Headversity

Modernizing the industry-leading workplace mental health app for desktop and mobile.

The Challenge

When I joined Headversity, the platform had grown rapidly during the 2020 pandemic. Early design decisions prioritized speed over scalability, and while the mobile app worked, the platform lacked a cohesive web experience, consistent design system, and streamlined user flows.

The Challenges:

  • Modernize the app for mobile, desktop, and web.
  • Improve usability, engagement, and retention.
  • Maintain a focus on data collection and actionable insights for admins.
  • Ensure accessibility (AA rating minimum) and future scalability.

The Role

I led UX/UI design for this full platform revamp, collaborating closely with Product, Marketing, and Engineering.

  • UX/UI Design: Wireframes, prototypes, final UI for mobile and web.
  • User Research & Testing: Interviews, surveys, and usability sessions with a diverse set of users.
  • Cross-Functional Facilitation: Workshops with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Customer Success.
  • Iteration: Continuous refinement informed by user feedback and business goals.



The Personas & User Research

We started by building updated user personas through remote interviews, focusing on target audience motivations, values, and daily routines.

  • 7 users were interviewed over 4 days, spanning multiple industries and job types.
  • Insights informed feature prioritization, user flow improvements, and marketing messaging.
  • One persona, for example, the “The Brand & Leadership Developer,” highlighted the importance of inclusive, actionable mental health content.



The Surveys

We complemented interviews with a broad survey, reaching 100 employees across 10 clients.

  • Many differences in workplace mental health perception between blue and white-collar employees.
  • The feedback informed both Product and Marketing teams on how to position and deliver features effectively.

We discovered industry-specific patterns and highlighted areas where design could make a tangible difference, such as customizing onboarding flows for different user groups.

The User Journey

Onboarding was a critical area for improvement:

  • We needed quick, seamless flows that communicated value and benefits to users.
  • We incorporated stakeholder requirements while balancing usability - Data points are too valuable in onboarding to ignore for anything.

The Wireframes

Wireframes were created in Figma and Miro:

  • Low-fidelity for early alignment with stakeholders.
  • High-fidelity for features requiring more detailed design or testing.
  • We collaborated with Engineering to ensure technical feasibility of web and mobile implementations.

Research-informed decisions meant only one round of revisions was needed for low-fidelity wireframes.




The Testing Groups

We created high-fidelity prototypes for internal and external testing:

  • Three rounds with five users each.
  • Users responded positively to streamlined navigation and clearer content delivery.
  • Minor confusion in onboarding and stakeholder-mandated elements required iterative adjustments.

Cross-functional impact:

  • Product: Prioritized features and roadmap adjustments.
  • Marketing: Refined onboarding messaging and in-app prompts.
  • Engineering: Optimized responsive web flows and mobile-first interactions.

The UI

Our results:

  • A responsive, mobile-friendly platform that works seamlessly on desktop and mobile.
  • A consistent design system improving usability, accessibility, and visual cohesion.
  • Clearer user flows and data collection points that support insights-driven decision-making for clients.



The Outcome

The platform revamp delivered measurable impact:

  • Engagement: Increased retention as users returned regularly to complete exercises.
  • Revenue: Enabled scalable onboarding for new clients, contributing to overall sales growth.
  • Cross-functional Success: Marketing leveraged insights for campaigns, Product aligned roadmap with research, and Engineering efficiently implemented responsive web and mobile design.
  • Accessibility: Achieved AA-level compliance, making mental health content more accessible to all employees.

What I Learned

  • Cross-functional collaboration is key: Designing a platform that satisfies users, stakeholders, and technical constraints requires tight coordination between teams.
  • Mobile-first thinking matters: Optimizing for mobile early ensures web implementation is cohesive and scalable.
  • User research informs everything: Surveys, interviews, and testing highlighted differences across industries and informed both design and messaging strategies.
  • Iteration never stops: Real-world feedback drove refinements that improved adoption, engagement, and long-term satisfaction.