Designing for Chronic Disease Management

Led the design of multiple key features for Elsa Science's chronic disease management platform, improving patient experience and health tracking capabilities.

Problem

Managing chronic conditions is complex—patients struggle to track symptoms, medications, and routines, making healthcare visits less effective. Existing tools were fragmented and unintuitive, limiting engagement and real-world impact.

Approach

I worked in rapid sprints, launching updates every three weeks—uncommon in healthcare. UX had to fit this pace, ensuring continuous feedback loops through user testing. I introduced new tools, monitored adoption, and iterated based on real-world patient needs.

Outcomes

Frequent iterations led to tangible improvements in engagement and usability:

70-85% retention in the self-care app, showing strong user adoption.
Simplified health tracking improved patient confidence and decision-making.
Clinical Dashboard enabled earlier interventions, reducing unnecessary visits by 34%.
Self-Screening Tool, tested on 40,000 users, improved clarity in diagnosis journeys.

Lessons Learned

Being fully embedded in a product team for the first time taught me how product decisions shape teams, strategy, and user impact. I saw firsthand how product-market fit evolves and how empowered teams drive better outcomes.

Working in B2B2C healthcare, I learned to design for multiple stakeholders—building tools for users who would, in turn, create experiences for their own users. Each feature had to be valuable at different levels.

I also saw that startups go through phases, each requiring different skills. Sometimes big changes were needed, not just small improvements. The key was staying flexible, experimenting, and adapting quickly.

Patient mobile app interfaces — Patient mobile app featuring an engaging home screen with daily tasks, a symptom tracking, and a simplified weekly report that makes health changes easy to understand.

Patiant mobile app in action. Here we see how a user logs their day.

Healthcare provider dashboard — Desktop interface for healthcare providers, designed to support their expertise with detailed patient data while highlighting the most relevant information.

Contextual user observation — Observing users in their natural environment provided crucial insights into how they interact with the app in real-world situations.

Remote user testing setup — Remote user testing using a two-screen setup proved highly effective for gathering user feedback and validating design decisions during covid and later in the US.

Figma design process — example of how the detailed and iterative process could look like in Figma. Showcasing the work around Elsa's educational programs.

Elsa design system — A comprehensive design system ensured consistency across all features.