a mobile app that helps researchers discover, organize, and track academic papers and labs.
a mobile app for researchers to discover papers and labs, organized around 26 research topics instead of journals.
owned the information architecture and every key design decision; used figma make to generate directions fast, then refined every screen and interaction by hand.
delivered the core screens, ia, and a live figma prototype in a one-month contract, nov 2025.
synapse is a mobile app for academic researchers: browse topics, follow institutions and labs, get paper recommendations, save papers into collections. i was brought on to design the core screens and the information architecture.
organize the app around research topics instead of sources like journals or universities. researchers think in questions and fields, not publication venues. the ia is 26 topics, each with subtopics; a gradient on each topic card signals how closely its subtopics relate, without forcing a rigid hierarchy.
TOPICS (26) ├─ neuroscience │ ├─ cognitive · computational · clinical ├─ climate science │ ├─ atmospheric · oceanography · modeling └─ ai & machine learning ├─ nlp · computer vision · reinforcement learning SURFACES ┌──────┬────────┬──────┬───────┐ │ feed │ topics │ labs │ saves │ └──────┴────────┴──────┴───────┘
ai generates options. the designer picks the right one and refines it.
figma make produced around ten directions per screen. i picked the strongest and refined it. the ai scaffolded components; i owned spacing, rhythm and every interaction. the final product is mine, but i got there faster because the ai handled the first draft.