Zeana El-Hajomar
Tutor profile for Veronica Lodge on a pale blue background, with photo upload, basic information, and status and clearance.

WorkTutor Profile ManagementShipped

Tutors wanted to keep their information up to date. Supervisors needed to trust it.

Role
Product Designer
Team
Design Manager · PM · Developer
Timeline
January to June 2026
Tools
Figma · Figma Make
ChatGPT · Claude

Overview

Tutors struggled to maintain accurate profiles, while supervisors relied on that information for matching and readiness. The redesign focused on clarifying ownership and making profile information easier to manage.

My role & impact

I redesigned tutor and supervisor profile workflows, clarified editable versus system-managed information, and iterated with product, engineering, and supervisors. The redesigned experience shipped on PLUS.

Problem

Unclear profile ownership led to unreliable information.

Tutors weren’t sure what to update, leaving supervisors to track down missing or outdated information.

Existing experience · Tutor view

  1. Unclear ownership

    Tutors didn’t know which information they owned.

  2. Missing information

    Important profile information was often missing.

  3. Easy to miss

    Important updates were easy to miss.

Existing experience · Supervisor view

  1. Manual profile creation

    Creating new tutor profiles required unnecessary manual work.

  2. Supervisors filling gaps

    Supervisors often completed information tutors hadn’t updated.

  3. Hard to trust

    Profile information couldn’t always be trusted.

“We often had to follow up manually because information was missing or outdated.”

Supervisor feedback

Process

Understanding the system before redesigning it

Open full blueprintOpens in a new tab

Existing PLUS tutor service blueprint, reviewed with its contributor to understand onboarding and supervisor dependencies.

Patterns researched

I looked at familiar products to see how they handle profile editing, identity, and permissions.

  • LinkedIn

    Edit interactions and autosave patterns.

  • Slack

    Profile identity and fast scanning cues.

  • Discord

    Managing additional emails and permissions.

Exploration

Rapid exploration accelerated iteration

I explored patterns from existing products and used AI-assisted tools to quickly test organizational approaches before validating decisions with supervisors and developers.

  • ChatGPT

    Idea exploration.

  • Claude

    Rapid iteration.

  • Figma Make

    Layout generation.

Refining the experience through feedback

I shared design explorations with supervisors through Loom walkthroughs and iterated with product and engineering through Figma comments and reviews. Two feedback rounds helped clarify ownership, simplify the interface, and narrow the scope.

  1. 01Make the profile feel tutor-owned

    January 27, 2026

    Shifted from an admin-style form toward clear sections, explanations, and appropriate read-only states.

  2. 02Clarify email ownership

    February 26, 2026

    Kept the PLUS login email read-only while separating optional additional and Slack email fields.

  3. 03Respect technical scope

    February 26, 2026

    Removed clearance uploads from scope and displayed the status already available in the system.

Earlier explorations

Tutors update information; supervisors scan and manage it

Decisions

Reliable profile information required defining who owns what

Three decisions carried the design. Each was shaped by the reviews above, and the tradeoffs sit with the decision that forced them.

01

Separate what tutors own from what the system manages

Clear ownership was essential to keeping tutor profiles reliable. I distinguished editable information from system-managed data so tutors could update their details without changing information used for operations.

Tradeoff: Protecting operational data limited what tutors could edit, but clarified ownership and prevented accidental changes.

02

Organizing profile information for easier scanning

Previously, profile fields lacked clear groupings, making it harder for tutors to locate and update information. I reorganized the profile into topic-based sections, separating basic information, status and clearance, and background and matching details.

This created a clearer information hierarchy and made related fields easier to find and maintain.

After design review, I chose section headers over nested containers and added explanations for information used in matching and operations.

03

Bring tutor profiles into supervisor workflows

I surfaced tutor information directly in the supervisor dashboard, so supervisors could access it without switching to a separate workflow.

Tradeoff: The modal carries more information, but keeps tutor context connected to supervisors’ existing tasks.

Solution

Clear organization and ownership made tutor information easier to scan and manage

Two role-specific workflows keep profile maintenance clear: tutors update what they own, protected fields stay system-managed, and supervisors see changes where they already work.

Extending an existing design system kept new patterns consistent with the rest of the product. The January review made this concrete: read-only components for system-managed fields instead of disabled inputs, applied consistently across the profile.

Tutor view

  1. The profile photo and identity sit at the top as the tutor’s own surface.

  2. Editable fields such as pronouns and preferred name use open inputs.

  3. System-managed fields such as the PLUS account email use the design system’s read-only component.

  4. Each section header carries a one-line explanation of what the information is for.

Supervisor view

  1. Name, university, pronouns, and status badges stay visible across tabs.

  2. Tabs mirror the tutor’s three sections and add Sessions.

  3. Clearance shows the verified status and date from the database, display-only.

  4. Supervisor assignment and training progress are one step away.

Impact

A clearer, more maintainable tutor profile experience

The redesigned tutor and supervisor profile workflows shipped on PLUS. Tutors update the information they own, and supervisors review it in the workflow they already use.

  • 500+

    Tutors supported by the platform

  • 2

    Connected experiences

    Tutor and supervisor workflows

How I’d measure success

  • Profile completion

    Clearer editable fields and profile status

  • Less manual follow-up

    Tutor information available within supervisor workflows

  • Information trust

    Tutor-managed and system-managed data clearly distinguished

Reflection

What this project reinforced

This project reinforced that reliable product systems depend as much on ownership, responsibilities, and workflow design as they do on interface polish. When those foundations are clear, the UI can do its job: help people maintain information they are willing to trust.

  1. 01

    Collaboration over features

    Balancing supervisor, tutor, and engineering needs required clear ownership rules in the UI.

  2. 02

    AI as a tool

    AI sped up layout exploration, but workflow and ownership decisions still needed team validation.

The PLUS team during Spring 2026