AI Writing Assistant (CMS Internal Tool)

Overview

As a Product Designer at Viewport, I led the design and integration of advanced AI writing features into our existing CMS, a platform similar to Sanity and Contentful tailored for editorial teams. The goal was to support editors and writers in creating more engaging, polished, and accessible content, while maintaining speed and creativity.

Formulated a redesign strategy that prioritizes a simplified user flow, enhanced data visualization for goal tracking, and new features to foster community engagement among users. Developed a detailed design roadmap, categorizing changes into short-term fixes and long-term enhancements, to guide the redesign efforts effectively.

Team: 1 Product Designer(me), 1 Product Manager, 1 Frontend Engineer, 1 Backend Engineer, 1 AI/ML Engineer

What I Did: Research & Discovery (user mapping), UX Strategy & Feature Definition, Interaction & UI Design, Prototyping & Validation, Cross-Functional Collaboration and Delivery & Handoff

Results

• Reduced ideation time by 40%, especially for time-sensitive or recurring content.

• 70% of editors reported faster self-editing, and the adoption rate within 3 weeks was 92%.

• Articles using engagement suggestions saw a 12% increase in average time-on-page.

• Improved content scores across Flesch Reading Ease by an average of 18 points

• Helped editors benchmark and optimize during the writing process, not just at final review.

Research

Conducted interviews with 6 senior editors to understand workflow pain points. (I’ll just highlight the key points here, but we discovered some fantastic and unexpected insights that guided us to an excellent solution!)

Editorial teams struggle with a complex, outdated internal CMS tool that hinders content creation and lacks intelligent assistance. Some editors struggled with writer’s block, inconsistencies in tone, lack of engagement, and time-consuming editing cycles. They frequently toggled between the CMS and third-party writing tools (e.g., Grammarly, Hemingway), disrupting their workflow and slowing content production.

Existing CMS Problem

• No AI Integration - Users manually switch between 3-5 different tools for writing, editing, and optimization, breaking their creative flow.

• Poor Collaboration - Editorial teams struggle with version control and real-time collaboration, leading to 40% longer content production cycles.

• No Readability checker (audience pain points) - Readability analysis is conducted to assess the clarity of a text. Lack of Clarity and Accessibility. Less engaging content, some paragraphs and sentences are too long and complex 

  
  

The Opportunity

Design and integrate AI-powered writing assistance directly within our CMS to:

• Boost editorial productivity

• Optimize content for reader engagement

• Maintain consistent brand voice

• Deliver real-time insights and improvements

Tech Stack & API Integration (for Developers) 

Before designing the AI features, the process involved several rounds of research with our engineering team to determine which proposals were unfeasible and which were viable for product deployment. Many adjustments were made based on technical constraints and considerations, facilitating the development of the most straightforward solutions for the API.