Designing Trust for Sensitive Health Journeys
Creating a calm, approachable mobile experience that helps women with PCOS navigate their health with greater confidence.
Project at Glance
- Designed the visual experience for the product's first public release
- Created a scalable visual language across health tracking, workouts, recipes, and community features
- Collaborated directly with the founders to establish the visual direction before development
- The visual foundation from the initial release still shapes the product experience today
why this project matters
For people managing long-term health conditions, a product has to feel approachable, trustworthy, and calm - not just function well. This project translated an established product vision into a cohesive visual experience for Cysterhood's first public release, where every decision worked toward an interface users are comfortable returning to daily.
Problem & Context
Understanding the Product Vision
Business Context
Cysterhood was founded by Tallene, who lives with PCOS, and Sirak, a certified women's-health trainer. By the time I joined, the vision, early research, and wireframes already existed - my responsibility was translating that foundation into a polished, trustworthy visual experience for the product's first public release.
The Challenge
Define how the product should feel: approachable without becoming playful, trustworthy without feeling clinical, calming without sacrificing clarity. The founders wanted a vibrant pastel palette - so the work was a visual language that balanced brand vision with usability, letting users focus on their health, not the interface.
Research & Systems
Defining the Experience
Finding the Right Visual Language
Rather than polishing wireframes immediately, I explored multiple visual directions on representative screens - validating colour, typography, spacing, and imagery before scaling anything. Working with Tallene and Sirak, those concepts became the alignment conversations that set the product's look and feel, and establishing that foundation early kept the rest of the application consistent with far less rework.
Design Solutions
Design Decision 01
Intentional Color, Not Decorative
The core insight: don't maximize every brand color - use color with intention. A vibrant pastel system turns decorative fast, and in a health product clarity is critical.
A restrained color strategy with clear typography and generous spacing kept the experience approachable and accessible. Color was used to:
- Highlight actionable elements and key information
- Support hierarchy without relying on decoration
- Create warmth without costing usability
Once established, the same principles scaled across the entire product - honoring the founders' vision while holding the usability a health app demands.
Outcomes & Reflection
A Foundation for Growth
The visual language from the initial release became the product's foundation: new screens stayed consistent through development, and years later the direction established then remains largely intact as the platform has grown.
Looking Back
Cysterhood reminded me that visual design isn't the final layer of a product - it shapes how people feel when they use it. Establishing the direction before full production gave every later screen a foundation, and validating those decisions early meant the product scaled without sacrificing usability or the founders' vision. Establish the right visual foundation first; let every decision reinforce it.
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