As the sole UX designer at Airea, I’m redesigning key user flows for campaign creation and workspace management. I collaborate closely with engineers, executives, and marketers to improve usability and streamline workflows within a fast-paced, agile startup environment.
Jan 2025 - Present
BACKGROUND
Description
Airea is an AI-powered marketing automation platform that helps businesses create, manage, and launch multi-channel campaigns. It streamlines content creation, automates execution, and centralizes marketing efforts—simplifying campaign management while maintaining brand consistency.
Beta Product Dashboard
CHALLENGE
Airea AI’s setup process involves multiple steps and often requires users to enter the same information more than once. Navigation is unclear in places, and key workflows lack guidance—slowing users down and causing confusion
Because the platform is in active development, my focus is on small, high-impact improvements that enhance usability without disrupting the roadmap.
Initial screens
After collaborating with the product owner, founders, and lead developer, we identified seven UX priorities. With a small overseas dev team and limited resources, I worked closely with engineering to evaluate feasibility early and focus on high-impact, realistic improvements.
Identify areas for opportunity and weigh potential solutions by their level of impact & effort required.
Make the process of creating a new ad campaign and creating a knowledge base quicker.
Ideate on future improvements for a future roadmap for Airea's product features.
After discussions with the product owner, founders, and lead developer, we outlined seven key UX goals for future improvements. Given our small, dev team and limited resources, I worked with engineering to assess feasibility early, ensuring that any of my proposed solutions were both high-impact and realistic. We then prioritized improvements based on effort vs. impact, focusing on changes that would deliver the most value the quickest.
Identify areas for opportunity and weigh potential solutions by their level of impact & effort required.
Establishing Priority
Since we are focused on low-effort, high-impact solutions, combing the info input from 3 pages to 1 page created less tasks for the user and is a simple solution for our dev team.
Make the process of creating a new ad campaign and creating a knowledge base quicker.
Visually connect the various product features to the overall experience.
EASY WINS
The Problem: Initial Airea navigation is flat and confusing
Current task hierarchy creates confusion by very different features presented in an equal lateral navigation bar. Similar tasks like campaigns and new campaign do not have the same level of importance and could be regrouped. Similarly, there is already an account icon in the corner of the screen and does not require another separate tab on the navigation.
The Proposal: Similar features regrouped
Looking for easy, low-effort wins, the campaign and new campaign were an easy fix as well as consolidating the account and billing settings.
Previous campaign screens
The Outcome (2): Regrouped navigation bar
With more clearly grouped tasks, we are able to simplify the left navigation bar and keep the tasks focused.
The Outcome: Combined "Campaigns" + "New campaign"
This was an easy, low-effort and high impact fix. Since everything on the back-end already exists, this solution is successful because it creates a more focused navigation experience.
CORE IMPROVEMENT - 1
After prioritizing with the team, we identified model training as one of the most critical workflows to improve. The current setup requires users to upload brand guidelines and marketing materials across three separate pages, with little guidance. This led to confusion, duplicated input, and unnecessary friction early in the campaign-building process.
The problem:
Users had to visit multiple sections to upload brand assets, enter URLs, and provide prompts—slowing down setup and creating drop-off points.
Existing flow
Improved flow
The proposal:
I designed a single-page experience where users could upload docs, add brand links, and input written prompts all in one place.
This solution was well-received by both the business and dev teams. It reduced friction for users and was technically feasible, making it a clear go-ahead. It’s now guiding development for the upcoming release.
The current form-like layout presents all tasks at once, which can feel overwhelming—especially to first-time users.
The Outcome:
While the idea was initially exciting to the team, we decided not to move forward. The increased number of steps added unnecessary friction and complexity for experienced users, who valued speed over structure.
A step-by-step guided flow to reduce cognitive load and make the process feel more approachable.
CORE IMPROVEMENT - 2
Alongside model training, the campaign creation process was identified as a top priority to improve. In its original form, the flow was spread across 8 separate pages, requiring users to switch contexts, repeat inputs, and navigate multiple steps just to get started.
The Problem: Fragmented Setup
The original campaign creation flow asked users to input brand information, upload assets, and configure campaign settings across multiple disconnected screens. This resulted in a disjointed user experience, created confusion, and slowed down the process for marketers.
The Proposal: Streamline into a simple, focused workflow
Since we are focused on low-effort, high-impact solutions, combing the info input from 3 pages to 1 page created less tasks for the user and is a simple solution for our dev team.
The Outcome: Less user input and reduce mental load
The proposed design was well-received by both the business and engineering teams. It aligned with our goal of pursuing low-effort, high-impact improvements, and was technically simple to implement. This new flow is now guiding how the campaign creation experience will be built moving forward.
ASPIRATIONAL PROJECTS
The Problem: Disconnected Features and Flat Navigation
Things feel separate, hard to understand what connects to what, and how to navigate the different features. Marketers using this would interact with campaigns the most so making that the more prominent feature is important. Also creating a home that feels more like a home, giving marketers an at-a-glance view of their projects.
The Proposal: A Connected, Campaign-Centric Workspace
I began ideating a new dashboard experience that puts campaigns at the center, giving marketers a familiar and actionable space to manage campaigns, generate creative copy, and get updates on their current projects.
The Outcome: A future unified dashboard
The proposed dashboard, which combines key features into a single, campaign-focused workspace, was met with enthusiasm from both the CEO and managing director. While it’s not a current development priority due to ongoing business and technical considerations, the concept has strong support across the team and is positioned as a key part of Airea’s future product vision.
Feature ask: campaign metrics
In parallel, the CEO and managing director asked me to explore a future-facing feature: campaign performance metrics. I conducted a quick research sprint to understand which metrics matter most to Airea’s core users.
After speaking with a marketer from a sister company, I learned that conversions, click-through rates, and cost per acquisition were the most meaningful indicators of performance.
Users who saw but didn’t click on an advertisement
Key Data: Conversion rate, attribution window
Engagement rate per each ad impression
Key Data: Engagement rate per ad impression
The total cost to acquire a new customer
Key Data: Ad spend, total conversion
Drill-down details
Detailed Campaigns page
Typography selection
Design System
Although a CSS reference sheet existed, I reverse-engineered each component and rebuilt them in Figma as an interactive, responsive design system. This allowed for clearer prototyping, more accurate interaction testing, and smoother communication with the dev team during handoff.
Currently creating an inventory for reactive components for existing elements and elements I am redesigning. This is helpful for the devs when referencing my Figma files to communicate the extent of my ideas technically.
Ongoing async check-ins ensure clarity around interaction behavior, edge cases, and technical feasibility.
I continue to support the dev team by providing annotated design specs, walkthroughs, and prototypes.
As features go live, I gather internal feedback to identify improvement areas and refine the UX further.
This was my first experience designing in a fast-paced B2B SaaS startup environment. It required adapting quickly to agile processes, aligning closely with a small dev team, and balancing user needs with business and technical realities.
Clear, proactive communication was essential for aligning design decisions with product and engineering priorities.
Working with a small overseas dev team taught me how to communicate asynchronously using annotated Figma files, Loom videos, and organized documentation to avoid blockers.
With limited resources, I learned to weigh effort vs. impact and focus on changes that provided the most value with the least complexity.