Final Revisions, Social Media Ads, and Presentation Prep

This week was all about tying up loose ends as the JAICE project continues to move toward the finish line. A good chunk of my time went into making final revisions to the JAICE commercial. At this point, it was less about big creative changes and more about fine-tuning. It’s one of those phases where small adjustments make a surprisingly big difference.

I also helped one of my teammates put together a TikTok ad for JAICE, which ended up being a fun change of pace. The concept was essentially “JAICE, but taught by cats,” and yes, it was exactly as chaotic and entertaining as it sounds. While it was meant to be lighthearted, it was still a great reminded that marketing doesn’t always have to be serious to be effective. Sometimes a little humor is what gets people to stop scrolling and actually pay attention.

On top of that, I contributed to fleshing out the details of our final presentation and worked on a few slides to help tell the story of the project more clearly. Making sure the presentation flows well and communicates both the functionality of the app and the thought process behind it has become just as important as the visuals themselves.

Overall, this week felt like a shift from building to presenting. Between finalizing the commercial, experimenting with social media content, and polishing the presentation, the focus has been on how JAICE is communicated and perceived. It’s been rewarding to see the project come together in different formats — and yes, even more rewarding knowing at least one version of JAIE exists in a universe run by cats.

Drafting a Commercial for JAICE

This week was focused on completing the first draft of the JAICE commercial in CapCut. After receiving the screen recordings of the application from my teammates, I spent time reviewing the footage and deciding how best to shape it into something that clearly communicates what JAICE is and why it matters.

A large part of this process involved editing the content with a marketing mindset rather than a purely technical one. Instead of trying to show everything the application can do, I focused on highlighting the features that best represent the value of the platform and the problems it’s meant to solve. That shift in perspective made a big difference in how the commercial started to come together.

In addition to working with the screen recordings, I also sourced stock footage to help supplement the ad and give it a more polished, professional feel. These visuals help set the tone and provide breathing room between feature shots, making the overall pacing feel more intentional.

While the visual portion of the commercial is taking shape, the voiceover is still a work in progress. I’m currently developing a script that clearly explains the application without overwhelming the viewer, and that step will be key in tying the entire commercial together. Once the script is finalized, the next focus will be recording and syncing the voiceover with the visuals.

Overall, completing the first draft of the commercial feels like a solid milestone. There’s still refinement ahead, but having a full draft in place makes the remaining work feel much more manageable and gives us a clear foundation to build on moving forward.

Returning After the Holidays & Beginning the JAICE Commercial

This week marked a return to the JAICE project after the holiday break. It felt good to get back into the rhythm of the project and start building momentum again after some time away. Rather than jumping straight into major feature work, this week was more about re-orientation, planning, and setting the tone for the next phase.

While the rest of the team took the reins on a handful of smaller updates and refinements to the application, I focused my efforts on beginning the planning for our JAICE commercial. This is something we’ve talked about for a while, and it felt like the right time to start shaping how we want to present the project as a whole.

I started by mocking up an opener for the commercial in Canva. The goal with this first pass wasn’t perfection, but direction—establishing the mood, pacing, and overall feel of the video. Having a rough opener in place already makes the rest of the commercial feel more tangible and gives us something concrete to build around.

There’s still work to be done before the commercial feels complete. We’ll need to capture clean, marketable samples of the application’s features and spend time editing everything together so the transitions feel smooth and intentional. That process will involve deciding which parts of the app best represent JAICE and how to communicate its value clearly and concisely.

Overall, this week was less about shipping new functionality and more about setting the stage for what’s next. Between the team handling minor application updates and the early progress on the commercial, it feels like we’re entering a new phase of the project. One that is focused not just on building, but on presentation and storytelling.

UI Refinements, Chart Clarity, and Grit Score Improvements

This week was all about refinement and clarity across the JAICE dashboard based on user feedback from User Testing last week. Rather than adding major new features, I focused on tightening up the user experience and improving how information is presented and understood throughout the app. A lot of this work was driven by usability feedback and my own observations while using the dashboard more heavily.

Stage Over Time card showing updated Tooltip and Close button

One of the first things I addressed was a visual issue with the Close button on the dashboard cards, which had been stretching in a way that felt off and slightly distracting. It was a small fix, but one of those details that makes the interface feel more polished once it’s corrected. I also fixed an issue where chart tooltips were displaying black text on a black background, making them difficult to read. Improving tooltip visibility immediately made those charts more usable and easier to interpret at a glance.

Activity Heatmap card

I also introduced a new Activity Heatmap card to the dashboard. This card visualizes the number of job applications submitted by day, giving users a quick way to spot patterns in their activity over time. Seeing application volume laid out in this format adds a different layer of insight compared to traditional charts and helps tell a clearer story about consistency and momentum.

Stage Over Time card with About this Chart dropdown expanded

To further improve chart clarity, I added “About This Chart” dropdowns to the card modals. These give users a bit more context abut what each chart is showing and how to interpret the data. This was an important step in making the dashboard feel more approachable, especially for users who may not be immediately familiar with data visualizations.

• 

  Grit Score Card

• 

  Grit Score Tooltip

• 

  UserBlock w/ Tier

The Grit Score also received several improvements this week. I updated the progress bar animation and added clearer progress labels so users can better understand where they stand and how their score is progressing. On top of that, I added an info icon that users can hover over to get more detailed information about what the Grit Score represents and how it’s calculated. These changes help make the score feel less abstract and more actionable.

Finally, I updated the UserBlock to pull in and display the tier associated with a user’s Grit Score. This helps reinforce the connection between the score itself and how it’s reflected across the UI, making the experience feel more cohesive and presonalized.

Overall, this week was focused on polish, clarity, and usability. None of the changes were flashy on their own, but together they make the dashboard feel more intentional, readable, and user-friendly. These kinds of refinements are becoming increasingly important as JAICE continues to mature and move closer to a finished, production-ready experience.

User Testing, Feedback, and Planning What’s Next

This week marked a clear shift in focus for the JAICE project as I dedicated the entire week to user testing. Up to this point, a lot of my time has been spent building features, refining logic, and improving functionality, but it felt important to pause and see how the app actually performs when real users interact with it. Getting that outside perspective is critical before continuing to push forward with new development.

Before testing began, I made sure JAICE was in a stable and presentable state with the team. Core features like the dashboard, notifications, and overall navigation were working smoothly, which allowed testers to focus on the experience rather than running into technical issues. This step was important because I wanted feedback centered on usability, clarity, and workflow instead of bugs or missing pieces.

During testing, users were encouraged to explore the app naturally and complete typical tasks without much guidance. As they moved through the application, I paid close attention to how they interpreted the interface, where they hesitated, and which parts felt intuitive right away. Observing these moments in real time was especially helpful, since it highlighted differences between how the app makes sense to a developer versus how it’s understood by a first-time user.

After the testing sessions, I spent time reviewing and organizing all of the feedback I received. A lot of the responses pointed to similar themes, particularly around UI clarity, visual hierarchy, and overall flow. Some features were working well, while others needed clearer communication or slight refinements to feel more intuitive. Seeing these patterns made it easier to separate smaller polish items from changes that could significantly improve the overall experience.

Rather than treating the feedback as general suggestions, we translated it into specific tasks that will guide the next phase of development. These tasks will shape the next three weeks of work and help ensure that improvements are directly tied to real user needs. Taking this approach also helps keep the project focused and prevents unnecessary feature creep while strengthening what already exists.

Overall, this week served as an important checkpoint for JAICE. User testing validated several design decisions while also highlighting areas that still need improvement. The feedback gathered provides a clear direction moving forward, and the next phase will be focused on refining, polishing, and improving the app based on what users actually experienced. The goal is to continue building JAICE in a way that feels intentional, user-driven, and genuinely helpful.

Preparing for JAICE User Testing: Coordination, Team Updates, and Next Steps

This week shifted gears in a really exciting way as the team and I moved deeper into planning our user testing sessions. Up to this point, so much of JAICE’s progress has involved building, refining, fixing, and experimenting — but now we’re stepping into the part where real people get to interact with the app and give us feedback we need to make it even stronger.

Most of my time this week went into coordinating our test group. After reaching out to a handful of potential users, I was able to secure three confirmed testers and line up three official testing dates. Getting those commitments locked in felt like a huge step forward. User testing is one of the most valuable parts of this entire process, and having real users walk through the experience will tell us so much about what’s working… and what still needs attention.

Alongside the planning, I also updated the About page by adding the submitted photos of my teammates. It seems like a small change, but visually introducing the team behind JAICE adds a more human, personal touch to the app — something that will matter to users as they explore who we are and what we’re building. It also helps unify our brand now that the application is becoming more polished and cohesive across pages.

Overall, this week was more about preparation and coordination than pure coding, but it’s still a major milestone. Getting user testing lined up brings us one step closer to validation our design choices, uncovering usability issues, and ultimately shaping JAICE into something people genuinely enjoy using. With testing dates scheduled and the About page updated, we’re heading into the next phase ready and organized.

Key Updates to JAICE: Dashboard and Notification Settings

This week was another big step forward for JAICE as I shifted focus toward building out the Notification Settings system and improving overall dashboard interactions. With more of the core features coming together, the project is starting to feel increasingly polished and cohesive.

Most of my time went into setting up the new Supabase table for user notification preferences. This included defining the schema, configuring row-level security (RLS), and making sure each user’s settings were protected while still being readable and writable through authenticated requests. Once the table was ready, I created the necessary API routes and wired everything into the frontend so users can toggle their alert options and have them persist in the database. Seeing the values update smoothly, and actually stick thanks to correct RLS policies, was a great milestone.

On the UI side, I made several quality-of-life improvements to the Dashboard interactions. One big update was enhancing the click behavior across the analytic cards. Previously, users had to specifically click the “Click to Expand” area to open the modal. Now, they can click anywhere on the card, making the interaction feel far more intuitive and natural.

I also updated the Stages Over Time card to support multiple date ranges, giving users more flexibility in how they explore their application history. This small enhancement adds a lot more depth to the analytics experience and sets the foundation for more advanced filtering options down the road.

Overall, this week was about strengthening both the backend structure and the user experience. With notification settings now stored securely and dashboard interactions feeling smoother, JAICE is becoming a more reliable and user-friendly application with every update.

Finalizing JAICE’s Dashboard Connections and Reassessing NER Models

This week focused on wrapping up one of the many big milestones in JAICE’s development so far — finalizing all of the Dashboard data connections. After several weeks of incremental progress and troubleshooting, every dashboard card is now fully wired to our Supabase backend and updating with real data. Seeing the dashboard come together as one cohesive, data-driven screen really made the project feel like it’s entering a new stage of maturity.

Each card is now pulling correct information, rendering quickly, and responding to data base updates just the way we intended. What started with only three connected cards a couple weeks ago is now a fully functional dashboard built on clean queries, secured RLS configurations, and a tight frontend pipeline. Watching everything finally snap into place was one of the most satisfying parts of the entire development process so far.

On the AI side, I also spent time experimenting with NER (Named Entity Recognition) models again. My goal this week was to evaluate whether we could integrate an NER stage into JAICE to automatically extract recruiter names, companies, titles, and other job-related entities. I tested a few approaches, but none of the models performed reliably enough to move forward just yet. Between inconsistent extraction results, formatting issues, and some overall accuracy concerns, it became clear that we’d need a bit more research and refinement before committing this feature to the pipeline.

After discussing it with the team, I decided to pause NER development temporarily and revisit it after we complete our user testing phase. The foundation of JAICE — authentication, email classification, dashboard analytics, and data flow — is stable enough to test with real users, and we want to make sure the core experience is smooth before layering in more advanced AI features.

Even though not everything worked out on the first try, this week still felt like major progress. Finalizing the dashboard connections marks a huge step toward a polished, interactive product, and setting aside NER for now gives us room to focus on testing, feedback, and stability. Every week, JAICE grows more into a real, usable platform, and I’m excited to see how users respond as we enter the next phase.

Connecting JAICE’s Dashboard to Supabase: Early Data Integration Progress

This week was all about data connectivity. My primary goal was to get started on connecting JAICE’s dashboard to our Supabase database. After last week’s focus on designing and structuring the dashboard, this step was a big move toward making the app dynamic and functional.

The main goal was to start wiring up the data-driven cards on the dashboard. Each card represents a key metric or insight for users — from applications submitted to interviews scheduled and offers received. So far, I’ve successfully connected three out of seven cards to live Supabase data, allowing them to pull and display real-time information from our tables. Seeing those cards finally update with actual numbers instead of placeholder values felt like a huge milestone.

Getting the connections working wasn’t completely straightforward. I spent a good amount of time exploring Supabase’s connection structure and understanding how to securely query and render data on the frontend. This involved testing API structures, verifying RLS (Row-Level Security) configurations, and fine-tuning our component logic to make sure data was loading efficiently and correctly.

There’s still work to do, but even at this stage, it’s incredibly satisfying to see the dashboard coming to life with real data powering it. A couple of cards — specifically the “Stages Over Time” and “Split By Stage” charts — aren’t updating the stage values correctly just yet. Even though the numbers may be off, the important part is that both components are successfully pulling data from Supabase without any errors or failed requests. This is a clear sign that the foundation is in place, and now it’s just about improving the accuracy and structure of how the data is interpreted on the frontend.

Overall, this week was about bridging the visual and functional layers of JAICE. Every card that connects moves us closer to a fully integrated, insight-driven dashboard that delivers value to users the moment they log in. With the backend connection officially underway, we’re steadily transforming JAICE from just an idea to a living, data-powered application.

Developing JAICE’s Dashboard UI and Connecting to Supabase

This week was all about bridging the gap between JAICE’s design and functionality. After spending the past few weeks focused on AI model testing and integration, we shifted gears to start bringing the Dashboard UI to life and laying the groundwork for our backend data connection.

Most of my time went into building and refining the Dashboard interface. The goal was to make it clean, easy to navigate, and consistent with the visual language we’ve been developing throughout the application. I focused on aligning key UI components like navigation cards, recent activity panels, and placeholder sections for user data that will later be populated dynamically from the backend. The dashboard is shaping up to be the central hub of JAICE, where users will eventually see insights, job-related analytics, and personalized data summaries once everything is connected.

Alongside the UI work, I spent time researching and testing how we’ll connect the frontend to our Supabase tables. This meant reviewing best practices for secure API calls, understanding Supabase’s row-level security (RLS) structure, and exploring how authentication tokens will interact with our data models. It’s the kind of groundwork that isn’t flashy yet, but it’s essential for ensuring JAICE’s infrastructure is reliable and scalable once we start moving real data through it.

Overall, this week was about setting the stage for data integration and user experience. The dashboard is beginning to take shape visually, and with the backend connection research underway, we’re getting closer to seeing real information flow through the app/ It’s exciting to watch JAICE evolve into a full ecosystem where design, data, and AI finally start to connect.