Olivia Catani

UX Designer · Purdue University

Making dense information easy to find, trust, and use.

I’m Olivia, a third-year User Experience Design student at Purdue with minors in Psychology and Innovation & Design. Across three sponsored studio projects I’ve co-led a redesign, designed AI features, and built accessible prototypes.

View case studies View résumé (PDF, opens in a new tab)
Olivia Catani smiling, with long brown hair and a black sweater, leaning on a glass railing beside a staircase inside a campus building.

Accessibility

Readable type, clear hierarchy, and layouts that work for more people from the first sketch.

AI integration

Finding where AI adds real value for users, and designing it so it stays understandable.

Usability analysis

Heuristic reviews, interviews, and testing to find where an experience breaks down.

Selected work

Sponsored studio projects

Three semester-long projects from Purdue’s UX Experience Studio, each done with a real industry sponsor.

Spring 2026 · Richard Group

Qualifications Database

One searchable home for a construction firm’s past projects and people, so proposals come together faster.

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Fall 2025 · Key Lime Interactive

Competitive Intelligence Portal

Research-backed AI concepts that make long competitive intelligence reports quicker to digest and share.

Read case study
Spring 2025 · CorpusKey

AI Grading Platform Redesign

An end-to-end web redesign of CorpusKey, an AI-powered grading platform for professors and teaching assistants. I co-led the project with seven other Purdue UX designers.

  • Streamlined core user flows and modernized the site architecture to make grading tasks easier.
  • Applied WCAG accessibility standards across key touchpoints for a more inclusive interface.
  • Worked directly with the sponsor to turn complex product requirements into wireframes, interactive prototypes, and scalable visual designs.

Case study 01 · Spring 2026

A single source of truth for Richard Group

Richard Group, a Chicago general contractor, kept project history scattered across spreadsheets and tools. Our team designed a Qualifications Database that lets marketing, business development, and operations find past projects and qualified people in seconds.

Sponsor
Richard Group, Chicago
My role
UX designer on an 8-person team
Timeline
January–May 2026
Tools
Figma, FigJam

What I did

  • Collaborated on background research and competitive analysis to find market opportunities and shape product strategy.
  • Designed accessible, high-fidelity prototypes in Figma.
  • Wrote project documentation, design specifications, and design system components for a smooth handoff.
Project directory, card viewFilters, selected-filter pills, and a card/list toggle help users narrow hundreds of past projects.

The problem

Proposal teams at Richard work on fast, unpredictable deadlines. The history they need to prove experience (project descriptions, costs, photos, subcontractors, and who worked on what) lived in many places at once.

Our interview with Richard’s Proposals and Marketing Manager surfaced the real cost:

  • Some projects had no description, so staff searched or rewrote from scratch.
  • No one could tell whether data was current, so everything got double-checked.
  • The same information lived in several places, so people waited on each other to move forward.

How might we…

  • help users trust the information shown without needing to double-check?
  • connect related information to speed up workflows?
  • show and find a project’s details quickly?
  • help users spot gaps in information?

  1. Understand the current process

    Background research on CMS, CRM, and PIMS tools, a comparative analysis of about a dozen products, a proposal-manager journey map, and a stakeholder interview.

    Comparative analysisJourney mapInterview

  2. Structure and sketch

    Information architecture for projects, employees, and saved lists, then timed five-minute sketches for eight core screens and a full set of lo-fi wireframes.

    IASketchingLo-fi wireframes

  3. Test and iterate

    Weekly sponsor reviews shaped the mid-fi screens. Usability sessions with participants pointed to confusing search bars, unclear sort labels, and text that felt too small to scan.

    Mid-fi prototypeUsability testing
Competitor affinity diagramGrouped findings from tools like Procore, Buildertrend, and Loopio into workflow, UI, and AI themes.
Interview synthesisInsights sorted by user group, proposal process, data priority, and workflow.
Information architectureGlobal navigation, directories, profiles, and saved lists mapped before any screens were drawn.
Lo-fi wireframeThe directory’s filter-plus-cards structure carried straight into the mid-fi design.

Key screens

Side panel previewBrowse several projects and compare details without losing your place in the search.
Project profileFull view with testimonials, attachments, and comments added after sponsor feedback.
Spreadsheet import with conflict checksHighlights new and conflicting values so users choose what’s current before anything is saved.
Shared saved listsCollect projects and people for a proposal and share the list with teammates.

What changed from feedback

Designed for trust and speed

  • The app opens straight to the Project Directory, with single sign-on through the firm’s Microsoft setup.
  • A CSV import flow maps columns, flags conflicts, and highlights missing data.
  • Tabs keep every open profile available, so cross-navigating never loses your starting point.
  • Tiered admin permissions separate who can edit from who can view.

What I learned

Test with the people who’ll use it

Scheduling kept us from testing with Richard employees, so we tested with members of the public. It still caught real issues, including text too small to scan comfortably. That reinforced for me that accessibility checks belong in every round, and that domain experts catch problems general testers can’t.

Case study 02 · Fall 2025

AI that makes research reports easier to use

Key Lime Interactive publishes in-depth competitive intelligence (CI) reports, but subscriptions had been declining. We looked for where the reports’ value was getting lost and designed AI concepts that bring it forward.

Sponsor
Key Lime Interactive
My role
UX designer on a 6-person team
Timeline
August–December 2025
Tools
Figma, FigJam

What I did

  • Designed key AI features: the interactive chatbot, the predictive analytics graph, and an automated PowerPoint export tool.
  • Redesigned the main dashboard and sidebar navigation to make everyday tasks quicker.
  • Took concepts from early wireframes to high-fidelity interactive prototypes over several design rounds.
Chatbot conceptOne assistant that answers questions about any report and opens specialized tools.

The problem

An interview with Key Lime’s lead UX researcher showed that customers trusted the depth of the data. The reports themselves were hard to digest, summarize, and share, so the strongest insights stayed hidden.

Our heuristic evaluation of the portal, based on Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics, pointed to the same thing:

  • Too much scrolling, with no way back to the top.
  • Wordy pages and weak visual hierarchy.
  • Links that didn’t look like links.

Guiding question

How might we design concepts that solve the pain points in the current CI report experience and can be built on in the future?

  1. Find where reports fall short

    Internal review of sample reports, a heuristic evaluation of five portal sections, and a competitive analysis against Baymard and Corporate Insight.

    Heuristic evaluationCompetitive analysis

  2. Prioritize what matters

    An SME interview, a 20-minute individual sketching workshop, and a usability-versus-feasibility matrix to rank feature ideas.

    SME interviewIdeationPrioritization matrix

  3. Concept and validate

    An AI sprint on how other products use AI, a dashboard moodboard, lo-fi prototypes, and a focus group with Key Lime’s president and leadership team.

    AI sprintLo-fi prototypesFocus group
Competitive analysis summaryKey Lime against two competitors on design, presentation of information, and innovation, rated good, flawed, or poor.
SME interview synthesisFindings sorted into value, limitations, customer needs, and what to add.
Lo-fi dashboardCard-based entry point with quick insights and report summaries.

Final concepts

AI battle cardsTurns a long report into a shareable side-by-side snapshot of a company and its competitors.
What-if analysisExplore a strategic change and see likely benefits and risks drawn from historical data.
Predictive forecastingVisual projections that help teams plan ahead instead of reacting.
Where it startedEarly sketch placing AI trend forecasting inside existing report graphs.

Result

One AI hub the sponsor wanted

Leadership reviewed twelve concepts. They favored what-if modeling, battle cards, and the chatbot, then suggested combining them into one central AI tool. The final mockups show that hub working inside the dashboard, with each feature also able to stand on its own.

What I learned

Tie every idea to a user need

The sponsor saw our dashboard redesign as mostly cosmetic. That pushed us to connect each concept to where the reports were failing users and explain why AI helps there. I now start concept reviews with the problem, then the feature.

About

Hi, I’m Olivia.

I’m a third-year student at Purdue University working toward a Bachelor of Science in User Experience Design. I found UX through high school courses in graphic design, animation, AP Computer Science Principles, and digital design, and I’ve been hooked on how design shapes the way people feel about technology ever since.

I love understanding user behavior and turning that insight into interfaces that are both functional and good to look at. My psychology minor feeds straight into that work, and I’m especially drawn to accessible design and to finding responsible, useful places for AI.

I grew up speaking English and have working proficiency in French. Outside the studio, you’ll find me outdoors, working out, or spending time with friends.

Education

  • Purdue University, West Lafayette
  • B.S. User Experience Design
  • Minors: Psychology, Innovation & Design
  • August 2024 – June 2028 (expected)
  • GPA: 3.57

Tools

FigmaFigJamHTML/CSSAdobe PhotoshopAdobe IllustratorAdobe InDesignCanva

Skills

User researchUser interviewsUsability testingA/B testingHeuristic evaluationCompetitive analysisInformation architectureUser flowsWireframingPrototypingDesign systemsAccessibility / inclusive design

Awards & certifications

  • Award of Excellence in the Caribbean Community (2024)
  • National Honor Society (2020–2024)
  • French II, III & IV Award (2022–2024)
  • CPR Certification (2022–2026)

Languages

  • English (first language)
  • French (working proficiency)
View full résumé (PDF, opens in a new tab)

Contact

Let’s work together.

I’m based in West Lafayette, Indiana, and looking for UX design internships and collaborative projects. The best way to reach me is email.