Building trust at scale: How a hybrid AI approach transformed Webby Credits from concept to reality
Bringing recognition and discoverability to 240,000+ digital creative professionals
The challenge:Â
The Webby Awards approached their 30th anniversary with ambitious plans. While celebrating the top 30 most awarded companies, they recognised a deeper opportunity: enabling 240,000+ individual creative professionals to claim personal recognition too.
The problem:Â
Individual credits were buried in company-led projects. Award winners couldn't prove their achievements or appear in search results.
The brief:Â
Design a verification platform launching as part of the 30th anniversary celebration, shifting recognition from companies to individuals.
My role:Â
UX strategist and product designer responsible for discovery, user research, journey mapping and building design assets based on real user needs.
Timeline:Â
Beta launch Q4 2025, full rollout May 2026 awards ceremony.Â
AI Isn't a Tool. It's a Teammate.
On this project, I stepped up my collaboration with Claude.ai (with the Webby's permission), and the result was deeper analysis, attribution at every stage, and more confidence that the proposition was needed.
Here's what shifted for me: AI can add value at every stage in the process.
Using a simple prompt structure:
 "Acting as a [ROLE], I want you to help me achieve this [GOAL]. What do you need from me to collaborate and make this [TASK] happen as effectively and efficiently as possible?"
I stopped just searching for answers and started collaborating with a teammate who could take on the jobs I needed help with. Using the project feature in Claude and continuously building our knowledge together, we looked at outcomes across different dimensions, creating a more robust framework and higher confidence that we were headed in the right direction.
AI fills multiple roles
Analysis & Synthesis
- Cross-referenced 132 survey responses with interview transcripts simultaneously
- Identified thematic patterns across demographics in hours instead of days
- Ran multi-dimensional analyses segmented by user type, geography, career stage, and cultural differences
Strategic Intelligence
- Challenged research assumptions before committing to them
- Contextualised findings against industry trends
- Identified competitive considerations and partnership opportunities that we hadn't thought of
Documentation & Knowledge Management
- Summarised and actioned all meeting notes for building action lists and knowledge base
- Assisted in crafting refined survey questions mapped to user types
- Generated synthesis documents with properly cited evidenceÂ
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The Critical Human Element
I manually validated everything to catch any AI hallucinations. AI provided rapid pattern identification, but I:Â
- reviewed every thematic grouping for accuracy
- verified quotes in original context
- conducted actual interviews and follow-ups
- applied 25 years of design expertise to interpretation
Result
33% time savings on analysis while achieving more comprehensive insights than traditional methods alone.
Discovery: Hypothesis-driven experimentation
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Rather than starting with features, we started with questions.
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The goal
Gather relevant information as quickly as possible to make better decisions faster. And always mapping back to our key hypotheses.
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The approach
More experiments 🧪 → more data 📝 → better decisions ✅ → faster results ⚡️
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Key hypotheses tested
- Value: Creative professionals consider individual Webby recognition important → 91% said yes ✓
- Adoption: Users will actively set up profiles if simple → 96% would do it (78% immediately) ✓
- Discovery: Google searchability is primary use case, not social networking → 85% prioritized search ✓
- Identity: Webby credits are core to identity, not resume padding → 86% said important or very important ✓
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What we learned from "failed" tests
- Social networking features: Low interest → Saved months of development
- Paid premium features: Strong opposition → Validated free-only model
- Team page complexity: Lukewarm response → Simplified to individual profiles
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Each failure eliminated bad assumptions and narrowed focus to what mattered. Speed of experimentation was critical. We validated assumptions through research before building, eliminating 3-4 major feature sets that would have delayed launch by months.
The MVP Solution: A Strategic Discovery-to-Design Process
Louise approached Webby Credits the same way she approaches all her UX consulting projects: start with discovery, validate with research, design with intention, and prepare for iteration.
Her process follows six key phases: Discovery → Research → Design → Build → Test → Iterate. Because, that's how you create things that work.
For Webby Credits, Louise led the first three phases and handed off a comprehensive roadmap to the development team for building and testing. In addition, she's provided clear guidance on an alpha-ready roadmap to May 2026: test and iterate. Louise has documented exactly what to test, what metrics to track, and how to synthesise feedback for the next iteration.
The results? An Alpha-ready roadmap for May 2026
The Webby team has everything they need to move confidently into development. The research has validated the core concept with real users. The design work has created a clear, usable system. And the documentation provides developers with a complete blueprint for building.
The project is now in the build phase, with alpha testing planned for late 2025 and a public launch targeting the Webby Awards' 30th anniversary celebration in May 2026.
Louise's strategic approach delivered three key outcomes:
1. Validated product-market fit before building. With 132 survey responses plus in-depth interviews, the Webby team could move forward knowing the community wanted this solution and understanding exactly what features would drive adoption.
2. Reduced research synthesis time by 33%. By leveraging AI-assisted analysis tools strategically, Louise maintained the quality and rigor of her research while delivering insights faster—critical for a timeline-sensitive project.
3. Set up the dev team for success. Instead of just handing off designs, Louise provided functional specifications, test parameters, and clear success metrics. The development team knew not just what to build, but why and how to validate it.
Got a Webby Credit that you need to claim? Look out for the Beta Launch coming soon!
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Ready to bring UX strategy + creative design to your next project?
I bring 25 years of design practice across government, finance, wellness, retail & digital industries using modern frameworks that accelerate insight without sacrificing rigor.
I specialise in:
- Discovery workshops + project strategy
- Hybrid AI user research + synthesis
- UX strategy + journey mapping
- Project strategy for alpha + beta launches
- Global design systems
Let's talk about your project needs.
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