Kith + Kin was founded to help people care for those they care about. The co-founders surfaced a need for a secure and versatile digital tool for caregivers to organize, store, and share important health information with their support systems.
I joined the team to help turn early research and ideas into a prototype to secure initial funding. Then, I followed through designing the alpha, beta, and consumer-ready product through multiple iterations based on user feedback and discovery.
Head of UX & Design
2020 - Present
Figma, Miro, Pendo, Notion, Intercom, Jira, Usability Hub, Jotform, and more
1.
Conduct research sessions with users to monitor issues encountered with the signup process and getting started with the app.
2.
Create an analytics “wishlist” for our data team and dev team so that we could have some measurements on current usage.
3.
Work with leadership and technical teams to discuss capabilities for a rebuild to combat the difficulty users were having with a PWA.
4.
Realign with leadership on mission/vision and our original use cases before diving into design solutioning.
5.
Wireframe new concepts that build upon the success of our beta app, but improve the pain points identified.
6.
Review and gather feedback from team and select users on new concepts.
7.
Select component framework that fits our technical stack and customize a design system to meet our brand and features.
8.
Design and prototype our consumer release MVP and assist in generating user stories and dev backlog.
9.
Measure engagement upon release using data from Intercom and other tools as they’re available.
After multiple research sessions, I refined three key personas to help influence the product roadmap, go-to-market strategy, and social campaigns.
During the re-design for our consumer release, we continued to re-visit and further refine these personas through ongoing user interviews.
I created various workflows for new features and user journeys to help refine, design, and create requirements, as well as document internal processes.
Iterative improvements to the user's "home" screen made small movements in early engagement in the app. Generally, users needed a more clear pathway to success by bringing forward the way to add new information.
Learnings from the alpha and beta versions, led to a new architecture that favored a single profile with actionable items up front, like a new intelligent guidance card that helps users learn new features and get information in quickly.
After reviewing multiple component libraries, our team selected the Ant Design System to build the KinKeeper app due to it's accessibility features, responsive components, and ease of use for our tech stack. I based our design system on those components while also making room for custom components that fit our specific needs.
As Head of UX & Design, I was also solely responsible for the overall look and feel of all design from product to print, which included the marketing website and print materials.
A month after the launch of our new consumer app we saw a massive improvement in user abandonment during their first few sessions – jumping from 70% down to 37%. In addition, the same cohort of users were also more likely to be deemed active by using the platform 8 or more times in their first month – increasing from 9% to 19%.
Additional measurements in progress include satisfaction surveys that will compare beta users to consumer release users.
Being a part of a early-stage startup is always a unique challenge, but positive user feedback is it's own high-value reward. As a designer, being able to quickly iterate and test hypotheses is also a privilege that can lead to quick positive results.
Going forward, I will be more cognizant of ways I can gain insights from user behavior faster. Within the constraints of personal information in the consumer market, some OOTB tools may be out of reach due to budget or resources, but finding a way to gain this information is crucial.
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