Designing using AI, with strategy and criteria
How I redesigned an entire platform in 3 months using AI to accelerate the work without losing empathy and human touch.
Case Study
Finlink
Context and my role
An existing platform with a loyal user base and a stable number of paid users, but frozen growth. Think of it as LinkedIn for Financial Advisors. They were looking to renovate the platform and incorporate new technologies to reach new audiences with a stronger product.
I was in charge of redesigning the entire platform, refreshing the brand, and proposing AI integrations across the user experience. This was a 3-month project where I worked closely with two developers and the Head of AI, while staying in direct conversation with stakeholders.
In this case study, I’ll tell you more about how designing with and for AI, with strategy and criteria, can optimize the development process without losing empathy or the human touch.
Research and Design System
Before improving, you need to know what's working and what's not. I audited the existing platform and interviewed 4 real users to understand their behavior, goals, and pain points.
To keep moving forward, I took a strategic decision to simultaneously set the foundations of the Design System on Figma, planning it with AI in mind:
Documented for GenAI, ensuring WCAG contrasts and general guidelines, setting clear foundations and constraints. This decision allowed me to move faster and more effectively, dedicating more time to finding the right solutions and less to mechanical design tasks (like manually creating a focus state for every component, ugh).
Optimized for development. I worked with Figma MCP + Claude Code to quickly get to code. The correct labeling and tokenization of the Design System allowed me to do this without worrying about noisy code that would become a problem in the future.
During this project, I used Figma Make as a GenAI tool to create quick prototypes. I chose Make because it allows me to edit the design manually when needed. Two of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen on projects using GenAI are overly-generic designs that are not memorable and end up prisoners of a heavy credit-consuming system.
This way, I can make and try iterations manually, avoiding credit consumption, and polish the designs with human criteria, for them to really feel premium.
Design process
From interviews and my audits, one thing was very clear: Information Architecture was a mess; users couldn’t find anything. I redesigned the architecture to allow more intuitive navigation between social and work features, but that wasn’t enough for 2026.
As LLMs became more popular, users expected to be able to run complex searches in natural language, so I proposed an AI-powered global search across the platform. Users can just ask the AI Agent what they need, from finding a job that fits their profile to finding a buyer for their practice or events in their area.
Everything is connected and easy to access through conversation, or through traditional navigation and search to avoid frustration of users not interested in conversational experiences.
A few other things worth mentioning:
I designed the logo for Lynk, the AI Agent, merging the brand logo, which has established credibility, with the classic AI sparkles that clearly communicate what’s going on.
I also designed base email templates and created a specific set of tokens and instructions on Claude Design that allows even non-technical roles to generate HTML emails ready to wire up and send, from “Recover your password” to marketing campaigns.
Conclusions
Incorporating AI in this fast-paced, short-term project helped me accelerate design times. And designing with AI in mind allowed me to deliver a strong system that doesn’t depend on a lot of designer time, especially when it’s something as simple as creating a new email template or even testing out a new screen. It gives the client flexibility and ownership.
When done with design criteria, and not just for AI-FOMO, these models can make a project more effective without losing product strategy.
If you want to know more about the features I planned and designed on this project, feel free to reach out for a meeting!