BuildMe
3–4 hoursIntermediate

Redesign a Screen That Frustrates People

Maps to: Designer · Product Designer, UX Designer, UI Designer, Design Systems Designer

You're going to take a real screen that frustrates people (a confusing checkout, a cluttered app, a signup that makes you give up), diagnose what's actually failing the user, and redesign it to fix THAT. The skill is product judgment: deciding what 'good' means for a real user's problem, committing to a tradeoff (faster checkout might mean fewer options on screen), and defending every change by how it helps, including the boring loading, empty, and error states most designs skip. That's the durable side of design, the part that's about decisions not decoration, and doing one tells you fast whether solving user problems is your kind of work.

The plan

0/4 done

You're 20% in just for starting, the hardest part. Mark your first step done to keep the momentum.

  1. Pick a screen or flow that genuinely frustrates people (or a single component, like a signup form, with all its states). Then resist the urge to say 'it's ugly' and instead diagnose what actually FAILS the user: who are they, what are they trying to do, and where exactly does it break? That problem statement is your whole compass.

    Objective: A chosen screen and a written problem statement: who, trying to do what, failing where.

    1. 1

      Pick the screen/flow/component. Real frustration beats a famous app; something you've actually struggled with.

    2. 2

      Write the problem: the user, their goal, and the specific thing that fails them. The AI can help you articulate the user/persona, but the read on what's wrong is yours.

      Tool: Claude or Gemini

    Your call

    Choose the screen and write the real user problem (who, doing what, failing where) before opening a design tool.

    The user, what they're trying to do, and the one thing that fails them.

    What good looks like: Your problem statement names the user, their goal, and the specific thing that fails them, sharp enough to judge every later change against (not 'it's ugly').

    • 'It's ugly' isn't a problem statement. 'A first-time user can't tell which button submits' is.
    • Narrow to ONE problem. Solving one real thing well beats restyling everything.

The bar to look back against

A before/after redesign (or a component with all its states) where every change is justified against a stated user problem, you can say what you optimized for and what you sacrificed and why, you handled the edge states AI skips, and you tested it against at least one real reaction and published it. The judgment is the work: not 'it looks nicer,' but 'every change earns its place against the problem.'

Finish the final step, then submit what you built. Your progress is saved.

Tools you'll use

Step 1 · Pick a screen and name the real problem

Claude or Gemini Free

An AI to sharpen the user problem/persona and pressure-test whether your design actually solves it.

Best for: M1 to define the problem; M4 to role-play a skeptical PM if you can't get real testers.

Step 1–2 · Commit your tradeoff, then redesign

Figma (free Starter) Free

The industry-standard design tool; the free Starter tier covers designing a screen, building components with all their states, and clickable prototypes.

Best for: Everything in this card, start to finish, for free.

Figma Make / Figma AI Free

Prompt-to-UI: describe a screen and it generates editable variants you can react to.

Best for: Spinning up options to react to and cut against your problem, after you've decided what you're solving. (Free to try on Starter.)

Step 2–3 · Build the before/after and defend every change

v0 or Lovable Free

Turn your redesign into a clickable, real build.

Best for: Optional upgrade: make the before/after something people can actually click.

How this shows up on a resume or college app

I redesigned a real product screen against a stated user problem, diagnosing what was failing users, committing to a design tradeoff, and defending every change by how it served the problem (including the loading, empty, and error states most designs skip). I learned that product design is about decisions under a real constraint, not making things pretty, and that 'good' is defined by the user's problem, not taste.