ESSENTIALIZE

0 --> 1 : Designing from Concept to Launch

Led the end-to-end design for a new productivity and wellness product, focusing on qualitative research, competitor analysis, and early prototypes to shape the experience.

Head of Design

Mobile UI

0 --> 1 Design

Launched quickly, got feedback early.

MVP

Built core flows, established product’s direction.

Core

Iterated rapidly, updating product:

5x

Created foundation for a scalable design system.

Scale

My Role

As the lead product designer, I owned the end-to-end design cycle on a 3-person agile team.

Responsibilities

Research & Usability

Prototyping & Ideation

Interaction & Visual Design

Design System

Business Goals

Establish a clear, repeatable core loop that encourages daily use.

Habit-Building Flows

Build core flows that encourage daily use.

Log First Values

Increase rate that users complete the core action of logging their first values.

Set a Baseline

Set a foundation on which to continue iterating and scaling the product.

Research

Understand how people currently track (or fail to track) their wellness, priorities, and values.

User Interviews

Result: Users struggle to identify their core values, making it difficult for them to build meaningful wellness goals or track what actually matters to them.

I want to be more intentional, but I don’t know how that translates into choices.

It’s overwhelming to choose just a few. I don’t want to get it wrong.

Benchmarking

Result: Competitors focus on habits and goals but rarely help users articulate why they matter.

I’ve never really sat down and thought about my values before. I don’t even know where to start.

Journey Mapping

Result: Users struggled most during onboarding because they couldn’t clearly identify their values, which prevented them from feeling connected to the product.

I want to feel more aligned with my values.

I can set my values in the onboarding.

What exactly is a value?

I can choose values from a list.

The onboarding allows me to log values.

Problem

Users want to understand what truly matters to them so they can make better daily choices, but they struggle to identify and articulate their core values.

Feelings of Overwhelm

Starting from a blank slate feels too open-ended.

Confusion with Terms

Users often mix up what they do (habits), what they want (goals), and why they want it (values).

Lack of Concretization

Values feel theoretical until they’re tied to real behaviors.

Process

Building systems for speed and scale

Flexibility

Worked with engineering to identify and address time, tech, and user constraints.

Scalability

Designed a flexible system to support new dashboard features.

Launch Success

Usability testing, launching as fast as possible.

Solution

A lifestyle app that helps users identify their core values through a simple guided flow and log daily actions aligned with those values.

Identifying First Key Values

I designed a guided onboarding flow that helps users identify their core values through simple prompts, examples, and structured choices.

IMPACT: All users interviewed successfully identified and added their values to the app.

A Focused Wellness Section

I designed a simple system for logging the user's wellness.

IMPACT: Users report being able to assess the impact of their values based on how they feel.

A Simple Daily Tracking System

I designed a lightweight logging experience that helps users reflect on whether their daily choices align with their chosen values.

IMPACT: Users can easily log their values and report feeling motivated to keep logging due to the weekly card layout.

Reflections

Launch Quickly

When creating a new product, it's best to launch as fast as possible to see the reaction. Getting this product on the market helped us understand what users need, pain points, and where to go from there.

Always Talk to Users

Including users in the design cycle helps us to identify friction points to resolve and pain points to direct further iterations of the product.

Iterate, Iterate, Iterate

Continuous iterations help keep the product evolving and addressing user needs.