Designing an AI-accelerated financial app for NIL athletes
UX/UI Design
Artificial Intelligence
NCAA changed the rules and now college athletes in the US can legally profit from their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) — signing brand deals, running their own social media, and earning real income while still in school.
But earning money and managing it are two very different skills. Most athletes had no financial background, no advisor, and no tools built for their situation.
Final Whistle Wealth (FWW) approached us to design a mobile app to close that gap — and from the start, we treated AI not as a finishing tool but as a core design partner. Every major decision, from onboarding logic to visual assets, had an AI-assisted layer accelerating it.
AGENCY: HUMAN AGENCY
ROLE: STAFF PRODUCT DESIGNER
DURATION: 3 MONTHS
YEAR: 2026
The challenge wasn't just aesthetics: it was using AI to compress timelines, validate hypotheses faster, and deliver a personalized experience intuitive enough for athletes with no financial background. We approached the project as a design system-first initiative, which became the multiplier for everything else.
AI-accelerated prototyping
Fed the design system into Claude Design to rapidly generate working prototypes for both the marketing website and the administrator dashboard, dramatically compressing delivery timelines. For instance: the original onboarding had 20+ steps and a near-total drop-off problem. Using Claude Code to model decision trees and test logic in real time, we restructured the journey to 4 steps — cutting onboarding time by 75% while still generating a fully personalized home screen.
AI-generated photography
Leveraged Banana Nano 2 and ChatGPT Images to produce a diverse, high-res photography library for social media campaigns, avoiding expensive photo shoots for an early-stage startup while maintaining visual quality and athlete representation.
Outcomes
We delivered a cohesive, production-ready product ecosystem — mobile app, website, and admin dashboard — with a design system that ensures consistency and scalability as FWW grows. The AI-enhanced workflow reduced iteration cycles significantly.