Bringing Apollo into Krowe’s workspace

Role

Product Design Intern

Team

Mandy Liu

Anushka Rane

Riddhima Patllollu

Ryan Nikopour

Tools

Figma, Figma MCP, Claude Code, Cursor

Timeline

Jun 2026 to Sep 2026

Summary

I designed hotkey and edge-hover access to Apollo, taking it from an interactive prototype through CEO approval to shipping across eight dashboards.

Scope

AI Interaction Design

User Acceptance Testing

Onboarding

Design Systems

Design to Code Handoff

What shipped and what the pilot measured

8

dashboards shipped with hotkey/hover invocations

23%

shorter time to next value in a small activation pilot

Context

An assistant on a separate page

The CEO supplied AI-generated drafts. I refined their hierarchy and interaction patterns in Figma so people could ask Apollo for help while keeping the current project in view.

Krowe is a client workspace for agencies and freelancers. Apollo reads project documents and acts on tasks, but reaching it meant opening the Agents page or knowing a shortcut.

Activation pilot

23%

improvement in time to next value

Test focus
Onboarding and agent activation

Read this as directional
Combined changes do not isolate the effect of each interaction.

Research

Test the path to first value

I established Krowe’s first user acceptance testing pipeline to evaluate onboarding and agent activation. The pilot gave the team a repeatable way to review how people reached value in Apollo.

The small pilot recorded a 23% improvement in time to next value. This is directional evidence from combined activation changes, so it does not establish which design change caused the improvement.

Onboarding

Refine the onboarding sequence

Center the onboarding question

The CEO’s draft placed a workspace preview beside each question, which split attention between the preview and the choice. I centered the choices while keeping the questions, then connected the revision in a clickable prototype.

Revised

Earlier

Save identity for later

I moved identity later so people could start with short choices. The identity and teammate forms share field widths and alignment as the sequence moves toward a shared workspace.

Access

Bring Apollo into the workspace

Share navigation across the hub

I brought the Agents Hub into the navigation shared by the other dashboards. Its catalog and recent runs stay together, while dashboard entry points remove the need to return to the hub for every request.

Earlier

Revised

Let search become a prompt

The search bar opens the command palette so a page or task search can become a request to Apollo. People get a visible entry point, with a hotkey available for repeat use.

Keep the project beside the conversation

The 420px sidebar leaves the current project visible beside Apollo. In the 1440px design, 1020px remains for the workspace, so someone can refer to a task or document while asking about it.

Offer actions before a blank prompt

Slash commands such as /add-task and /draft-doc show what Apollo can do before someone writes a request. The verbs give people a starting point inside the composer.

Give each action a destination

The /add-task action has a visible destination on the build board. Its columns show status and its cards hold task details within the same workspace navigation.

Keep runs available after dismissal

The queue keeps the run accessible after someone closes the sidebar. A completion banner offers a way back when Apollo finishes.

Identity

Give Apollo a voice during a run

Name the stage of a run

When Caw became Apollo, I redesigned the mark around a rocket and kept Krowe’s colors. I wrote 38 status phrases across nine phases to describe work such as reading context or composing an answer.

Make completion easier to notice

The first completion banner blended into the page, so I gave it an orange fill and border. That treatment was intended to make a finished run noticeable without suggesting an error.

Workspace

Keep a familiar frame across documents

Set release scope before drafting

PRD setup asks which modules belong in the first release before opening the editor. A suggested option provides a starting point, with other modules and a write-in choice still available.

Keep the outline within reach

The outline stays beside the requirements as the PRD grows. I reused Krowe’s navigation so moving between editors would not mean learning a new page structure.

Keep cost groups readable

Grouped costs lead to a project total in the quote editor. Its outline and top navigation follow the same pattern as the PRD and contract editors.

Carry the same frame into contracts

A familiar document frame holds scope and service terms in the contract editor. I kept its typography and corner radii consistent with the other editors and Apollo.

System

Reuse the interaction patterns

Reuse the choice states

Single-choice and multiple-choice cards share the same base. A border marks selection; multiple-choice cards add a checkmark.

AI agency