TIMELINE
June – September 2025
ROLE
Product Design Intern
TEAM
Virtual Expert Platform – Digital Help
SKILLS
Product Strategy
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Context
At Intuit, I designed digital experiences for the Virtual Expert Platform (VEP), Digital Help Team.
I led a multitude of projects involving product support agents, chatbots, + other agentic AI flows with stakeholders across different teams, including Credit Karma + Intuit Enterprise Suite.
My work is under an NDA, so I am unable to disclose final designs + full details.
Contributions
Led designs from 0 -> 1, while aligning stakeholders across Intuit + Credit Karma
Designed unmoderated usability tests + synthesized insights from 32 participants
Led a design team workshop + consistently presented my work to my team, stakeholders, + multiple members of leadership
Learned to incorporate AI + service design into my work
INTRO / TEAM
What does the VEP Digital Help Team do?
WHAT WE DO
We're an AI-driven expert platform, connecting customers to product support agents + experts
We use Intuit Assist + product support agents to connect end-customers with digital help.
Imagine: A TurboTax user who runs into issues while doing taxes + wants to connect with a live tax expert for help.
WHO WE SERVE
We offer product support + expert services in TurboTax, QuickBooks, + Intuit Enterprise Suite
Although Intuit owns Mailchimp + Credit Karma, right now VEP functionalities only exist in TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Intuit's newest product for large and complex businesses: Intuit Enterprise Suite.
LIVE TAX EXPERTS
LIVE BOOKKEEPING EXPERTS
LIVE BOOKKEEPING EXPERTS
CHAPTER 1 / PROJECT 1
But now we're introducing VEP to Credit Karma—which I led!
GOAL
An MVP first appearance in Credit Karma Money mobile
As a soft introduction, the MVP will be born within the Credit Karma mobile app—specifically within Credit Karma Money—before expanding to the rest of the product.
Credit Karma Money offers banking services, allowing users to open spending + checking accounts.
WHAT I CONTRIBUTED
A lot of what I did was align stakeholders + think with a service design lens
Crafting service design maps
Credit Karma + VEP have different systems + ways of doing things, which led to complexities.
Understanding how technology, experts, + customers all play a role in this MVP was crucial in my final designs.
Bridging Credit Karma + Intuit stakeholders into alignment
Since we were bridging two massive teams onto this project, there were many stakeholders.
Communicating + presenting my work effectively was crucial in clarifying next steps.
Delivering MVP + target state prototypes
With our current constraints, our MVP would look drastically different than what we had originally envisioned.
Thus, I delivered a target state on top of the MVP to document our final, ideal product.
CHAPTER 2 / PROJECT 2
I also guided businesses to the right experts in Intuit Enterprise Suite.
THE PROBLEM
IES customers get confused on which expert to contact for help
Customers contact customer success managers for product support, but CSMs are not trained to deal with those issues—resulting in costly & wasted conversations. How might we ensure customers are appropriately routed & connected to CSMs or product support?
CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGERS
PRODUCT SUPPORT AGENT + EXPERTS
WHAT I CONTRIBUTED
Presented a prototyped solution approved by the IES team
Auditing AI agent + expert entry points, organized by global vs. local context
IES has a lot of AI agent-powered flows that hint to what a user may need help with.
Depending on what users are doing in the moment + where they are in their process, the contact expert flow should change to match their context.
Delivered prototyped flows to reach alignment
After many iterations and initial stakeholder meetings with the IES team, I prototyped + presented flows of our favorite solutions to gain approval for one specific flow.
CHAPTER 3 / PROJECT 3
Finally, I designed + tested contextually-relevant upsells within Intuit Assist.
GOAL
Design upsells to be the preferred solution to a customer's problem
When customers are seeking digital help, we want to offer upsells as an alternative solution to their problem.
How might we design contextually-relevant "smart digital recommendations" to encourage this?
WHAT I CONTRIBUTED
Designed, tested, + synthesized insights for product-scalable solutions
This initiative was in very early stages—thus my task was to design early iterations + gather insights, rather than deliver a final design. Here were steps of my design process:
Explored iterations based on scales
Scales based on: discoverability, affordance, tone, + entry point of the upsell.
I also utilized AI (Figma Make, Gemini) to streamline my iterative process.
Led a workshop for strategic usability testing
With my team, I led a "Choose your fighter" style workshop where designers voted on iterations to undergo A/B testing.
The goal was to find answers to research questions that we have not yet discovered.
Designed + synthesized insights from 32 A/B tests
Through UserTesting.com, I conducted 2 unmoderated A/B tests with 16 participants each + translated the findings into insights to inform next steps.
CONCLUSION / IMPACT
"A significant positive impact in a short amount of time."
OVERALL IMPACT
I delivered valuable work for crucial initiatives
These projects, especially the Credit Karma initiative, were not the most ideal for an intern. With countless blockers + stakeholders, there were never-ending obstacles for me to navigate.
A huge shout-out to my manager + team for entrusting me with projects of this scope + importance—I've grown so much within just a summer!
My team's Spotify work session :)
TESTIMONIALS
"Kaitlyn…
is an exceptionally bright, creative, and motivated designer who has made a significant positive impact in a short amount of time."
consistently brings fresh thinking and creativity to her projects. She is praised for proactively reviewing existing work, quickly generating multiple innovative design directions, and balancing broad experimentation with a sharp focus on core customer problems.
showed a huge amount of courage. Was bold and fearless, delivering quickly, while learning, presenting, collaborating and taking action. Exhibited craft skills well above her level within interaction, visual, and motion design."
a highly valued member of the team. She [has] great energy, a strong learning mindset, and is considered a real pleasure to interact with and work with."
AFTERWORD / LEARNINGS
Real-world product design is more like solving a puzzle, rather than designing something new.
MAIN TAKEAWAYS
It's a lot of putting pieces together in a giant puzzle
I went into my internship expecting to ship something new + shiny at the end of the summer. Instead, it was mainly fitting existing designs or flows to see what fits, + new ideas that may fit even better, all while navigating constraints. Here are some of my other learnings:
INSIGHT #1
Sometimes you won't be delivering work you're proud of due to shifting needs + constraints. But this is not about giving up—it’s about prioritization.
INSIGHT #2
Product design is more thinking, storytelling, documenting, + aligning. Have empathy for stakeholders who are trying to understand your designs—not just users.
INSIGHT #3
Utilize ambiguity to fuel exploration. What you don’t know can be the guiding questions that lead you to deeper explorations.