The Abbey
The Abbey is a platform that helps students take advantage of the free news subscriptions their universities already provide, but most don’t know about. By bringing high-quality journalism into one place, The Abbey makes it easy for students to find, share, and discuss trusted articles with friends, classmates, and campus groups. It’s designed to encourage smarter conversations and better access to information, without the noise of social media or paywalls.
My Role
Lead Designer
Project
Part-time Work
Timeline
Fall 2024
Tools Used
Figma
Overview
Background
The idea for The Abbey came about when Nelson Bellows, a graduate from Wesleyan University, discovered that there was a desire share articles with friends interning in finance, tech, and startups. He wanted people to connect and learn from each other whenever they found content relevant to their work. Members of Wesleyan University’s College of Social Studies used The Abbey to regularly post content relevant tutorial readings and discussions, as well as international developments and other significant news pertaining to the college’s discussions. Nelson and his co-founder, Tanay Kommareddi, built and launched the MVP for The Abbey and gained early traction from 15+ universities, including Harvard, Penn, and Trinity. When it came time to build out the second iteration, Nelson contacted me to help with the redesign.
MVP Exploration
Understanding existing application and its UX/UI
User Journey Mapping
Identifying Pain Points and Edge Cases
A key component of the redesign was deeply understanding the end-to-end user journey and identifying where friction, confusion, or edge cases were most likely to occur. The journey map below illustrates the complete onboarding flow — from initial email verification through full account creation. Throughout this process, we considered critical factors such as confirming student status, capturing graduation year to automate future access expiration, managing secure API calls, and implementing two-factor authentication. These insights shaped a more seamless, secure, and intuitive onboarding experience.
V2 Redesign
Proposed Redesign of The Abbey with Modern UX/UI
Challenge
Problem Statement
Many students have free access to news subscriptions through their school accounts, yet most either aren’t aware of these benefits or don’t know how to activate them. How might we increase student awareness and activation while encouraging more engagement through reading, sharing, and informed discussions around current events?
The Abbey Demo | Figma Prototype
Shown is a full demo of The Abbey redesign, walking you through everything from Onboarding to creating a post, joining a group, and sharing it amongst friends. The goal was to create a more modern, cohesive, intuitive design that makes for a more enjoyable experience.
Reflection
Takeaways
Although Nelson ultimately chose not to move forward with The Abbey before we launched V2, the experience was incredibly rewarding. Collaborating with him to reimagine how the product could better serve his vision pushed me to think more critically and creatively about the role design plays in product strategy. It also gave me the opportunity to strengthen my own design craft, work asynchronously with a small team, meet tight deadlines, and take full ownership of the product’s end-to-end design. The project reaffirmed how much I enjoy building alongside ambitious, mission-driven founders
