Connections App
Redesigning an all-in-one app to guide users through their recovery journey.
Leading the redesign of CHESS health’s flagship recovery app to a functional and fun to use experience that boosts user engagement and increases retention.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Platform
Mobile
Duration
2 years
Team
Team of 6 devs, and 2 product managers
The Problem
Navigating recovery is overwhelming
Recovery is a challenging, ongoing process, and existing tools lack engaging, accessible ways for patients to stay connected, organized, and motivated.
Recovery apps fail when users disengage. Connections had the right features—but lacked the usability and engagement needed to support consistent recovery.
My Role
Designing solo, but not alone
As the sole designer, I led a product-wide redesign to transform it into a system users would return to daily.
Throughout my process, I would create flows, designs and provide suggestions as product would give their requirements from users and stakeholders.
I would also directly interact with developers to find middle grounds and provide solutions that accommodated their needs as well.
Sole designer across all features
Led end-to-end redesign
Defined design system
Worked with product and development
The Goal
Create a scalable product that people enjoy using
I restructured the app around modular, scalable patterns, treating each section as its own product while ensuring consistency across the platform.
I also included more visual engagement through custom illustrations for a friendlier and more approachable experience.
Reduce friction
make daily use effortless
Increase visibility
surface what matters most
Design for emotion
feel supportive, not clinical
Emphasize scalability
build for the future
Discovery
Learning the audience
Recovery is a tricky subject matter because of the anonymity that is required when working in this field. Users generally do not want to be identified but still want a community to connect with along with resources that will aid them.
With that in mind, I decided to make personas based off of common points of our users from the limited data I was provided.
The good, the bad and the ugly
I also took a dive into some reviews left on the app and while many were positive, praising the apps helpful features and content, there were several that pointed out its glaring issues, such as the buggy UI, difficult navigation and unclear onboarding process.
There is no use for most of these features, and their inclusion is demeaning to the people who need this.
— Anonymous Google user
the biggest problem has been not being able to separate notifications for group, or individual messages.
— Paul “Quillpen77” Ramey on Google
The Gameplan
Solutionizing incrementally
When I was first onboarded to the product and was asked about the current state of the app, I gave a frank answer:
"There's a lot to be done."
As a team, we looked at the app holistically and decided that we can introduce incremental changes to prevent alienation of our current users.
Homepage
From menu to meaningful homepage
My goal with the homepage was to add value to what was a static menu.
Key features:
Surfaces daily goals and progress (gamification)
Reinforces motivation (personal “why”)
Highlights relevant content and actions
Maintains familiar navigation for existing users
Outcome:
Gave users a reason to return daily instead of navigating immediately away.
Plan
From utility to daily habit
The most powerful—and most avoided—part of the app.
The plan section features many great tools for recovery and serves as the main hub for user driven content. With the redesign, I tried to address many of its problems while introducing new ways to record their journey.
Problems:
Barebones, transactional experience
No incentive to return
Competing with better third-party tools
Redesign:
Centralized hub for schedules, tasks, and insights
Flexible calendar with clear visual hierarchy
Journaling with emotional tracking to encourage reflection
Surveys with progress visualization + recommendations
Integrated provider interactions (scheduling + communication)
Outcome:
Gave users a reason to return daily instead of navigating immediately away.
Discover
From overwhelming to curated
Prior, the discover page listed content in an unintuitive and uninteresting way with no visual hierarchy or callouts to tell the user where to go and what to do.
Key features:
Categorized, visual content system
Search and lightweight filtering
Featured and personalized content
Motivations integrated into the broader experience
Outcome:
Made content feel relevant, usable, and worth visiting
Community
From isolated to connected
Recovery can feel lonely without consistent support.
While the Social feature existed for support groups and messaging, there was no way to meet people beyond the circles a provider would place a user in.
Community helped bridge that gap by providing a space for user to interact and post their stories and journeys as a forum. Providers would also have access to this space to further interact and see users beyond their circle.
Key features:
Designed a forum-style system for cross-group interaction
Enabled communication between users and providers
Reduced barriers to participation
Outcome:
Strengthened peer connection and ongoing engagement.
Gamification
Introducing something fun to enhance the journey
User retention has always been something the app struggled to do. There are many features helpful and useful features, yet users tend to gloss over them in favor of an third-party tool or just skipping it all together.
However, one base feature that had always been popular with many users was the daily sobriety streak counter.
Users loved seeing the number go up and would proudly present their days sober while giving them a reason to open and return to the app at least once a day. Providers also found it helpful to keep up with their patients streaks and congratulate them as they meet every milestone.
I decided to expand on that feature and give the user even more ways to level up their experience.
Key features:
Point system that contribute to levels
Badges that are earned by exploring and interacting with different parts of the app
An opportunity to share victories in a fun way
A record of a users sobriety journey
Outcome:
Increased user interaction with other sections by 11% while also encouraging user retention.
Design System
Scalability, Consistency and a friendly vibe
As a product with many different, large scale sections, consistency has always been a struggle. As features get added, patterns would not account for the continued growth of the app, making sections feel bloated and difficult to navigate.
I wanted to introduce the foundations of a design system that would focus on 3 core values:
Increased Scalability
design for a growing product
Consistency Throughout
speeds design and development time
Friendly Illustrations
creates a welcoming atmosphere
Impact
A product users will want to come back to
While exact metrics aren't available, the redesign helped recontextualize the app as a user friendly experience with high value to stakeholders.
Improved clarity and usability across core flows
Increased accessibility for a wide range of users
Created stronger engagement loops through habit-forming features
Reduced reliance on external tools by consolidating functionality
My Reflections
A platform designed for a real-world impact
As one of my first projects out of school, it was quite intimidating taking complete agency and responsibility over a platform.
I did not have any mentorship or senior designers to look up to as the sole designer and developed workflows entirely on my own.
I learned how to:
Balance complexity with clarity in large systems
Design for vulnerable users with empathy and accessibility
Build scalable design patterns across multi-surface products
Connections remains one of the most meaningful products I’ve worked on—supporting users through some of the most difficult moments of their lives.