As a leading test prep platform, UWorld offers students high-quality questions and explanations—but users needed a better way to capture and review key concepts in their own words. Many were copying notes into external tools like Google Docs or One Note, breaking focus and increasing friction during study sessions.
My Notebook was built to solve this by giving students an integrated, flexible note-taking system directly inside UWorld. As Senior UI/UX Designer, I led the end-to-end design of this feature—from discovery and research to wireframes, prototyping, and implementation—working closely with product, engineering, and QA to ensure a smooth and impactful launch.
Students couldn't take or organize notes within UWorld, forcing them to use external tools.
Switching between platforms caused context switching, distraction, and inefficient studying.
External tools lacked integration with UWorld content (e.g. Copyrighted Images), making it harder to review relevant notes later.
Increase in-platform engagement and time on site.
Reduce reliance on third-party tools like Google Docs or One Note.
Add value to UWorld's premium offering.
Conducted surveys with students across USMLE, NCLEX, and MCAT users to understand their study workflows.
Held user interviews with students to l
Competitive analysis of third-party note taking tools to understand what students liked and what they found lacking.
Over 70% of users reported wanting to copy and paste content into external tools.
Students wanted to link notes back to specific qustions or topics.
Many desired organizational features like tagging, folders, and search.
Notes needed to be accessible across devices, especially mobile.
Seamless note-taking workflow: No disruption to study sessions.
Organizational flexibility: Tags, folders, and search for fast retrieval.
Scalable and customizable interface: Designed to grow with the user's content and flexible in how they want to take notes.
Cross-device accessibility: A consistent, responsive experience across mobile and desktop.
Sketching & Low-Fidelity Wireframes: Sketched early concepts of different capabilities and view points (e.g., pop-up notebook vs side-by-side view)
High-Fidelity Design & Prototypes: Created high-fidelity prototypes that showed the end-to-end process and interaction of folder structures, tagging systems, and search filters.
Design Handoff and QA: Collaborated with developers and QA to maintain consistency and functionality through implementation.
Enhancements:
Iterated based on feedback to simplify layout, reduce friction, and improve overall experience.
Students can instantly save notes from any question, without leaving the interface.
Highlight and add-to-notes feature allows for easy copying of content into notes.
Create folders and notes by subject, topic, or exam type.
Add tags and keywords for custom filtering and smarter review.
Search functionality to find notes quickly when reviewing.
Optimized for note-taking and review on the go, with consistent performance across devices.
Time-on-platform increased as students spent more time reviewing notes and studying within UWorld.
Reduced reliance on external tools, streamlining the study experience and improving platform stickiness.
Positive feedback highlighted how the tool made studying more efficient and less fragmented.
Integrated tools improve user flow: Embedding note-taking within the core product reduced friction and increased usage.
User feedback drives smarter design: Iterating with real students helped ensure the feature aligned with actual habits.
Organization matters: Students with hundreds of notes need powerful but simple ways to structure and search content.
Mobile-first thinking is essential: Ensuring full functionality on mobile boosted accessibility and adoption.
