Designing the AVA Software
Designing intuitive software experiences that support scientific research.
Timeline
Organization
Role
Skills
January - August 2026
UI/UX Designer
Figma, Client Relations
Emulate, Inc.
LONG STORY SHORT..
I independently led the UI/UX design for AVA’s software experience, collaborating with the product team throughout the process.
Over eight months at Emulate, I designed user-centered software experiences for AVA, a platform that enables scientists to manage and conduct complex cell culture experiments. Working across a multidisciplinary team, I translated complex scientific workflows into intuitive, scalable interfaces. Here are some of my accomplishments:
Single Channel Regulate
THE PROBLEM
One of our clients needed a special type of Regulate Cycle to conduct their experiment
AVA’s existing Regulate Cycle was designed for experiments using fluid flow through both channels, meaning ____. However, the Wyss Institute’s bone marrow experiment required flow through only a single channel, making the existing interface unsuitable for configuring and managing their experiment.
How might we adapt AVA’s Regulate Cycle to support single-channel experiments while ensuring user confidence?
INITIAL ITERATION
My initial idea was to give users the option to choose their own Regulate Cycle.
As I mapped everything out, I asked myself what each step was: Is it an action or a decision? If it's a decision, is it made by the user or the system? I also thought about where each flow starts and ends, the main path versus alternate paths, and how the visual .
Single Channel Regulate vs. Double Channel Regulate?
FEEDBACK
The user should not be able to choose what type of Regulate Cycle they initiate as running the wrong cycle on accident could lead to cell damage. The system should automatically detect based on what media they are using. Thus, there needs to be a way to input media type.
RESEARCH + WHITEBOARDING
I focused on understanding the experimental workflow and uncovering potential risks.
Through whiteboarding the impact of each media type across different flow cycles and interviewing biologists, I learned that selecting the wrong media type could have catastrophic consequences for an experiment. To prevent this, I proposed displaying the selected media type in the top-right corner of the dialog, allowing users to review and edit the media assigned to both the top and bottom channels before running Regulate. From there, we mapped out the proposed user flow to visualize how this new interaction could fit into the existing experience.
Whiteboarding the impact of each media type (Liquid, ALI, Gel) on different cycles.
User flow of proposed design
EARLY FLOW CONFIGURATION CONCEPT
Should flow configuration be explicit in the UI or not?
The discussion took place during our a design review with the product manager, head technical director, director of industrial design, _____, software lead, and _____. The team had two perspectives: some argued that the current design was appropriate because keeping the media selection subtle would reduce the risk of users accidentally changing the default medium/medium configuration to air/gel, which is only used for specialized Single-channel Regulate experiments. Others felt the feature should be more explicit in the UI to highlight this new capability to potential clients beyond the one who originally requested it.
Flow Configuration dialog opens once user clicks the media display on the top right
REACHING A CONSENSUS
The final design markets the feature while minimizing risk of users running the wrong Regulate Cycle.
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Instead of displaying Flow Actions, Prime, Regulate, and Flush, on the left side of the UI, they are now separated into individual tabs. The left panel now houses the Flow Configuration.
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Users can select “Edit Configuration” to open a popup where they can modify the media type for each channel.
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If the user changes either channel’s media type from the default Fluid/Fluid configuration to Air or Gel, the popup displays a message indicating that there will be no flow in the respective channel. The corresponding channel is also disabled in the post-regulate flow. This provides clear feedback that the configuration has changed and confirms that the user is intentionally running a single-channel Regulate.
Default Fluid/Fluid media type selected in the Flow Configuration
Air media type selected in the Flow Configuration
DESIGN EVOLUTION
What started as one idea evolved through four rounds of iteration.
First Iteration
First iteration of pitching and ranking flows where the admin.
Second Iteration
First iteration of pitching and ranking flows where the admin.
Third Iteration
First iteration of pitching and ranking flows where the admin.
Final Iteration
First iteration of pitching and ranking flows where the admin.
EMBEDDED UI VS. WORKSTATION UI
What started as one idea evolved through four rounds of iteration.
Instead of displaying Flow Actions, Prime, Regulate, and Flush, on the left side of the UI, they are now separated into individual tabs. The left panel now houses the Flow Configuration. Users can select “Edit Configuration” to open a popup where they can modify the media type for each channel.
FINAL DESIGNS
______.
Before
After
Flow Widget Display
Before, the users had to click on a dropdown menu and choose a single operation, making the UI awkward to start flow and change flow rate. The new Flow Widget now has a single Flow Operation button and a media type chip display so biologists know immediately what fluid is being used in each channel.
Flow Operation Dialogs
The flow configuration is global across all tabs: Flow, Prime, Regulate, and Flush. Depending on the media type selected in the flow configuration, the UI will change accordingly, leaving the the system to decide how the ___ instead of the user deciding.
Embedded: Flor Configuration Dialog Flow
The flow configuration is global across all tabs: Flow, Prime, Regulate, and Flush. Depending on the media type selected in the flow configuration, the UI will change accordingly, leaving the the system to decide how the ___ instead of the user deciding.
Embedded: Regulate Cycle Flow
The flow configuration is global across all tabs: Flow, Prime, Regulate, and Flush. Depending on the media type selected in the flow configuration, the UI will change accordingly, leaving the the system to decide how the ___ instead of the user deciding.
Stretch Project
A NEW KIND OF STRETCH
The AVA uses a different kind of stretch than the Zoe (CM2 model), so the UI also had to accomodate this new kind of stretch the engineers ad biologists were developing.
Previously, in the Zoe, CM2 model, it uses a normal kind of stretch where the chips are stretched horizontally through a vaccum to reflect the stretch that occurs in certain organs such as the lung. The AVA currently does not accomodate stretch, but will soon, and it will use a different kind of stretch called transmembrane stretch. This kind of stretch stretches the cell membrane upward into the top channel by pressurizing the cell membrane. This was a new feature to the AVA, meaning there also had to be a new UI.
Regular Stretch
The cell membrane is stretched horizontally with vaccum channels.
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Transmembrane Stretch
New Stretch where cell membrane is pressureized into the top channel.
RESEARCH
Before designing for Stretch, I needed to understand how it worked.
I started by talking to an engineer who worked closely with Stretch Chips. I identified the Stretch parameters and maximum limits for each organ type, while gaining a clearer understanding of what Stretch is designed to achieve and how biologists use it in their experiments.
DESIGN ITERATIONS
Stretch UI required a design for how users will input the stretch parameters in the Flow Operation Dialog as well as how the Stretch parameters will be displayed in the Flow Widget.
Initially, I explored different designs for the flow widget of how the stretch parameters would be displayed. This was designed in alignment with the embedded as I had to focus on mainintaing consistency between the two screens as well as making sure the stretch parameters were __ in the embedded. I also thought of different icon ideas for this new transmembrane stretch.
MAIN PROBLEM
The debate came down to technical logic vs. user expectations.
The team had a long-running discussion about whether Flow and Stretch should live in separate tabs. From an engineering perspective, separating them made sense: Flow and Stretch are technically distinct operations, and Stretch can technically be performed without Flow being active. However, the Design and Product teams believed that keeping Stretch within the Flow experience would better match how users think about and perform these operations.
Design Preferred:
Stretch Parameter UI inside the Flow tab
Engineering Preferred:
Stretch Parameters in a separate tab
ANOTHER ROUND OF RESEARCH
I decided to take a step back and return to our users.
With strong perspectives on both sides, I decided to take a step back from the debate and return to our users. I conducted another round of interviews with biologists and our field scientists and engineers to understand how they actually think about Stretch and what they expected to see in the UI.
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Key Findings:
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Stretch behaves more like Flow than the other flow operations. Unlike Prime, Regulate, and Flush, Stretch does not occur as part of a defined cycle. Instead, it can be turned on or off based on the user’s needs, similar to Flow.
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Flow is a frequent, continuous interaction—Stretch is not. Biologists start and pause Flow multiple times throughout the day, while Stretch is used much less often. Even when working with an organ model capable of stretching, users may only stretch the organ occasionally.
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Users need flexibility in how Stretch is represented. Our team was split on which unit to use for Stretch. The existing Zoe system uses Hz, while the team leaned toward seconds/cycle, since Hz alone may not communicate enough context about the stretching motion. The field scientists/engineers were also split on what unit to use, so I determined an automatic unit converter would be helpful.​
FINAL DESIGNS
Final flow widget and dialog designs
Embedded Flow Running
Workstation Version
Embedded Paused Flow
Flow Widget Displays with new Stretch UI
Final icon designs as well as the stretch parameter as well as start and pause flow.
Embedded Paused Flow
Workstation Version
Flow Widget Displays with new Stretch UI
The team had a long-running discussion about whether Flow and Stretch should live in separate tabs. From an engineering.
STRETCH UI BEHAVIOR
Final Prototype for developers
Flow Widget Displays with new Stretch UI
The team had a long-running discussion about whether Flow and Stretch should live in separate tabs. From an engineering.
BIOLOGIST TESTIMONIAL
"The user should not be able to choose what type of Regulate Cycle they initiate as running the wrong cycle on accident could lead to cell damage. The system should automatically detect based on what media they are using. Thus, there needs to be a way to input media type." - Tony Heng, Senior Biologist
ADDITIONAL DESIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
Here are a few more ways I contributed to AVA Software.
Before
After
Experiment List View
To keep the group moving toward a decision, admins can set an optional timer for the pitching and voting process.
Before
After
Side Navigation Bar
Pitch a destination by adding media, helpful links, and an audio pitch to give the group a better idea of why they should go.
Settings log
See who voted for each location and update your own rankings by selecting your top three choices.
KEY TAKEAWAYS + LEARNING
I designed these features to make trip planning feel like something the whole group does together
Designing for the unexpected
While designing Pitching and Ranking, I realized how many edge cases can come up when you introduce things like optional timers, admin controls, and different user actions. Thinking through these scenarios helped me design a flow that felt more intuitive and flexible.
Quickly fleshing out ideas into designs
Since we had to design and build the entire app within one semester, I had to get comfortable quickly turning ideas into something tangible, getting feedback, and iterating based off of the feedback. This pushed me to prioritize what needed to be solved now versus what could be refined later.
Explaining my thinking is a part of designing
Because I was working closely with the design lead and developers, I had many opportunities to walk through my flows and explain the reasoning behind my decisions. It made me more intentional about my designs and more comfortable communicating my ideas to people with different perspectives.
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I hope you found something worth exploring.