Concept project completed as part of the CareerFoundry Product Design program. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or commissioned by Tim Hortons. All brand names and marks belong to their respective owners.
Project Overview
The Tim Hortons AI Assist project reimagines mobile coffee ordering as a conversation. Instead of navigating through menus, multiple wizards, and customization screens, customers place an order by simply saying what they want , "my usual," "a medium iced capp, less ice", and a conversational AI assistant builds, confirms, and checks out the order inside a single persistent chat thread.
Problem:
Tim Hortons app and kiosk customers struggle to navigate the menu, customize their orders, and decide what to order. These issues lead to longer ordering times, missed personalized recommendations, and increased frustration. The current system lacks real-time, interactive assistance, which negatively impacts user experience, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.
Goal:
Design and integrate an AI chatbot into the Tim Hortons app that delivers personalized recommendations, streamlines ordering, and offers instant support , targeting a 20% increase in repeat customers and a 15% increase in new customers within six months.
My role:
Product Designer, end-to-end. I owned the experience strategy, user flows, interaction design, the design system, prototyping, and usability testing. My background in Quality Engineering and Business Analysis shaped a systems-led, risk-aware approach. It treats edge cases, error states, and technical constraints as first-class design inputs.
Responsibilities:
Problem definition & How-Might-We framing
Competitive analysis (Starbucks, McDonald's)
Persona & user stories
User-journey-map workshop facilitation
User flows
Mid-fidelity wireframes
Usability test plan, moderation & reporting
Hi-fidelity design system (color, type, spacing, and radius tokens)
Interactive prototype
Component library
Developer handoff
Solution:
A conversational ordering feature inside the Tim Hortons iOS app: a persistent scrolling chat thread with natural-language understanding. First-time and returning users get tailored paths. New users get onboarding. Returning users get "my usual" and saved-payment fast-tracking. The experience includes a universal store picker, size-gated drink customization, graceful error and out-of-stock handling, and in-thread support.
User Research
Research combined two methods: secondary/competitive analysis of how Starbucks and McDonald's handle mobile ordering and AI, and workshop-based journey mapping with stakeholders and users to locate the emotional low points in the current Tim Hortons ordering experience.
DEFINE
With the research in hand, I turned findings into a clear point of view. I distilled the recurring signals into three pain points, grounded them in a persona, Aisha Khan, a recent graduate applying from her phone, and traced her journey from first search through submitted application. One insight anchored everything that followed: at every step, entry-level users are silently asking "Am I doing this right?" Answering that question became the definition of the product. Three principles carried it into design: clarity over clutter, guidance over choice, confidence over speed.
Pain Points
Discovery:
Entry-level and senior roles appear in the same feed, forcing job seekers to open listing after listing just to check if a role is truly entry-level. Filters offer no career-stage guidance, so users must judge their own eligibility, wasting time and building frustration before a single application is sent.
Evaluation
Job requirements read as dense walls of text with no way to quickly tell what is essential. Roles labeled "entry-level" still ask for prior experience, so users who meet the real requirements doubt their qualifications and hesitate at the exact moment they should be applying.
Application
For someone who has never applied before, the application itself feels high-risk. There is no sense of how many steps remain, what happens after submitting, or whether anything was done correctly. That uncertainty turns interest into anxiety, and anxiety into abandoned applications.
User Personas
Research signals synthesized into one representative user. Aisha Khan anchors every design decision that follows.
User Journey Map
Aisha's end-to-end journey on Indeed, from first search to submitted application. Each moment of hesitation became an improvement opportunity.
Goal
Find relevant entry-level job opportunities and complete applications in a clear, guided, and confidence-building way.
Ideate
ith the problem defined, I moved from insight to structure. I started at Aisha's biggest moment of hesitation, "Should I apply or not?", and mapped a user flow that removes uncertainty at every step: post-login entry, career stage pre-selected, a guided apply path, and a review before submit. The information architecture kept choices deliberately narrow, so each screen answers one question instead of presenting ten. From there I explored layouts on paper, translated the strongest direction into digital wireframes, and ran an early round of usability testing to validate the structure before investing in visual design. The pattern across every decision was the same: fewer choices, clearer progression, less room for doubt.
User Flow
Aisha's path from login to submitted application. The flow branches for first-time and returning users, keeping steps minimal on both paths.
I built the user flow by analyzing the existing Indeed structure and identifying friction points for both new and returning users. The flow starts post-login, separates entry-level and student paths, and simplifies search and filter decisions so Aisha never has to self-judge eligibility. At the apply step it branches cleanly: first-time users upload a resume and fill their details, while returning users reuse their saved information and go straight to review. Both paths converge on a single review before submit, so no application leaves without a final check. The goal at every junction was the same: reduce hesitation, minimize steps, and carry users from discovery to submission without a dead end.
Information Architecture
The app's page organization and content hierarchy. Each screen carries one decision, so Aisha moves from discovery to application without confusion.
I structured the information architecture by mapping the full journey from login to confirmation and identifying the decision-heavy moments along it. Screens are grouped by user intent, Discover, Evaluate, Apply, Confirm, with unnecessary branching removed so progression stays predictable. New and returning user logic separates early in the apply stage, which keeps both paths short instead of forcing one path to carry every condition. Each page shows only the information that step requires. Anything that could wait was deferred, and anything that could distract was cut. The result is a structure where the next action is always obvious, which is what guidance over choice looks like at the architecture level.
Paper Wireframes
Quick pen and paper structure for every screen in Aisha's flow, from home to confirmation. Testing hierarchy and intent before any pixels.
sketched the full journey on paper first, one frame per stage: home, entry-level job list, job details, the three apply steps, and confirmation. Working at this speed made structural problems cheap to find and fix. Each sketch answered two questions: what does Aisha need to see on this screen, and what is the one action it should drive? Elements that competed with that action were cut or demoted before ever reaching digital. The result was a validated skeleton for the flow, so the wireframing stage could focus on refinement instead of discovery
Digital Wireframes
The paper structure translated into low-fidelity Figma wireframes, covering the complete flow for both first-time and returning users.
I translated the validated paper structure into low-fidelity wireframes in Figma, covering the complete journey: home, job list, job details, resume upload, contact and education, review, and confirmation. A returning-user subflow was wireframed alongside it, where saved details carry forward and Aisha lands directly on a pre-filled review. Every screen follows the same rules: minimal visual noise, one clear next step, and progression Aisha can see. Working lo-fi kept attention on structure and hierarchy, so layout decisions were settled here and the visual design stage could concentrate purely on tone and polish.
Design
With the structure validated, I moved from wireframes to the final visual experience. I set a visual direction calm enough to lower the stakes of applying, then built a token-driven design system, color, typography, spacing, and iconography, so every screen draws from the same rules instead of one-off decisions. The first high-fidelity pass translated the wireframes into polished screens, and a round of usability feedback on those screens drove a second iteration: clearer hierarchy, less clutter, and fewer competing actions at each decision point. The refined designs became an interactive prototype simulating the complete entry-level journey, from first search to submitted application, for both first-time and returning users.
Moodboard
Reference patterns from Mobbin and Dribbble that shaped the tone: calm, card-based, and confidence-building. Studied, not copied.
For visual direction, I studied polished job platform and onboarding patterns on Mobbin and Dribbble to understand what makes an interface feel calm rather than transactional. The direction I set was deliberately quiet: strong hierarchy, generous spacing, familiar patterns, and small entry-level cues that tell Aisha she is in the right place. For color, I explored two palettes and selected Indeed Dark Blue (#002057) as the foundation, building on Indeed's brand heritage while shifting to a deeper, more confident tone. I generated the full primitive color scales with uicolors.app, then mapped them to semantic tokens for text, surfaces, borders, feedback, and icons, validating contrast ratios as I went. A restrained orange accent is reserved for the two moments that matter most, Apply now and Submit application, so the interface itself points to the primary action. Typography runs on a single Inter scale, and spacing and radius sit in token sets, keeping every screen consistent by construction rather than by discipline.
Design system
A cohesive design foundation that defines the app’s visual identity through structured color scales, accessible typography, and consistent UI components to ensure clarity, scalability, and brand alignment.
From the visual direction I built a working system, not a set of one-off screens. Primitive color ramps generated with uicolors.app feed semantic tokens that carry roles: navy for trust, orange for the primary action, neutrals for calm, with green and red reserved for feedback. A single Inter scale covers everything from page titles to captions, and spacing, padding, and radius live in variable sets for mobile and desktop. The strictest rule is the smallest one: orange appears on exactly two buttons in the product, Apply now and Submit application, so the interface itself points at the action that matters. Styling is never applied screen by screen. A screen references a role, not a hex, which keeps the design consistent, accessible, and scalable by construction.
Detailed, interactive version of the design that closely reflects the final product’s visual style, functionality, and overall user experience
High-fidelity Iteration 1
• Transformed low- and mid-fidelity wireframes into a polished mobile-first interface
Refined typography, color usage, and component consistency to align with the entry-level confidence theme.
Strengthened visual cues such as career-level tags, step indicators, and CTA prominence.
Simplified filter access and improved dropdown behavior based on usability feedback.
Designed guided, step-based apply screens to feel predictable and manageable.
Focused on thumb-friendly interactions and clean vertical flow for mobile usability.
High-fidelity Iteration 2
Usability testing sessions with senior designers
After usability testing sessions with senior designers, I refined the experience to reduce friction and remove unnecessary distractions. The updates focused on simplifying navigation, strengthening clarity on the landing page, and keeping users fully engaged during the application process.
Key Improvements
Moved search functionality directly onto the landing page to eliminate an extra navigation step.
Integrated the search bar within the hero section and updated the hero messaging for stronger intent and clarity.
Added visible search filters on the landing page for quicker job refinement.
Removed the previously added “Need Career Help?” text and link based on feedback to reduce visual clutter.
Eliminated top navigation elements (messages, notifications, profile) during the application stepper to avoid distraction.
Removed the bottom navigation during the apply flow to prevent unintended exits and maintain focus until submission.
Usability Studies
I conducted unmoderated usability testing with two participants using the initial low-fidelity wireframes of the Indeed Entry-Level redesign..
Participants completed core tasks such as browsing entry-level jobs and submitting an application while sharing observations. The testing focused on identifying moments of mild confusion or hesitation so the experience could be simplified further before final design implementation.
Issues:
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Some participants experienced minor confusion seeing Student, Internship, and Experienced roles displayed together.
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A few paused briefly to determine which section applied to them.
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A couple of participants expected filtering options earlier in the process.
Solution:
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Converted career level options into a dropdown selector.
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A few paused briefly to determine which section applied to them.
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A couple of participants expected filtering options earlier in the process.
The shipped experience. A structured audit of edge cases, states, and accessibility, executed with AI assistance under my direction.
High-fidelity Iteration 3
For the final iteration I worked with AI as a production partner, directing it through structured design reviews while I owned every decision. Together we extended the flow beyond the happy path and added the stages most designs skip. Job cards gained an explicit Entry-Level tag, filters moved into a bottom sheet with clear selected states, and every form field received inline validation with an error summary. New screens covered the fragile moments: an empty state with a recovery action, an applied state that prevents duplicate submissions, a discard dialog that appears only when data would be lost, and a submitting overlay. Every change was checked against the token system and WCAG contrast requirements before it landed. The result is the shipped experience: calm on the surface, accounted for underneath.
Outcome
The outcome is a focused, mobile-first redesign that feels intentional rather than overwhelming. Every screen answers Aisha's quiet question, "Am I doing this right?", so entry-level users move from discovery to submitted application with less hesitation and more confidence.
Takeways
Small structural changes can significantly reduce hesitation. Relocating search and pre-selecting career stage did more than any new feature.
Removing distractions improves completion more than adding features. The most impactful decisions in this project were subtractions.
Clear hierarchy and step-based flows create predictability, and predictability is what confidence feels like from inside the interface.
Impact:
Clearer career-stage selection, so Aisha never self-judges eligibility against a mixed feed.
Navigation suppressed during the apply flow, keeping users fully focused until submission.
A guided, state-complete experience, with errors, empty states, and recovery paths designed rather than left to chance.
What I learned:
Simplifying an experience does not mean reducing functionality. It means prioritizing intention. Minor layout decisions, like relocating search or suppressing navigation during critical steps, influence user confidence more than any visual flourish. I also learned to treat feedback as a design material: both rounds of iteration came directly from structured reviews, and the discipline of auditing edge cases at the end, every error, empty, and exit state, is where a design earns the word finished.
Next Steps
Design and ship the tablet and desktop breakpoints, extending the mobile-first system to a fully responsive experience. Early tablet exploration is already underway.
Conduct moderated usability testing with a broader group of recent graduates to validate the confidence thesis at scale.
Refine filters and job card clarity based on behavioral insights from that testing.
Explore application tracking and saved jobs across devices, extending confidence beyond the moment of submission.
Conduct moderated usability testing with a broader group of recent graduates to validate the confidence thesis at scale.