🎯 This project has been handed off and is expected to ship Fall 2025!
In Summer 2025, I joined AlphaMed to tackle a critical conversion challenge within their service. While shaping the product vision, I specifically focused on conducting user research with families to identify trust barriers, and translating those insights into a reliable and intuitive interface.
THE PROBLEM
AlphaMed is an academic counselling service that guides students through medical school admissions. Since its launch, they have supported over 150 students in securing placements at top universities worldwide.
While AlphaMed’s success has largely grown through personal networks, this acquisition strategy reveals a hidden flaw: the website offers no value proposition for first-time visitors.
COMPANY INSIGHTS
To diagnose the problem, I needed to understand the business from the inside out. I scheduled a 90-minute stakeholder interview with AlphaMed's founder to understand goals, challenges, and customer journey.
Parents seek credibility, students seek connection
AlphaMed was struggling to resonate with their two audiences by failing to account for their different needs. Parents view academic counselling with skepticism, while students seek empathetic counsellors who understand the emotional toll of admissions. I reframed the challenge to reflect the needs of both groups:
IDEATION
Building off these insights, I mapped each barrier to a design opportunity. The goal was to help visitors quickly understand why AlphaMed is a credible, specialized, and student-focused counselling service.
ITERATION
In 2025, AlphaMed achieved acceptance rates well above national averages. My goal was to present these results upfront to establish trust, while avoiding the data-heavy content that could overwhelm visitors. I explored various iterations of the landing page to prioritize the most impactful metrics and determine the best way to communicate them at a glance.
V1. Quantitative Metrics
✓ Statistics allow parents to research national averages and validate claims independently
✕ Parents unfamiliar with admissions may not be able to interpret certain statistics
✕ Numbers lack memorable differentiation and are easily forgotten
V2. Brand Recognition
✓ University logos bypass analytical thinking and trigger immediate emotional response
✓ Borrows institutional prestige by associating with top-tier universities
✕ Without context, university logos could appear as cherry-picked examples
Medical school applications span multiple stages including entrance exams, personal statements, and interviews. User research revealed that parents felt overwhelmed figuring out what each offering entails. I iterated on the service cards to clearly break down the cost, timeline, and deliverables of each package.
V1. Single Accordion with Breakdown
✓ Explore services in depth without distraction from other offerings
✓ Minimizes vertical scroll by collapsing content into a scannable format until needed
✕ Must interact with each accordion to compare, difficult for decision-making
V2. Side-by-Side Service Cards
✓ Enables quick comparison of prices, duration, number of sessions, and deliverables
✓ Immediate service breakdown that addresses major pain point (unclear offerings)
✕ Users seeking specific services must read through irrelevant options
Earlier, AlphaMed shared that their counsellors are recent graduates who personally navigated medical school admissions. This presented an opportunity to highlight their personal stories and build authentic connection. I explored multiple ways to present counselor profiles to make them feel approachable.
V1. List View with Details
✓ Dedicated space for personal stories, student testimonials, and expertise tags
✕ Small, tightly-packed cards create cluttered and overwhelming appearance
✕ Users lack key details to determine which counsellor profiles to expand
V2. Grid with Expandable Description
✓ Quickly assess total team size, diversity, and university affiliations before diving into details
✓ Larger profile photos humanize counsellors and build trust immediately
✕ Users seeking specific services must scan through irrelevant options
FINAL DESIGN
Embrace UX Methodology
Methods like affinity mapping once felt unnecessary, but they revealed patterns I couldn’t have spotted through intuition alone. These tools surface insights that strengthen every design decision.
Seek Feedback Continuously
I’ve learned to approach client communication as an ongoing collaboration rather than a one-off presentation. Regular check-ins lead to stronger ideas, clearer alignment, and better outcomes.
