance of AI development tools. This timeline can inform future endeavors at Blue Shield and help in setting realistic expectations

2 Weeks

Closing Thoughts

Reflection and Takeaways

  • This app serves as a dedicated platform for SJSU students to partner with other students to further their academic and professional goals which fills a hole in the localized student market and solves a daily problem myself and many of my peers have.

  • Implementing a synchronized Google Calendar to find available time slots for meetings with mentors solves one of the the most common pain points of scheduling conflicts between both parties leading to meetings not happening.

  • Using modifiable categories to curate personalized mentors, mentees and events allows every student to find what works for them specifically and change it as their goals change directly through the app which can save a lot of time and keep retention high.

What Worked

If I Had More Time…

  • There is no specific way to determine whether a meeting should be in person as the vast majority of students prefer according to my survey or to keep the meetings as calls. This is a feature I would add before allowing the app to go live.

  • In addition to a mobile app, I would also create a desktop version to maximize the amount of users because while small, there is a group of students who prefer to use desktop only and do not use social media at all.

  • Implement an AI chatbot to assist with career clarification such as finding a specific role in an industry or give personalized career recommendations based on user profile insights. Chatbots can be active 24/7 which would be especially useful during exam seasons when students are especially busy.

  • Add the ability for students to not only connect with undergrad/grad students but faculty, administration and alumni as well to maximize the amount of healthy relationships we can create through this app.

What I Learned

No product succeeds without user feedback. The best way to design for your users is to actually ask them what they want and look at the data behind it. I conducted more surveys and user interviews than I have for any project before, which is probably why this is the most fun project I’ve worked on.

I realized that change is the status quo. It’s important to be able to recognize that something isn’t working and be agile in the process of fixing it. In order to be a successful designer, you need to be quick on your feet and not get too attached to an idea when it has been proven that it doesn’t work.

Finally, moving forwards, I want to be able to gather as much user data as possible during the design process to inform every decision I make and ensure that I can target specific pain points to make a very complicated more simple, which is what I think product design is all about.

Thank you for reading :)