In July of 2022 Red Ventures Health and Optum started a joint venture to transform the consumer health journey. The new company, RVO Health, was created to blend digital assets from both parent companies. By doing so, we could create the industry’s first full-service solution for healthcare.

The first initiative of the joint venture was Wellos. An app that utilizes the meal planning and recipe data base from Red Venture’s PlateJoy app and the habit formation and health coaching capabilities of Optum’s Rally Coach app.

“The average person struggles to gain momentum when starting a weight loss journey. They try an average of 3-4 different apps to help achieve their goals … but are left feeling unmotivated and overwhelmed when setbacks occur.” — Wellos User Survey, November 2022

For this reason, we set out to solve how a user prioritizes living healthier while dealing with the stresses of life.

As the most senior Creative Team member, I was the de facto Creative point of contact for many Product and Engineering Team requests. I led cross-functional workshops to align on table stakes and information architecture (FIG. 2.1–2.2). I also facilitated smaller, focused reviews and wireframe creation.

Unfortunately for us, product development work for Wellos was eventually outsourced to an external agency when our new team struggled to show fast results. But out of curiosity I remained close with the agency’s design team. I maintained 1:1s and attended share outs. After a couple months, I moved into a hybrid role, assisting on Wellos (FIG. 4.1–4.4) as well as carrying out tasks for my reassignment.

This project was a career-defining learning experience. Up until this point, I had never truly seen what it takes to bring a digital product from 0 to 1.

After being reassigned, I packaged the research our team did and presented this case study to the broader creative org and leadership. I highlighted our early triumphs, later failures, and overall learning opportunities. From there I worked on continuing to fill my skill gaps.

Months later I have been implementing what I learned fro Wellos to my own passion project, Ankleflick.

As a team of 10-12 stakeholders, we spent time in cross-functional working sessions. We needed to learn our new teammate’s expertise and pressure-test the different products we were hoping to integrate (FIG 1.1–1.4).

We researched the psychology of behavior change and habit formation and how digital products can assist in positive change. In doing so, we aligned on how Wellos would need to extrinsically motivate a user to create intrinsic behaviors that help them achieve their goals.

Our creative team (Content Designer, UX Researcher, and myself as Product Designer) then completed an in-depth competitive analysis on six habit formation and meal planning apps (FIG. 3.1). We documented key flows, noting confusing UX and delightful UX along the way (FIG. 3.2). We identified how our desired table stakes appeared or didn’t appear in our competitors’ experiences and graded them using a rubric (FIG. 3.3-3.4).

When we kicked off this project the majority of our team was completely new to working with one another. We had very different corporate cultures (Red Ventures Health or Optum.) There were new roles to interface with and senior stakeholders whose input was crucial to the success of the product. Our first step was learning our new team members’ expertise and aligning on how it should influence the end product.

As we began research, we lacked leadership and a strong POV from Product stakeholders. This was the first native mobile app RVO Health had ever developed. This led to unclear business requirements and acceptance criteria.

For this reason, we struggled to gain velocity after 1-2 months of cross-functional workshops, competitive analysis, and user story ideation. Eventually senior leadership hired an external agency specializing in health apps to finish the work we started.

We created a user persona and problem statement based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for healthy living.

Our competitive analysis of six habit-formation and weight loss products (FIG. 1.1-1.4) influenced core progress tracking and meal planning capabilities.

The table stakes and framework from workshops I led (FIG. 2.1–2.2) influenced the core feature set and competitive analysis.

As I worked more with the external agency I contributed to design system assets and created the product’s color palette(FIG. 4.1–4.2). This freed up their team to focus on user flows and alignment with tech.

I ideated on Coaching Supports (FIG. 4.3) which are asynchronous suggestions a user receives throughout their journey. Supports simulate the types of feedback a health coach would give based on a user’s behavior within the app. This feature allows Wellos to remain a scalable solution for a large user base but gives each individual user an experience that is unique to their needs.

I audited the final mockups for accessibility (FIG. 4.4) and created UI suggestions for their designers. This ensured Wellos aligned with RVO Health’s usability standards and was protected against lawsuits.

Brandon Brown (Engineering Manager), Shannon Finn (UX Researcher), Fred Garbutt (Engineer), Kristin Gustafson (Product Director), Andy McGrath (Product Manager), Daniel Nelson (Engineer), Cathy Pedtke (Recipes Coordinator), Nate Seaman (Product Designer), Nat Sonier (Content Designer), Arielle Trenary (CI Manager), Maddy Warlof (Clinical Program Manager)