Trust Into Habit: Designing a Daily Health Companion

Snapshot

Client / A leading national health nonprofit serving millions of people managing a chronic condition.

Company / iCrossing

Focus / 0–1 personalized member support experience for a national health network

Role / Experience Lead, Research

Team / 5 people across experience, strategy, and content

Timeline / 12 months to MVP launch, plus continued expansion to grow and deepen the experience towards the long-term vision of a companion app

Impact / Targeting 500,000 verified members by year one, 2 million by 2030 (results pending launch)

The organization's engagement model was reactive, a "grab and go" experience built on static content and one-time visits.

That left little room for personalization or reaching people when they actually needed support.

Where We Started

The client's ask was vague: grow the network, but no clear idea how. Their first pitch was a Reddit-style forum.

Our research said otherwise. People who were newly diagnosed, motivated but overwhelmed, didn't want another forum to dig through. They wanted real expertise, delivered to them.

That changed everything. Instead of a resource people had to go find, we built a companion that reaches them first. The goal wasn't a place to visit, it was a habit to keep.

What We’re Building

A mobile-first companion for people managing a chronic health condition, delivered through SMS and email.

Instead of a forum or a library of static content, it sends proactive nudges, timed to when someone's actually likely to act, backed by research. Bite-sized education and optional peer connection come along with it.

What Stood in the Way

Getting here took more than good strategy. A few things pushed back:

Personalization had to be built from scratch.
Pathways, pacing, and routing all needed defining before a single message could go out. There was no existing framework to build from.
Depth had to exist beyond the first win.
People needed a reason to keep coming back at every stage, not just a strong first impression.
Content volume was its own project.
A single 12-week cycle could need 65 to 85+ message units once you factor in routing, re-entry, and completion logic. All of it something the client would have to build and maintain long-term. Stale, repetitive content was one of the biggest risks to retention.
Speed forced a phased build.
The real ambition was a full mobile app, but that wasn't realistic for a first release. We started with SMS and lightweight web content, with a clear path to build toward the full app over time.
A lean team with a big mandate.
A five-person delivery team partnered with an equally stretched client team, who were managing this on top of their existing workload.

Not every person living with this condition is ready to act. The strategy targeted the ones who were motivated, recently diagnosed or newly at-risk.

The experience was built around those who were ready for change, but unsure of where to start.

My Strategy

Turning a vague "build a community" ask into a real platform meant designing something personal enough to feel like a companion, without needing the full app the original vision called for. Here's what I prioritized:

A model grounded in behavioral science, not instinct.
The approach was built on Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions, delivering the right nudge at the right moment instead of guessing at timing and tone.
A phased build, not a leap.
I mapped the full vision but scoped the first release to what could actually launch on time: SMS and lightweight web content, with a clear path to grow from there.
A tone system that flexes with the person, not the message.
Copy stayed clear and practical by default, and shifted warmer at moments of overwhelm, re-entry, or low engagement, based on what research showed people actually needed at each stage.
Content built for retention, not just onboarding.
Content was built around archetypes and pathways so the experience kept offering value long after someone's first visit, instead of running out of things to say after the welcome sequence.
Reused what already existed.
We leaned on existing content, tools, and infrastructure wherever we could, to keep the MVP lightweight and something the client could actually maintain long-term.
Credibility was the foundation.
Research showed people trusted the organization's clinical expertise more than peer communities, so the companion made that expertise feel personal without watering it down.

What I Owned

As Experience Lead, I worked closely with a strategist and content lead to bring the experience to life. My work included:

Built an AI-powered workflow. Claude handled research synthesis, user flows, and IA structuring; Figma Make turned that directly into prototyped screens, then testing and stakeholder input shaped what shipped.
Translated ambiguity into direction.
Took a vague "build a community" mandate and turned it into a real interaction model, backed by research instead of guesswork.
Built the experience architecture.
Owned user flows, information architecture, and content structure across onboarding and the ongoing loop.
Bridged content and design.
Worked directly with the content lead on archetypes, pathways, and tone, so content and design moved as one system.
Ran research solo.
Designed and ran the survey and interview program myself, with no dedicated research team to lean on.
Owned the client relationship.
Presented findings and direction to stakeholders directly, keeping the project moving and aligned as decisions were made.
Directed visual design.
Providing oversight for the visual designer bringing the experience to life for launch.
Owned launch readiness.
Leading QA and testing in preparation for release.

Success isn't a single visit. It's still being there in week twelve, and turning that trust into the next generation of advocates.

What We're Measuring

Since the experience hasn't launched yet, this is the plan for measuring success. The MVP isn't about proving interest, it's about proving behavior change::

Network growth.
Verified membership growing from roughly 150,000 to 500,000 by the end of year one, on the way to 2 million by 2030.
Meaningful participation, not just enrollment.
Success isn't people joining, it's people showing up weekly, coming back, and making it through a full 12-week cycle.
Behavioral change, not just content consumption.
The metrics that matter track whether people actually take the small actions we nudge toward, not just whether they open a message.
Organizational intelligence as a byproduct.
Every interaction feeds back into the system, so the experience gets better over time, and so does the organization's understanding of its own audience.

The real test isn't launch. It's whether people are still opening messages, finishing cycles, and coming back in month three. Launch results to come…

What’s Next

The experience is in active development.

Remaining work includes finalizing the first-wave content library, wireframe design, and closing out technical dependencies, all followed by build, test, and launch. From there, MVP learnings will shape future evolutions and expansions.

Discovery Highlights

The content team ran social listening to map out who the experience needed to serve. The decision: focus on people who were newly diagnosed and motivated, not everyone. This group needed practical guidance and didn't yet have a clear place to start, making them the best fit for an experience built to reach them first.

With the audience defined, I mapped their full journey, from first noticing something's wrong to eventually giving back as a peer advocate. Each stage defines specific goals, nudges, and signals for progression. MVP focused on the first three stages, Trigger, Understand, and Act, laying the foundation for people to graduate into staying on track and giving back over time.

With multiple entry points, content pathways, and personalization layers at play, I built a full user flow to show how the primary persona would actually move through the experience. Unresolved questions were flagged directly on the flow, turning open decisions into clear conversation starters for the team.