Lighthouse AI
Work Capture and Automation
I Designed an AI Work Companion at a 4-Person Startup—Here's What Happened
My role: Founding Designer — Length of time: 9 months
The problem: Your best work gets lost in your memory
Professionals work hard but struggle to share what makes them great. Your best processes stay trapped in your head. Your achievements go undocumented. And you never know if there's a better way to work. We set out to capture on-screen work sessions and use AI to help people share their knowledge, improve their processes, and automate repetitive tasks.
How tech workers feel about documenting their work
Our initial target users were product managers, data analysts, engineers, and designers (although we dropped this user role later. More on that later). We interviewed tech professionals at all levels to understand if they'd want their work captured and what they'd do with it.
What we learned:
Yes, capture my work - Engineers hate daily standups and forget accomplishments during performance reviews. Automated documentation would be a game-changer.
Make it effortless - Capturing work must happen in the background with zero friction.
But let me add context - People will provide input if it means more accurate, useful outputs.
Show me better ways - People want to know how colleagues work more efficiently or which AI tools could save them time.
Let me monetize it - Turn my workflows into micro-agents others can buy.
When users tell you your idea sucks (and they're right)
Idea 1: Thoughtfully designed questionnaire wizard that walks users through all the types of work they accomplished. We had inputs to reflect on their decisions and challenges, and allowed them to integrate their other work apps and upload files. Users hated it. I couldn’t even get through the whole flow for a user test. “Yeah I’m not going to do this.”
I Designed an AI Work Companion at a 4-Person Startup—Here's What Happened
My role: Founding Designer — Length of time: 9 months
The problem: Your best work gets lost in your memory
Professionals work hard but struggle to share what makes them great. Your best processes stay trapped in your head. Your achievements go undocumented. And you never know if there's a better way to work. We set out to capture on-screen work sessions and use AI to help people share their knowledge, improve their processes, and automate repetitive tasks.
How tech workers feel about documenting their work
Our initial target users were product managers, data analysts, engineers, and designers (although we dropped this user role later. More on that later). We interviewed tech professionals at all levels to understand if they'd want their work captured and what they'd do with it.
What we learned:
Yes, capture my work - Engineers hate daily standups and forget accomplishments during performance reviews. Automated documentation would be a game-changer.
Make it effortless - Capturing work must happen in the background with zero friction.
But let me add context - People will provide input if it means more accurate, useful outputs.
Show me better ways - People want to know how colleagues work more efficiently or which AI tools could save them time.
Let me monetize it - Turn my workflows into micro-agents others can buy.
When users tell you your idea sucks (and they're right)
Idea 1: Thoughtfully designed questionnaire wizard that walks users through all the types of work they accomplished. We had inputs to reflect on their decisions and challenges, and allowed them to integrate their other work apps and upload files. Users hated it. I couldn’t even get through the whole flow for a user test. “Yeah I’m not going to do this.”
Let's work together
Get in touch via email of contact form. See how I may help you to grow your business with well-designed products.