I’m Carol Chu

A generalist designer who enjoys diving into complex spaces, building shared understanding, and crafting experiences that feel good. At the moment, I’m helping make the Duolingo English Test more secure and higher-education more accessible.

Duolingo 2023-Present

Designed fruitful upsells across the app, so that we can continue making quality education (mostly) free for all.

Three Duolingo screens offering a Super family plan, an energy recharge, and a shareable upgrade link.

Incorporated memory into Roleplay, our first AI-powered feature, so every conversation picks up where the last one left off.

Two Duolingo MAX screens summarising takeaways from a French Roleplay conversation.

Built a simple but useful plugin for creating tap tokens, using Figma’s API and good old recursion.

Four rounded word tokens reading hey, how's, it, going? with a cursor about to select one.

Helped facilitate meaningful conversations around craft, leadership, and resilience with Duologues.

A panel of designers on stage at a Design Duologues talk.

Messenger Summer 2022

Improved the AR-filtering experience on Messenger Desktop.

A Messenger Desktop video call with AR filters applied to three participants.

Shopify Fall 2021

Helped merchants bookmark important(*) orders for later.

A phone showing a Shopify order with a context menu open on it, offering Bookmark, Edit note and Archive.

Hack the North 2020-2021

Made it fun(!) and easy to apply to Canada’s biggest hackathon.

The Hack the North 2020++ application site, with a Build my application button over an illustrated cityscape.

Before that 2018-2023

I studied Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. I was (and still am) really fascinated by complex systems, human psychology, and the design of everyday things. I also helped run our local UX club, to support budding designers find the resources and support they need.

Thanks for making it all the way (down) here. Chat soon