CIRCLE
A Neurodesign Project
IDIA 740, Topics in Computers and Cognition, UBalt M.S. Interaction Design/Information Architecture
Secondary Research, Persona Creation and Prototype Development Using Lovable AI
(2026)
Project Overview
Circle is a concept I developed through my graduate course assignment in IDIA 740 (Topics in Computers and Cognition) during the University of Baltimore M.S. program in Interaction Design/Information Architecture and Advanced UXR. For this project, we chose a "wicked problem" to solve for our assigned special population. I chose social media/digital media overuse and excessive screen time for children age 9-12.
This semester-long project involved the following:
-
Conducting secondary research using peer-reviewed academic literature (with synthesis assistance from ChatGPT to speed up discovery) on cognitive and emotional development in children ages 9–12, including sensation, perception, attention, memory, learning, emotion and motivation & thinking and problem solving.
-
Synthesizing insights across neuroscience, psychology, and child development research to understand how digital environments impact with the unique developmental stage of pre-adolescents.
-
Developing a concept - "Circle" designed to support healthier digital engagement through real-world exploration, creativity, and safe peer connection.
-
Building an interactive prototype using Lovable AI, translating research insights into product features informed by developmental brain science.
Secondary Research + Synthesis
Each week, we gathered articles for our special population and reviewed them to help inform our concept development. ChatGPT was heavily relied on during this stage to rapidly find recent (within last 5 years) relevant peer-reviewed articles on cognitive and emotional development in children ages 9–12, including sensation, perception, attention, memory, learning, emotion and motivation & thinking and problem solving.
Insights were synthesized across a Miro board to understand patterns, summarize findings and pull out key learnings for concept development. Yellow sticky notes signify key summaries of brain science for this group and orange sticky notes signify ideas for the concept based on the reading.
Example of Working Citation List
Example of Miro Synthesis
Example of Miro Synthesis
Persona Development
I also developed proto-personas for Circle. These personas helped frame concept development and were based on insights from the secondary research review. Each persona included basic demographic information, background summary, key details, goals, needs, digital habits and pain points.
Deck Development
Next, I developed a deck for our mid-semester presentation that outlined the following:
-
The wicked problem statement
-
Age 9-12 Brain Development Overview
-
Research on Excessive Screen Time, Digital Media and Social Media Overuse
-
Negative Effects of Screen Time/Social Media
-
Positive Effects of Digital Media Broadly
-
Positive Effects of Social Media Specifically
-
Personas
-
A Review of Competing Solutions
-
Justtalk, Backyard Hunt, DIY.org, Tin Can Phones
-
-
Prototype Concept
Below are some key slides from the deck. For the concept development introduction, I used Image FX to and Chat GPT to create example images of Circle in action and a logo for the product.
User Flow and Prototype in Lovable AI
Next, I mapped the major screens and user actions across parents, children users on the app + important behind-the screens app processes in Miro. This helped me understand major gaps in the process and screens to create for the prototype.
I then took all of my features ideas and used them to create a comprehensive prompt for Lovable AI. I also shared the logo from Chat GPT with Lovable and designed the color scheme for the prototype. The full clickable prototype can be viewed here:
