Role
Product Designer
Timeline
Aug - Nov 2025
Skills
UX Research
Interaction Design
Visual Design
Prototyping
HTML, CSS, JS
Tools
Figma
Adobe Illustrator
Framer
Overview
Median is a Chrome extension designed to help readers better understand online articles and navigate today’s overwhelming media landscape. The goal of this project was to make information clearer, encourage critical thinking, and give everyday readers tools to feel more confident about what they’re reading.
User Research
I began by surveying and interviewing readers across a range of media habits to understand how they approach online news. People shared what they value in reporting and what makes a source feel reliable. after mapping these responses into a word cloud, strong themes emerged around unbiased sources, trust, and a desire for factual reporting.
I compared what people said they wanted with the sources they actually read. Most emphasized wanting unbiased, factual reporting, but their preferred sources didn’t meet those standards. This insight revealed an opportunity to help readers better understand the credibility of the information they consume.
Ideation
From the research, I realized that accuracy should matter more than political bias. The most credible sources usually fall within a slight left-center to right-center range, so treating bias as secondary could open readers up to reliable sources they might otherwise overlook.
During my competitive analysis of existing news tools, I found that many had complicated interfaces, unclear information hierarchy, or both. These insights together led me to create a browser extension as the solution.
Design Kit
Iteration
Through multiple iterations, the popup evolved into a clear, streamlined rating panel that shows credibility, accuracy, and bias through intuitive gradient bars. This layout makes it easy for readers to understand a source’s strengths at a glance. On the right, the settings panel includes straightforward toggles for key features, giving users control over how they interact with and interpret information on the page.
Final Design
Credibility ratings appear automatically when an article loads, giving readers immediate context before they start reading. Clicking the extension reveals a deeper breakdown of how the source performs across credibility, accuracy, and bias.
Double-clicking unfamiliar political jargon brings up a clear, in-context definition. This helps readers understand complex language without leaving the article or breaking their reading flow.
Median highlights references to laws, bills, and court cases and provides short summaries on hover. Readers can quickly understand the relevance of legal references or click through to explore the original source.
Statements that may be misleading or inaccurate are automatically highlighted as readers move through an article. This feature encourages closer evaluation without interrupting the overall reading experience.
Reflection
With more time, I would complete the AI integration needed to support features like contextual summaries for laws and cases and automated highlighting of questionable claims. I would also refine the API connection for Media Bias Fact Check data and fully implement the settings toggle for greater user control. While some features are still in progress, Median is a working Chrome extension that currently provides credibility ratings for over 9,000 news sources and basic word definitions, and I plan to continue developing it to further enhance the user experience.
