Dashboard for Streamlining Usability Testing 


I designed a usability automation dashboard that helps UX professionals streamline usability testing and prioritize actionable insights.


Overview

 FuguUX is a startup aiming to help UX teams automate usability testing using AI. The FlowFish dashboard transforms raw usability data into actionable insights, helping researchers, designers, and product managers prioritize issues, communicate impact, and make data-driven decisions efficiently.

My Role
I contributed to design and research efforts, conducting over 35 expert interviews and usability testing sessions. I designed wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes for multiple concepts, iterating based on user feedback. Our research insights and prototype helped align product strategy with real user needs, collaborating closely with co-founders and engineers, ensuring technical feasibility.

IMPACT

  • “This would finally help me show stakeholders how usability connects to revenue.” - UX Researcher, usability test participant
  • “Your presentation gave us a lot of promising ideas for the direction of our future endeavors.” - Client Team, final presentation
  • Helped client shift from reactive usability testing to a proactive, strategy-driven model more closely aligned with real UX team needs


ROLEProduct Designer TEAMClient Team: 2 Co-Founders, 2 Developers
Design Team: 1 UX Researcher, 1 Product Designer, 1 Creative Technologist, 1 UX Engineer SKILLSVisual Design
Interaction Design
PrototypingTIMELINE8 months (January to August 2024)


Context

fuguUX is a start-up founded in September 2023 seeking to help UX teams automate usability testing using Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs).


fuguUX is a startup founded by CMU professors, Jason Hong and Sauvik Das. Their goal was to help product teams identify and understand usability issues more effectively, reducing the manual effort needed for usability testing by using AI to detect common usability problems.

The vision was to make usability analysis faster and more scalable for UX teams working on real products.

When I joined the team, the product was in its first stage of production. The product would flag usability issues across web pages and fuguUX needed our help with improving the product’s usability and with shaping how this tool could fit into the daily workflows of UX teams.
We were also helping the client understand the target user groups the product was geared towards to shape the direction of product.

Our target users became UX researchers, designers, and product managers.



The Current Space

UX teams face multiple challenges:


Data overload

Too many usability issues without clear prioritization



Difficulties getting stakeholder buy-in

Hard to show a clear connection between UX problems and business impact



Constraints on time and resources

Designers need faster iteration, limited resources to address identified issues promptly



  • Our early prototypes focused on identifying usability problems, but user feedback revealed a need for prioritization and decision-making support. 
  • UX Teams needed not just insight, but prioritization, recommendations, and business alignment. 
  • So, we pivoted from “detecting issues” to “enabling decisions.”




Reframed challenge: How can FuguUX empower efficient and effective usability decision-making within UX Teams?





Ideation & Prototyping

We generated six distinct prototype concepts to address research insights.


After creating prototpes, we compared, combined, and iterated on solutions before narrowing down to the strongest concepts then used to develop further into high-fidelity prototypes.



User Testing

FlowFish provides actionable usability insights while allowing human oversight.


This image is a picture of my teammate and I testing our prototype at Config 2024.



 Once we narrowed down our strongest design concepts, we moved into iterative user testing to evaluate and refine them.

Goals of user testing:
  • identify friction points
  • validate most useful features
  • understand how well the interface supported our user's personal needs

Participants:
  • 25 UX Researchers, Product Managers, UX Designers

Key Insights from Research
  • Users wanted both automation and control. AI should assist, not replace human judgment. 
  • Prioritization was crucial: not all issues are equally important for users or business.
  • Visualizing impact helped stakeholders understand the value of UX work. 



    Design Solution
    Introducing FlowFish, a usability insights dashboard powered by AI


    Features Include:

    Usability Score and Customizable Views



    Problem

    Fugu’s MVP included an overall score, but UX teams struggled to understand its meaning and explore deeper insights.

    Solution

    Redesigned the usability score to provide a clear overview of site usability across web pages, with sections for deeper exploration.

    Mapping Usability Issues to Real User Journeys 



    Problem

    UX teams couldn’t easily identify which part of the customer journey was problematic or where users struggled.

    Solution

    Clickable flows display problem locations, impacted users, and video replays for context, pinpointing the part of the experience that needs to be addressed.


    Visualizing Business Impact



         Problem

    Stakeholders often didn’t see the value in usability fixes or lacked context for approval.

    Solution

    Highlighted which issues affect revenue, conversion, or success rates, helping teams prioritize high-impact fixes.



    Impact and Client Feedback

    Prioritizing and pitching to the client


    “This would finally help me show stakeholders how usability connects to revenue.” – UX Researcher“Your presentation gave us a lot of promising ideas for the direction of our future endeavors.” – Client Team

    • Shifted client from reactive to proactive UX strategy
    • Aligned product vision with real UX team workflows
    • Provided actionable insights for prioritizing fixes that drive measurable impact



    Key Takeaways

    Research early, even if it challenges initial assumptions


    • I learned that conducting more research is always necessary, rather than diving straight into design. When we were given our problem statement, it was crucial for our team to conduct user interviews to get the full picture of what pain points our audiences were experiencing, in order to solve the right problem. Aligning with real team needs is more powerful than a “cool” feature.

    Balancing speed and thoroughness is key in high-stakes, ambiguous projects


    • In this project, I learned to navigate ambiguity. From figuring out what to research, how to iterate designs, and trying to align with business goals without a pre set roadmap. 
      That flexibility gives me a lot of creative freedom while ensuring that I’m making a meaningful impact for users and the product.


    Thanks for scrolling, I’d love to help your team create great user experiences. Let’s work together:     LinkedIn     paulashin15@gmail.com




    ©2026 – Paula Shin