Designing Unibuddy’s new ambassador mobile app

INTRODUCTION

Company objectives

Unibuddy’s existing app was shared between prospective students and ambassadors, but it suffered from frequent bugs, poor usability, and a low App Store rating. At the same time, Unibuddy had launched a separate student app for a different use case. To simplify the experience and better support each audience, the company made a strategic decision to merge the student apps and spin off a dedicated ambassador app.

To better serve our users and improve product quality, my squad was tasked with designing and delivering this new ambassador app — focused on messaging, content creation, and a seamless user experience.

Key results

1. Reduce ambassador app complaints to zero

2. Increase monthly active users (MAUs)

3. Achieve a user satisfaction score of 7+

4. Improve ambassador response rate & time

5. Transition 100% of ambassadors to the new app

Old ambassador app

The previous ambassador app included the essential features: messaging, content tools, and notifications; but the experience was buggy and frustrating to use. While we had some feedback from users, it lacked depth and clarity. To identify the key pain points and uncover new opportunities, we kicked off a round of targeted user research.

QUALITATIVE USER RESEARCH

Goal

Understand ambassadors’ current experience in order to make informed design decisions for the new app. Particularly around messaging, usability, and content creation.

Research objectives

1. Explore how ambassadors currently use Unibuddy on both mobile and desktop

2. Identify major pain points with the existing app, as well as aspirations for a new experience

3. Understand their perceptions of Unibuddy’s content tools, their role at their university, and their interest in creating short-form content

Participants

I interviewed 12 ambassadors via Zoom, aiming for a diverse mix across geographies, education levels, and experience with the platform. This helped ensure we captured a broad perspective on what works, what’s broken, and what’s missing.

Key insights

🔧 App stability & performance

• Frequent bugs: crashes, freezing, delayed message loading, and login issues

• App often logged users out unexpectedly

• Unable to send longer messages (text box would freeze after multiple lines)

💬 Chat experience

• Desire for richer chat features: emoji reactions, image sharing, reply functionality, and support for formatting (e.g. bold/italic)

• Frustration with organizing resolved chats and searching past messages

• Requests to send clickable links and receive more context about prospects before chatting

📹 Content creation

• Ambassadors were interested in creating short-form content but found the existing tools unintuitive

• Wanted simpler interfaces and support for video content

📬 Notifications

• Current email notifications were seen as spammy or irrelevant

• Preference for summaries like: “Here’s what you missed” rather than individual message pings

⏱️ Time tracking & recognition

• Issues with the accuracy of time tracking features

• Some interest in receiving feedback or performance ratings from prospects after chats

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

With a clear understanding of ambassador needs, I began shaping the foundational structure of the new app. The first step was defining a logical and intuitive information architecture, critical for helping users navigate with ease, discover features quickly, and ultimately stay engaged.

Although we wanted to improve the experience significantly, we also knew it was important not to completely reinvent the structure. Keeping familiar patterns in place would help existing users feel comfortable and reduce onboarding friction.

After exploring multiple iterations and considering how the app might evolve over time, I landed on a core structure with four key areas:

• Chats: A central hub for conversations, including a way to resolve chats clearly and manage ongoing threads

• Content creation: A dedicated space for ambassadors to easily create short-form content

• Content library: A view of all content—both personal and from other ambassadors—to enable easy sharing during chats

• Account & settings: A profile and preferences section, where users could manage their details and notifications

This structure balanced the needs we heard in research (especially around content and messaging) with the need for long-term scalability and ease of use.

STORY MAPPING

Working closely with the product manager, I used the information architecture as a foundation to map out the app’s key features. We focused on identifying which features were essential for launch and which could be deferred. This helped the squad prioritise effectively and move in a more agile way, ensuring we could release a valuable product quickly without compromising on quality.

Through this process, we made intentional trade-offs to streamline scope for the MVP. Some notable features that didn’t make it into the initial release included:

• Article creation: We assumed ambassadors would continue writing long-form content on the web platform, where the experience was already established and better suited for that use case.

• Account creation and profile editing: These features were deprioritised, as users would first join via the web and be directed into the app afterwards. Editing profile details was not considered critical within the mobile experience for launch.

This approach allowed us to focus on the core user needs uncovered in research — seamless messaging and lightweight content sharing — while laying the groundwork for future iterations.

LO-FI DESIGNS

With the information architecture defined and the MVP scope aligned, I began exploring low-fidelity design concepts. I used a Figma design kit as a starting point, adapting and creating components where needed to support new use cases. My focus at this stage was on rapid iteration and validating layout ideas that balanced usability with future scalability.

Resolved vs unresolved inbox

One of the first problems I tackled was how to separate active and inactive conversations. Ambassadors had no clear way to manage their inbox, and old messages were often mixed in with ongoing ones — leading to clutter and missed responses.

On the admin side of the platform, conversations are marked as resolved once they no longer need action. We wanted to bring a similar experience to the ambassador app, while also encouraging ambassadors to actively resolve chats. This would not only help them stay organised but also make it easier for admins to oversee performance and manage workload.

I explored multiple approaches to inbox structure and navigation. Below are two early iterations showing different ways of separating resolved and unresolved chats.

Content creation flow

A key flow I needed to design was how ambassadors would create content within the app. Initially, we planned to support both video uploads and article writing. The goal was to make this experience feel fast, intuitive, and low-friction — drawing inspiration from familiar platforms like Instagram and YouTube.

I explored several approaches to the content creation entry point. One early concept was a simple bottom sheet showing all available content types. This was lightweight and scalable, allowing us to easily add new options in the future.

However, we eventually leaned toward a card-based approach. While slightly more complex to build, it gave us space to include helpful context or examples — making the experience more informative for first-time users and easier to extend as new features were introduced.

Content/resource library

The content library was designed as a personal and shared space. Ambassadors could view and edit their own content, while also browsing content created by peers. This served two purposes:

1. Inspiration: Seeing what others were creating helped motivate ambassadors to contribute their own content

2. Discovery and reuse: Ambassadors could familiarise themselves with content that already existed, making it easier to share relevant pieces in conversations with prospective students

This area also laid the groundwork for more community-driven features in future iterations.

HI-FI DESIGNS

UI decisions

Using Unibuddy’s design system as a foundation, I made the decision to use our mint/teal color as the primary accent throughout the app. This choice gave the app a fresh, modern, and youthful feel — aligning with the ambassador audience — while also conveying calmness, trust, and inclusivity. As a gender-neutral and accessible tone, it helped ensure the app felt welcoming to everyone.

This also kept the app consistent with Unibuddy’s brand identity, while allowing the interface to remain clean and focused — prioritising function, clarity, and readability.

Visual elements throughout the app were designed by our in-house graphic designer, adding illustrations and icons that brought personality to the experience. These visuals helped users quickly understand each page and their available actions, while making the app feel more engaging and human.

Onboarding

To support both new and returning ambassadors, I introduced a lightweight onboarding flow. The aim was to familiarise users with key functionality and new features without slowing them down.

Some key moments included:

• Highlighting the new swipe-to-resolve chat feature

• Educating users on how to report inappropriate messages

• Giving a quick overview of content creation and chat organisation tools

This flow helped drive faster adoption and reduced support questions post-launch.

Inbox & Chat

Building on the lo-fi explorations, I designed the inbox to clearly separate resolved and unresolved conversations. I borrowed interaction patterns from familiar apps like WhatsApp (e.g. their archive flow) to create a smooth and intuitive experience.

• A prominent counter at the top displays the number of unresolved chats, encouraging ambassadors to stay on top of their inbox

• This separation helps avoid confusion between unread and unresolved messages — making it easier to manage conversations effectively

• After resolving conversations, ambassadors are nudged to create content — reinforcing that there’s always something meaningful to do within the app

The chat UI itself remained minimal, but carefully considered. I redesigned message bubbles and refined the display of timestamps and date markers to create consistency across platforms and improve readability.

Safety & blocking

Student safety is a top priority. As a result, I designed a flow for ambassadors to block and report users who were behaving inappropriately. The report flow allows ambassadors to provide a reason, giving admins important context for follow-up.

Although we plan to introduce advanced moderation features in the future (like chat transfers or content sharing directly from the conversation view), safety features were prioritised for this first release.

Content creation

Creating and sharing content is a core part of the ambassador role. But from our research, we learned that many ambassadors weren’t sure what to post or lacked inspiration.

While we explored more advanced ideas like using AI to suggest content based on past conversations and profile data, we opted for a simpler solution at launch:

• A lightweight, welcoming UI for creating videos

• Generic prompts and encouraging copy to help spark ideas and reduce friction

This approach gave us a fast, scalable starting point while leaving room for smarter suggestions in the future.

Resources

The Resources section allows ambassadors to manage and share both their own content and content created by their peers. This helps with two key goals:

• Inspiration — seeing what others are creating encourages participation

• Efficiency — ambassadors can easily reuse helpful content in chats with prospective students

While the long-term vision includes features like AI-suggested replies, shared links, saved answers, and admin tasks, the MVP focused on two core areas:

• My content — a personal space to track and edit their own videos and articles

• Peer content — a place to browse and share peer-created content

We used consistent visuals for both views to reduce development effort and maintain a cohesive look and feel.

Documentation

Clear documentation was essential to ensure a smooth handoff and reduce ambiguity during development. While most design decisions were captured directly in Figma using components, annotations, and page organization, I made sure to provide additional clarity where needed — especially in areas where interaction, layout, or platform-specific behavior might be misinterpreted.

Some things I documented:

• Spacing and layout rules — consistent paddings, margins, and grid use across screens to maintain visual harmony

• Component behavior — how components respond to different states (e.g. loading, empty, success)

• Colour usage — applied our mint/teal palette with clear hierarchy and contrast guidelines, ensuring accessibility and consistency

• Typography — defined font sizes, weights, and use cases to match our design system and maintain clarity across views

• Microinteractions — explained how animations or transitions (e.g. swipe to resolve, onboarding flows) should feel, including edge cases

These details helped the engineering team deliver more efficiently and confidently, while also making it easier to QA during testing.

IMPACT

• Bug-free relaunch: Delivered a fully rebuilt mobile experience that addressed long-standing technical issues and significantly improved user satisfaction

• Stronger customer trust: Allowed us to re-engage with university partners and ambassadors confidently, sharing a clear message that we had listened to feedback and acted on it

• Shift to mobile: Increased the percentage of daily active users on mobile, indicating a shift in preference from desktop to mobile

• Faster response times: With more ambassadors using mobile, response rates improved — helping prospects get answers more quickly and efficiently

• User satisfaction score of 8.2/10 post-launch

• Zero complaints submitted about the new app after rollout

• 300% increase in ambassador engagement, measured by message volume and content creation