Polar Brief · AI-assisted client briefs

I took a design problem all the way to a working product.

How I used AI tools to move beyond the handoff—without leaving product design behind.

  • Here text

    Writing for websites is both simple and complex. On the one hand, all you need to do is say what you mean and in your words.

  • Duration

    Are you thinking of keywords you should rank for? Are you including links in your text to additional information?

  • Everywhere text
An illustrative sketch of a flower

Another subheader to break up text

The reframe was simple: if writing is the hard part, the tool should write first. The client's job becomes reviewing, rating, and curating. Judging is easier than starting from a blank field.

The way to solution

Finally you arrive at the ending of the article. This is a good place to wrap things up and conclude with takeaways. If you’re writing something for a more traditional publication, it can be nice to end on an anecdote that mirrors the theme of the piece. If you’re putting together some content for a company blog, you’ll probably just want to close out in a tidy way and include a CTA of some kind. Writers should take note: Usually, when you write a draft, you finally get to the main point at the end. An old editing trick is to take that idea and put it at the top of the piece. Consider whether that would work for you in this case.

My Part

I guided the product not the code.

Finally you arrive at the ending of the article. This is a good place to wrap things up and conclude with takeaways. If you’re writing something for a more traditional publication, it can be nice to end on an anecdote that mirrors the theme of the piece. If you’re putting together some content for a company blog, you’ll probably just want to close out in a tidy way and include a CTA of some kind. Writers should take note: Usually, when you write a draft, you finally get to the main point at the end. An old editing trick is to take that idea and put it at the top of the piece. Consider whether that would work for you in this case.

An illustrative sketch of a flower
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The Problem

Every Polar Hedgehog project starts with a client brief. Ours was a dense spreadsheet and thirteen-slide questionnaire sent to founders who had never articulated their brand before. Questions were skipped, answers were thin, and kickoff calls repeated the same discovery.

The reframe

The reframe was simple: if writing is the hard part, the tool should write first. The client's job becomes reviewing, rating, and curating. Judging is easier than starting from a blank field.

The Problem

Every Polar Hedgehog project starts with a client brief. Ours was a dense spreadsheet and thirteen-slide questionnaire sent to founders who had never articulated their brand before. Questions were skipped, answers were thin, and kickoff calls repeated the same discovery.

Each step becomes a short AI dialogue that producethe brief artifact.

Interests and hobbies

Conversational steps

Replace chips, states, sliders and dropdown menus for visual steps with image based curation. Pick vibes through visuals, not labels.

01

Visual driven decisions

Each step becomes a short AI dialogue that producethe brief artifact.

02

Collapsed smart flow

Polar Brief · AI-assisted client briefs

I took a design problem all the way to a working product.

How I used AI tools to move beyond the handoff—without leaving product design behind.

  • Role

    Product strategy - UX & interaction - AI-assisted prototyping

  • Duration

    Apr–Jul 2026 · Iterative build

  • Tools
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The Problem

Every Polar Hedgehog project starts with a client brief. Ours was a dense spreadsheet and thirteen-slide questionnaire sent to founders who had never articulated their brand before. Questions were skipped, answers were thin, and kickoff calls repeated the same discovery.

An illustrative sketch of a flower
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The reframe

The reframe was simple: if writing is the hard part, the tool should write first. The client's job becomes reviewing, rating, and curating. Judging is easier than starting from a blank field.

Design decisions?Opportunities

I mapped the service, wrote the PRD, and defined the experience as I normally would. Instead of handing it off, I used AI tools to turn small decisions into working screens I could review, question, and improve.

01

AI proposes. People decide.

The draft-and-review pattern held up. AI could remove the blank page, but keeping every answer editable, regeneratable, and approvable preserved the client’s judgment.

02

Show, don’t ask.

Abstract style questions still felt like homework. Visual references gave clients something concrete to react to and gave the studio clearer evidence behind each choice.

03

Fewer steps, richer decisions.

Clicking through all nineteen steps made the fatigue obvious. I merged related questions into nine coached moments.

My part

I guided the product, not the code.

AI tools translated my decisions into a working experience. I framed the problem, designed the interactions, reviewed every result in the browser, and kept refining until the full journey held together.

3 directions to consider

Every Polar Hedgehog project starts with a client brief. Ours was a dense spreadsheet and thirteen-slide questionnaire sent to founders who had never articulated their brand before. Questions were skipped, answers were thin, and kickoff calls repeated the same discovery.

The reframe

The reframe was simple: if writing is the hard part, the tool should write first. The client's job becomes reviewing, rating, and curating. Judging is easier than starting from a blank field.