UX Case Study
InTuition
A scholarship discovery platform for students who deserve better than the current process
InTuition is a web-based scholarship discovery platform designed for students who struggle to find, compare, and apply for scholarships across scattered websites.
The project explores how profile-based matching, smart filters, reusable application information, and peer support can make the scholarship process feel clearer, faster, and less overwhelming.
Project Snapshot
The scholarship process wastes the time of the students who can least afford to lose it.
Applying for scholarships is broken. Students spend hours hunting across dozens of websites, filling out redundant forms, and still miss opportunities they were qualified for. InTuition reimagines this experience: a single, smart platform that does the matching work for you.
We designed a profile-driven matching engine that surfaces relevant scholarships the moment a student builds their profile. A unified form applies that data across multiple opportunities, eliminating the redundant work that causes most students to give up halfway through.
The Challenge
The Scholarship Search Should Not Feel Like a Second Job.
What do students want from a scholarship platform?
Most platforms were built around browsability: more scholarships, better filters, cleaner layouts. They answered the wrong question. Students were not asking for more options. They were asking how to stop wasting time on options that did not fit.
- -Information scattered across dozens of unrelated websites
- -No way to know if you qualify before investing hours in an application
- -Redundant forms asked for the same data over and over again
- -No central place to track what was saved, in progress, or submitted
Students need structure, not more scholarships.
First-generation students especially lacked the institutional knowledge their more-connected peers took for granted. They needed a platform built around their actual process: understand options, check fit, apply efficiently, track progress, and get guidance from peers who had been through it.
- -Profile-based matching surfaces what actually fits
- -Eligibility and requirements visible before applying
- -Reusable application data eliminates repeated form-filling
- -Peer support grounds the experience in real student outcomes
Scope: Two months from problem discovery through high-fidelity prototype delivery.
Design Principles
Four principles that kept the design grounded.
Reduce Overwhelm
Students should not have to sort through endless opportunities without knowing what is relevant to them. The experience should filter for them, not ask them to filter everything manually.
Make Eligibility Clear
Scholarship requirements should be easy to understand before students commit time to applying. Students should know whether they qualify before they start, not after.
Reuse What Students Already Entered
Students should not have to repeat the same personal, academic, and financial information across every application. Enter it once. Use it everywhere.
Build Confidence Through Guidance
The platform should help students feel supported, especially when they are applying without strong institutional or family guidance. Clear structure reduces anxiety.
Discovery & Research
Understanding the student experience
through workshops and interviews.
Research Methods
Student Workshop & Interviews
User Persona
Rosa Sanchez
The Cool NerdAge
18
Status
High school student
Location
Maryland
Income
Lower-class
Employment
Part-time waitress
Goals
- -Find scholarships she actually qualifies for without hours of research
- -Fund college without taking on overwhelming debt
- -Apply efficiently alongside her part-time work schedule
Pain Points
- -Overwhelmed by scattered scholarship websites with conflicting information
- -No guidance as a first-generation college applicant
- -Limited time between school and work to search and apply
User Testing Observations
From prototype testing sessions
- We need to narrow down what the intention of the social page is
- Color choices need to make the website feel inviting
- Need to shorten some sections of text
- Could add in what it would look like to view another user's profile
Key Insights
Four patterns that shaped the design direction.
Overwhelm Blocks Action
Students described the scholarship search as emotionally draining. Not from lack of effort, but from the sheer volume of disconnected information to track without knowing where to start.
InTuition organizes scholarships through profile-based matching, smart filters, and clear application states so students can focus on relevant opportunities instead of managing the search itself.
First-Generation Students Need More Guidance
Participants who were first-generation college students reported feeling especially lost. They lacked the institutional knowledge that peers with more connected families take for granted.
The platform makes eligibility, deadlines, and next steps easier to understand so students are not left guessing about whether they qualify or what to do next.
Repeated Forms Create Drop-Off
Most participants mentioned abandoning applications mid-way because they had already submitted the same information elsewhere and did not want to fill it out again.
The reusable student profile stores key information once and applies it across multiple scholarship opportunities, reducing the repetitive work that makes people give up.
Social Proof Builds Confidence
Students trusted scholarship information more when it came from peers who had successfully applied. Hearing real stories made the process feel more achievable and less intimidating.
Peer profiles and community features connect students to others who have applied, making the scholarship journey feel less isolated and the outcomes feel more realistic.
Key Features
One platform for every step
of the scholarship journey.
Scholarship Discovery and Smart Filtering
InTuition surfaces scholarships that actually fit based on the student's profile. Smart filters let students narrow by deadline, award amount, eligibility, major, year level, and required materials so they spend time on opportunities worth applying for, not ones they will be rejected from.
- -Profile-driven matching runs automatically on setup
- -Filters by deadline, amount, eligibility, and major
- -Reduces time from search to qualified opportunity
Streamlined Applications
Students fill out one profile and reuse that information across multiple scholarship applications. The platform pre-fills form fields from stored data so each new application starts from a strong foundation instead of a blank form.
- -Stored profile data pre-fills application forms
- -Removes repeated form-filling across scholarships
- -Students focus on the application, not the paperwork
Reusable Student Profile
The student profile is the engine behind everything. Students enter their academic background, interests, financial need, and goals once. That data powers matching, pre-fills forms, and builds a track record of applications over time.
- -Single profile powers the full platform experience
- -Academic data, goals, and materials stored in one place
- -Profile grows stronger the more the student uses it
Networking and Peer Support
Students connect with peers who have successfully navigated the scholarship process. Real stories and direct messaging make the process feel achievable and give first-generation students guidance they would not otherwise have access to.
- -Peer profiles tied to scholarship confidence and outcomes
- -Community messaging for advice and shared experience
- -Support grounded in real student stories
User Journey / Core Flow
One place to discover, apply, and track without starting over every time.
Students needed one place to discover scholarships, check fit, apply, and track progress without rebuilding their application from scratch every time. The core flow was designed to reduce repeated work at every step.
Design Process
From rough sketches to a
fully interactive prototype.
Lo-fi Sketches & Wireframes
At the beginning, we kept the design rough so we could focus on the system instead of the styling. InTuition had to support multiple student needs at once: finding scholarships, understanding eligibility, applying efficiently, and learning from peers. The early sketches helped us figure out how those pieces should connect before committing to a polished interface.
Lo-fi Digital Mockups
Once the core idea felt clearer, we moved the best sketches into Figma. This helped us test the information architecture more seriously. The goal was to see whether students could understand where scholarships, their profile, and the social feed belonged within the same experience.
Medium Fidelity
In this phase, the product started to feel more real. We added stronger hierarchy, spacing, early colors, and clearer content blocks. This helped us see how students might scan scholarship opportunities and decide what to click first. The goal was to make the experience feel helpful without making it feel crowded.
Interactive Prototype
The clickable prototype connected the main experience from onboarding to scholarship discovery, application, and social sharing. This phase was important because it showed where the concept worked and where users still felt unclear. Testing revealed that the social page needed a sharper purpose, some text needed to be shortened, and peer profiles needed to connect more clearly to the scholarship journey.
Final Design
A unified platform that puts
students in control of their funding.
The final design brought the experience together as one complete scholarship platform. Instead of making students jump across websites, InTuition organizes discovery, matching, applying, tracking, and community in one place. The design became less about finding more scholarships and more about helping students know which opportunities matter and what to do next.
01. Onboarding
Students create an account and build the profile that powers matching and reusable application data.
02. Dashboard and Discover
The main hub. Students see matched scholarships, manage saved opportunities, explore the catalog, and track what is in progress.
03. Profile and Application
Saved profile data pre-fills applications. Students review, edit, and submit without starting from scratch.
04. Peer Support
Students connect with peers who have navigated the scholarship process. Community messaging and shared experience.
Interactive Prototype
Explore the InTuition experience.
Walk through the scholarship discovery and application flow.
Open prototype in Figma ↗Visual Guidelines
InTuition design language.
Typography
Header, Arima Medium
Header
Arima-Medium · used for primary headings and display text
Subheader, Arima Regular
Subheader
Arima-regular · used for section subheadings and navigation
Body, Albert Sans
Body · Albert Sans
Applied to paragraph text, labels, and UI copy throughout the platform.
Color Palette
Muted Violet
#504E76 · Primary brand color
Lavender
#CBCBE7 · Secondary / surface
Amber Gold
#FFBD36 · Accent / highlight
Deep Purple
#180727 · Background / dark
Validation / Feedback
Feedback that shaped the final experience.
Because this was a collaborative student project, validation focused on qualitative feedback rather than business or shipped metrics.
What Changed After Feedback
The social feature was refined so it connected more clearly to peer guidance and scholarship confidence.
Text-heavy sections were shortened to make the experience easier to scan.
The student profile became more central because it powers matching and reusable application information.
Scholarship cards were structured to make deadlines, award amounts, and eligibility easier to compare.
The prototype connected onboarding, discovery, applying, and peer support into a clearer end-to-end flow.
Reflection
What I Learned
This project taught me that the scholarship search is not only a discovery problem. It is also a structure problem. Students may have access to opportunities, but they need a clearer way to filter, track, and act on them without wasting time they cannot afford to lose.
Information Needs Structure
Students do not simply need more scholarships. They need scholarship information organized in a way that helps them decide what is worth applying for.
Reusable Data Reduces Friction
The profile became more than an account page. It became the engine that supports matching, applying, and reducing repeated work across the scholarship process.
Peer Support Needs Purpose
The social feature became stronger once it was tied directly to scholarship confidence, guidance, and shared experience rather than general networking.
The scholarship search is not a feature problem. It is a cognitive load problem. Students already have access to scholarships. What they do not have is a way to filter, track, and act on that information without it consuming time they cannot spare. That framing kept the design focused on structure and clarity rather than adding more discovery surfaces.
The biggest design lesson was that students do not simply need more information. They need information structured in a way that helps them act. Working collaboratively also meant learning to defend design decisions in critique: articulating not just what we built, but why a specific structural choice serves the student's actual moment of need.
Next Steps
If development were to continue.
If I continued developing InTuition, I would expand testing beyond college students and focus more directly on junior and senior high school first-generation students preparing to fund their higher education.
Test the platform with junior and senior high school first-generation students.
Study how early college-planning students compare scholarship opportunities.
Refine filters around eligibility, deadline, award amount, and education level.
Improve guidance for students applying for scholarships for the first time.
Expand support content around essays, deadlines, and financial aid preparation.