Toastie
A health tracking app for people with chronic conditions, taken on as a live client project through Prodigi, university design society. I joined as project manager, then stepped into the design lead role when the project fell behind and needed stronger design ownership. Over 3 months I directed 4 other designers on a redesign of the Insights page, turning complex health data into something glanceable and actionable. I set the quality bar and ran the process, and as the deadline closed in I carried a large share of the design work myself.
Role
Design lead
Timeline
Sep 2024 - Nov 2024
Skills
User research
Project management
Quality assurance
Prototyping
Tools
Figma
Notion
Dovetail
Problem
Users with chronic illnesses were logging symptoms but getting nothing useful back. The existing Insights page was overwhelming, hard to navigate, and failed to surface patterns or next steps.
Solution
We redesigned Insights around 3 goals:
- Make data glanceable
- Surface actionable alerts
- Help users communicate with doctors
Team bonding and live ideation day
I ran a hybrid process: two weeks of waterfall research to get the team aligned on scope fast, then agile sprints for design and iteration. I allocated tasks by experience, stronger designers took the complex screens, newer members built out system components. I also rotated assignments over time so no one was stuck on the smaller UX work for the whole project, everyone got a turn on the more engaging screens.
Late-stage approach
With the initial structure, we were projected to fall behind schedule, which required me to be more hands-on. The team had strong research skills but mixed design ability. Early hi-fi outputs weren't at the quality bar the client expected, and iteration cycles were taking longer than our 3-month timeline could absorb.
Market gap
We analysed 13 symptom-tracking apps and found a common gap in the market.
Flo charges $13.99 a month for insights.
Clue charges $9.99, and won't let you export data.
Chronic Insights charges $59.99 for advanced insights.
Nerva is $200 a year with no cheaper tier.
Toastie gave insights away free, but every symptom had its own separate data page, so nobody could see information holistically. So, the opportunity was one centralised hub to look at insights.
Structured interviews
We ran 10 semi-structured interviews with people managing chronic conditions. Mostly in their twenties, six living with PCOS, conditions running one to five years and some still undiagnosed. We also had them use the app and log a symptom while we timed it.
Overwhelming data
Tedious logging
No actionables
58
52
How might we turn health data into personalised, actionable insights for busy people?
How we tested
We timed the same logging task again on the redesign: find a symptom you actually get, period cramps for instance, and log it. Alongside that we ran moderated think-aloud sessions across four tasks: reading your stool data insights, finding and completing actionable tips, and exporting your health data as a PDF.
What testing showed
Main problem was that the Insights Hub screen had too much going on to take in at once. One participant said the gradients made her think harder rather than less.
I delivered a centralised Insights page, a redesigned symptom analysis view, and a data export that didn't exist before. People with chronic conditions get very little time with their specialist, and being able to hand over a clean summary of their tracked data changes that conversation.
Limits of the data
Both rounds were small. The logging test ran remotely with peers rather than recruited users, and the think-aloud had three participants. Enough to find the obvious problems, not enough to treat either number as precise.
52 → 9
“
Client, Toastie
I took this on alongside my job at DAPPA. I wanted to upskill my management, and leading skills. It was also a field I knew nothing about which was exciting to me.
