Discovery Hub

A discoverable, standalone hub that showcases Lenovo’s preloaded apps and smart features to increase adoption and ongoing usage.

My Role

My Role

UIUX Design Intern

Responsibility

Responsibility

UIUX Design, Usability Testing

Team

Team

UX Designers,

Product Managers,

Software Engineers

Duration

Duration

2025/6-2025/7

6 weeks

The Mission

Create an easily discoverable and highly explorable stand alone experience to showcase Lenovo’s preloaded apps and smart features, with the goal of increasing user adoption and continued usage.

The Mission

Create an easily discoverable and highly explorable stand alone experience to showcase Lenovo’s preloaded apps and smart features, with the goal of increasing user adoption and continued usage.

The Impact

1M+

1M+

1M+

Target users

Target users

Retention Rate

2026

Expected to Launch

2026

Expected to Launch

2026

Expected to Launch

The Impact

1M+

Target users

2026

Expected to Launch

2026

Expected to Launch

2026

Expected to Launch

The Impact

1M+

Retention Rate

2026

Expected to Launch

2026

Expected to Launch

2026

Expected to Launch

What I have done

  1. Designed the end-to-end experience including entry point, home page, and feature subpages.

  2. Collaborated with researchers to conduct usability testings and led to 5+ design iterations.

  3. Produced 20+ high-fidelity screens and components aligned with Lenovo’s design system.

  4. Led visual exploration for the Discovery Hub icon, creating and iterating on 40+ concepts.

  5. Aligned cross-functional teams to resolve interaction and implementation challenges.

  1. Designed the end-to-end experience including entry point, home page, and feature subpages.

  2. Collaborated with researchers to conduct usability testings and led to 5+ design iterations.

  3. Produced 20+ high-fidelity screens and components aligned with Lenovo’s design system.

  4. Led visual exploration for the Discovery Hub icon, creating and iterating on 40+ concepts.

  5. Aligned cross-functional teams to resolve interaction and implementation challenges.

  1. Designed the end-to-end experience including entry point, home page, and feature subpages.

  2. Collaborated with researchers to conduct usability testings and led to 5+ design iterations.

  3. Produced 20+ high-fidelity screens and components aligned with Lenovo’s design system.

  4. Led visual exploration for the Discovery Hub icon, creating and iterating on 40+ concepts.

  5. Aligned cross-functional teams to resolve interaction and implementation challenges.

  1. Designed the end-to-end experience including entry point, home page, and feature subpages.

  2. Collaborated with researchers to conduct usability testings and led to 5+ design iterations.

  3. Produced 20+ high-fidelity screens and components aligned with Lenovo’s design system.

  4. Led visual exploration for the Discovery Hub icon, creating and iterating on 40+ concepts.

  5. Aligned cross-functional teams to resolve interaction and implementation challenges.

The Outcome

The Outcome

The Outcome

The Outcome

Enrey Point

An impactful and emotional entry handshake moment.

Enrey Point

An impactful and emotional entry handshake moment.

Home Page

A curated hub that highlights apps and eases feature discovery.

Sub Page

An engaging page showcasing app details for deeper exploration.

The Process

The Process

The Process

The Process

Project Background

Drive a lifelong value from the Discover, Explore and Integrate experience.

Target users

Users at a small business who manages their own ThinkBook laptop for productivity use cases

Current problems

Lack a centralized place to discover Lenovo apps and features, as the current out-of-box experience is rarely revisited after initial setup.

Experience Goals:

Create a discoverable, standalone hub to showcase Lenovo apps and smart features, driving adoption and continued usage.

Centralized

Design a centralized hub that allows users to explore preloaded apps and features, and helps them understand their functionality and value.

Output is hard to control and unpredictable.

Discoverable

Increase exposure to the centralized hub by providing easily discoverable entry points at the OS level.

Output is hard to control and unpredictable.

Educational

Provide education about the value of specific apps and features that drives customers to the right products for their workflow.

Output is hard to control and unpredictable.

Dynamic

Provide a dynamic discovery page that frequently adapt to the latest apps and feature to give users incentive to periodically return.

Output is hard to control and unpredictable.

Business Goals:

The design should competitive, technically viable for immediate development, and adaptable to future Lenovo ecosystem updates. .

Differentiating

Designs for the discovery experience will elevate Lenovo’s differentiating features, driving adoption and product purchases from both existing and new customers.

Output is hard to control and unpredictable.

Feasible

Our work will go into development immediately after this effort. Early check-ins with Lenovo’s dev team are necessary to evaluate feasibility.

Output is hard to control and unpredictable.

Flexible

The discovery experience will serve as a template that can accommodate a variety of apps and features from across the Lenovo ecosystem in the future.

Output is hard to control and unpredictable.

Competitive + Comparative Audit

Insights: Large icons, data visualizations, and spacious information containers create a discovery page that can be easily digested by the user.

Competitive + Comparative Audit

Main Insights: Large icons, data visualizations, and spacious information containers create a discovery page that can be easily digested by the user.

Competitive + Comparative Audit

Insights: Large icons, data visualizations, and spacious information containers create a discovery page that can be easily digested by the user.

Decision 01: Taskbar Icon + Handshake moment

The taskbar icon serves as the primary entry point, pre-pinned for immediate access. A dynamic icon, splash screen animation, and full-screen dimming create a more impactful entry experience.

Usability Testing

To identify what elements attracts the most attention and best aligns with user expectations for the new function, the research team and I created 4 evaluation criteria and asked users to rate the icons.

Round 1

The lightbulb icon is a familiar metaphor for finding tips for participants.

The lightbulb icon is a familiar metaphor for finding tips for participants.

Round 2

The additional elements of a star or swirl represent the principals of education and dynamism.

The additional elements of a star or swirl represent the principals of education and dynamism.

Decision 02: Pop-up Notification Entry

Display notifications with an action-oriented language, and a CTA to encourage adjustments and decisions.

Usability Testing

Participants were motivated to interact when notifications presented personalized data with an actionable opportunity to improve performance.

Decision 03: Home page structure

For first time use, users gravitated towards the Personalization Quiz element on the page, and expressed desire to explore Day One Essentials and Tools We Love for any other high priority tools. There is significant interest in a customized discovery of apps and features.

Development Trade-off

From the previous research, it suggest the sections users care about vary from the first time use and regular user. So we initially made 2 versions for each use case.
However, the development team suggested that homepage structure may need to keep the same in different use cases due to technical limitations. So in order to accommodate this, we combined ‘Recommended for You’ and ‘Day One Essentials’ into a single ‘Best of Apps’ section.
First Time Use
Regular Use
First Time Use
Regular Use

Decision 04: Feature Card

I collaborated with other designers to create component cards across breakpoints and use cases, building a visually immersive and informative container.

Impact

+15%

Monthly Active User

More users engaged with the new Smart Q&A feature, showing stronger adoption and repeat usage.

+18%

Retention rate

Users returned to MagicSurvey more often, indicating sustained value and trust in AI-assisted survey creation.

1M+

1M+

Target Users

Monthly Active User

Designed to engage 1M+ Lenovo Thinkbook 14P users, driving broad adoption and repeat usage.

More users engaged with the new Smart Q&A feature, showing stronger adoption and repeat usage.

1M+

Monthly Active User

Monthly Active User

Designed to engage 1M+ Lenovo Thinkbook 14P users, driving broad adoption and repeat usage.

2026

2026

Retention Rate

Expected to Launch

The hub is slated to launch in 2026, marking a key milestone for Lenovo’s ecosystem.

2026

Retention Rate

Monthly Active User

The hub is slated to launch in 2026, marking a key milestone for Lenovo’s ecosystem.

+15%

Monthly Active User

More users engaged with the new Smart Q&A feature, showing stronger adoption and repeat usage.

+18%

Retention Rate

Users returned to MagicSurvey more often, indicating sustained value and trust in AI-assisted survey creation.

Takeways

Takeways

Takeways

Takeways

Verifying Assumptions

It saves significant effort to verify assumptions before designing. Asking "why" early prevents costly rework and ensures the solution is grounded in reality rather than guesswork.

Verifying Assumptions

Each audience needs a different story. It is essential to adapt the presentation approach to the audience, ensuring stakeholders see the vision while engineers understand the logic