Luca AI
Overview
I worked with Luca AI as a UX design intern — the company's first dedicated UX practitioner — tasked with assessing where their AI Co-Founder product stood, and where it required action, from a UX standpoint.
Over the engagement, I:
- Audited 12+ product flows across Luca AI's platform and direct/indirect competitors
- Made the case for long-term, dedicated UX investment, which was embraced by the CEO, and built the style foundation and research framework it argued for
- Redesigned nearly 50 web app screens and 30 email templates
- Shipped a color-coded email notification system to production in summer 2026
- Shaped feature direction through concept brainstorming with leadership and iterative prototyping
- Rebuilt and launched the company's website in summer 2026 using Claude Code and Webflow's MCP, delivering editable, no-code designs the team has since maintained and evolved independently
Skills
Constraints
- Constraint
Nobody on the team had prior UX experience, meaning little-to-no guidance on process, best practices, or scope.
- Response
My first deliverable was a written scope for my own role. That scope expanded quickly into "out-of-scope" territory — including a style foundation for the product and a full product redesign — as the work kept revealing what was actually missing. I adapted and shipped several components of both before I left.
- Constraint
No design function to inherit, and no system beyond a handful of hex codes — against a product that was already shipped. This meant balancing new ideas against existing product function and brand image.
- Response
I set down a simple single-document style foundation — color, type, buttons and motion — and art-directed generative tooling against it (FigmaMake, Claude Design, Claude Code), writing prompts with exact hex values, typefaces, and animation easing curves to police consistency and prevent rogue AI design choices.
- Constraint
The website prioritized content for AI crawlers and webscrapers, which restricted how much I could modify the AEO/GEO-optimized text content I was given.
- Response
I worked directly with the external content specialist to clarify content purpose and prioritize information architecture, and designed mobile views separately from desktop to work within those content constraints.
- Constraint
An 8-hour timezone gap between me and the rest of the UK-based team significantly reduced working-hour overlap, and made it difficult to schedule user interviews with a mostly Europe-based clientele.
- Response
I reviewed meeting recordings and organized notes/input independently, delivering findings asynchronously through 1-on-1s and daily updates to keep the team aligned despite the gap.
- Outcome
Off the back of navigating these constraints, I made the case directly to the CEO for long-term, dedicated UX investment — a written argument for treating UX as a standing function rather than a one-off engagement.