Sizzle AI
Role
Sole Product & Brand Designer
Collaborators
Jerome Pesenti (CEO)
Allison McGrath (UXR)
Engineering Team
Duration
2023-2025
For 2 years, I immersed myself in the ed-tech space, studying how students learn and which tools were earning their attention. I prototyped new ways for students to engage with AI, translating our team's big ideas into clear product direction. As the company's only designer from seed to acquisition, I owned every screen and state of the product, working in lockstep with engineering. Below are the key challenges I worked through.
Defining a clear, scalable information architecture
To create an intentional, consistent experience I started by defining the app's core tabs. Visually, this meant creating a framework for all our design elements that could scale across tabs.
I used solid colored headers to distinguish each core tab, and a module-card-based layout to maintain hierarchy
Students have enough to juggle. Sizzle shouldn't add to the chaos. The architecture puts core actions within one tap and makes the next step obvious from the moment the app opens.
Home page to main actions, with headers that collapse on scroll as the student moves through the course page
Organizing content into persistent class folders gave our LLM the contextual grounding it needed to generate tageted outputs
One system, three ways to learn
Sizzle has three core learning surfaces: Solver, Checker, and our flagship product, Learn. I redesigned all three from the ground up, unifying them into one connected experience.
Checker - check your process
Solver - step by step solutions
To tie the surfaces together, I designed one question bar component that adapts to what the student needs most in each surface.
Asking questions in Solver
Asking questions in Learn
The perfect Course, shaped by you
We never found two students who wanted the same course. Some wanted to zero in on a single topic. Others wanted a broad review before a final. How do you design one tool for that much variety? Our answer was a Composer built on two principles: treat the first generation as a draft, not a final product, and keep the student in control of every decision. The result is a tool that helps the student shape a course to fit their needs exactly.
Course creation flow
Every state of the Composer gives students a way to steer and guides them toward a better course, from clarifying on a broad topic to refining the output.
Composer states
An AI-powered learning experience
Exercises are usually written once, for everyone. AI lets us generate them on the fly, tailored to each student's level. Most importantly, students can ask for help in the exact moment they get stuck.
Closer look at exercise and feedback interaction
Underlying grid system makes parsing information easier and allow controls to fall neatly within swim lanes
The core pillar of the Sizzle brand is honesty about learning: the struggle is part of it. We help students stick through the hard parts. That philosophy is baked into the product. Every exercise gives students a way to get unstuck, so they can move between questions and learning content without losing momentum.
Prototyped a fluid way for students to ask questions and dive deeper into learning content
A closer look at key moments of the interaction
Our blank page problem
In our conversations with students we noticed that the biggest blocker for students isn't the material itself. It's getting started. Most students feel so far behind that they freeze when they sit down to study. We designed Study Plans to fix this with a day-by-day breakdown of exactly what to study and when.
The same course, restructured. A study plan turns units into daily to-dos
The study plan creation flow, end to end
Students receive timely alerts to help stay on track
Marketing the Product
Led design for the marketing site launch. A visitor should understand Sizzle in seconds and downloading it should feel like the obvious next step.
