2026 / MOBILE APP · 0→1 · MULTI MODAL
Hiya Hub
AI-powered communication tool for large scale event coordinators to accelerate decision making in various live event situations
MY ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
7 months
TEAM
Product Designers: Yu-Cheng Yang, Jinmao Wang, and Angela Clemente
Principal Product Designer: Ryan Kazda
Senior Product Researcher: Greg Reeser
Principal Product Manager: Ryan Adams
RESPONSIBILITIES
Design Concept, Wireframes, Component Design, Visual Design, Prototype, Usability Testing, Iteration, User Interviews, Field Observations, Competitor Analysis, Affinity Maps, Research Analysis.
Project Overview
Live events run on fast decisions and constant communication. Event coordinators juggle calls, texts, group chats, and radios while keeping track of hundreds of moving pieces in their heads.
Event coordinators manage critical information across calls, texts, radios, and group chats while keeping track of hundreds of moving pieces in their heads. With no single place to track what needs action, they rely on memory to connect the dots and follow through.
Hiya Hub reduces that mental load by turning live conversations and scattered communication into clear, actionable tasks, helping teams stay aligned when every minute counts.
MY SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES
Led research synthesis across 14 event coordinator interviews and 2 field observations, informing 3 core features: AI-assisted routing and reassignment, AI-suggested messaging, and context carrying.
Owned the high-fidelity design of Hiya Hub, translating the team’s research and workflows into the final product interface and interaction design.
Built the interactive prototype in Claude Code, tested it with 9 event coordinators, and iterated the experience based on their feedback.
The Solution
Augmenting how coordinators already communicate.
Hiya Hub is an AI-powered live communication tool that helps event teams by bringing live communication, context, and follow-up into one workflow. The experience was designed around three principles:
Preserve the speed and flexibility of voice
Turn open issues into persistent tasks that teams can act on
Keep AI transparent and under human control.
By bringing live communication, context, and follow-up into one workflow, Hiya Hub helps coordinators identify what needs attention, assign next steps, and keep the team aligned as conditions change.
Research shaped 3 principles for turning live communication into action with these features:
1. Scattered responsibility → AI-assisted routing and reassignment
Finding the right person to handle an issue takes time.
Hiya Hub suggests who should handle the issue next, reducing the mental effort of figuring out who to contact while keeping the final decision in the coordinator’s hands.
2. Time pressure → AI-suggested messaging
When every second matters, composing the next message becomes another task.
Hiya Hub suggests context-aware messages that coordinators can review, edit, and send, helping them respond faster without giving up control.
3. Information disappears after conversations → Context carrying
When conversations end, unresolved issues still need somewhere to live.
Hiya Hub carries key context forward into persistent tasks and status updates, so coordinators can see what still needs action without relying on memory.
WORKING WITH COMPONENTS IN FIGMA
The three core features reuse the same AI suggestions, status states, and actions across different flows. Because I owned the high-fidelity design, I used our shared Figma library, created components for the flows I owned, and reused or refined components built by teammates.
For coordinators working hands-busy and under time pressure, these repeated patterns made the interface easier to recognize and act on. They also let me apply usability changes across the prototype without redesigning each screen separately.
Research
User Research: Field Observation and Interview
I led research synthesis from 14 event coordinator interviews and 2 field observations, analyzed with affinity maps and why/how laddering methods and revealing four recurring patterns:
Time pressure is constant
Coordinators make rapid decisions while the event continues moving around them.They shift between multiple roles
At any moment, they may be a problem solver, decision-maker, and team orchestrator.High mobility makes communication harder.
Coordinators are constantly moving through noisy, crowded environments while trying to stay connected.Communication is fragmented across tools.
Critical information is spread across calls, texts, radios, and group chats, making tasks harder to track and follow through.
"I wouldn't adjust how I communicate. I just wish I had a better tool to communicate. Our workflow is good, but we need a better tool." — P04
SO.. WHAT DID THOSE FINDINGS MEAN FOR THE PRODUCT?
Voice needed to stay fast and flexible
Coordinators did not want to change how they already communicated during live events. Instead of replacing voice, we designed around it and kept voice communication at the center of the experience.
Open issues needed somewhere persistent to live
Important requests were often buried across calls, texts, and radios, forcing coordinators to remember what still needed follow-up. We turned unresolved issues from conversations into persistent, actionable tasks.
AI needed to support decisions, not make them invisibly
Because coordinators are responsible for what happens during the event, they needed to understand and control AI-assisted actions. We made AI suggestions visible and kept routing, reassignment, and messaging under human control.
The Decision I made
I kept advocating for the user, even when the team wasn’t aligned yet.
During research synthesis, I saw recurring needs that I felt we were at risk of overlooking. Rather than dropping the concern when the team disagreed, I continued advocating for what we were hearing from coordinators while staying open to another synthesis method proposed by my teammate.
We worked through the research together, and the additional synthesis reinforced those patterns. That decision ultimately shaped 3 core features: AI-assisted routing and reassignment, AI-suggested messaging, and context carrying.
Usability Testing
We ran two rounds of usability testing with 9 event coordinators to understand whether Hiya Hub could stay clear and actionable under the conditions coordinators actually work in.
Round 1: Testing the interaction
We tested with 5 event coordinators while they were standing, using one hand, and listening to event ambience to better simulate a live-event environment.
Round 1 simulated live-event conditions.
The core task-based experience was easy to scan, AI suggestions were useful, and all participants were able to place a call without assistance.
But testing exposed two areas of friction: the dashboard carried too much information, and some labels and actions did not match coordinators’ expectations.
Round 1 feedback led us to simplify the dashboard, clarify status, and bring actions forward.
Round 2: Testing beyond our network
Because our first participants were recruited from our network, we ran a second round with 4 professional event coordinators with 10+ years of experience, recruited outside our circle. This round was conducted remotely due to time constraints.
Round 2 tested the revised experience with four out-of-network professional coordinators with 10+ years of experience.
The revised status system aligned with how participants already tracked event progress, and AI suggestions remained useful when managing multiple demands. Testing also revealed two remaining opportunities: coordinators wanted to act directly from the Status Log, and all four participants wanted to filter contacts by group.
The status system worked, but testing revealed that coordinators also wanted to call, message, or forward directly from the log.
Round 1 helped us simplify the experience. Round 2 helped us validate the direction and identify where the workflow still needed to become more actionable.
Outcome & Impact
Coordinators already communicate constantly, but the information is difficult to act on.
Hiya Hub resulted in a high-fidelity, interactive prototype built around three core capabilities: AI-assisted routing and reassignment, AI-suggested messaging, and context carrying across conversations.
Across two rounds of testing with 9 event coordinators, we refined the dashboard hierarchy, clarified terminology and actions, and made it easier for coordinators to act on information within their workflow.
The final direction reinforced a key insight from our research: coordinators didn’t need a new way to communicate. They needed a better way to carry context, track what still needed action, and follow through without slowing down.
Hiya Hub showed that better coordination wasn't about adding more communication, but making existing communication easier to act on.
Reflection
Strong conviction, open mind
I learned that advocating for users doesn’t mean defending my own interpretation at all costs. I can hold a strong point of view while still being open to another method, and use the evidence to help the team reach alignment.Test the interaction, not just the concept
Usability testing reminded me that a strong product direction can still create friction in the details. Simplifying the dashboard, clarifying terminology, and refining actions made the experience easier to understand without changing the core idea.Augment, don’t replace
I learned to design around behaviors that already work instead of introducing change for its own sake. For Hiya Hub, that meant preserving the speed and flexibility of existing communication while making the information easier to track and act on.
Next Steps
1. Complete the remaining product flows and AI logic
Build out unfinished features and implement the AI logic behind routing, messaging, and context carrying.
2. Stress-test Hiya Hub during real live events
Validate how the experience holds up under high mobility, interruptions, competing conversations, and time pressure.
3. Define AI fallback behavior
Explore how Hiya Hub should respond when confidence is low, the suggested person is unavailable, or an issue remains unresolved.
Advisor Perspectives
Gracia and her team turned research into a solution that fit their audience, iterating without getting attached to the first idea. I highly recommend Gracia as a thoughtful designer with strong product vision.
Ryan Adams
Principal Product Manager at Hiya Inc.
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