Project overview
of coronavirus by notifying users of potential exposure.
I led the UX team across multiple countries and timezones, designing the end-to-end experience during a global crisis.
UX Lead
UK, Hong Kong, Mexico, US, France, Poland,
UX leadership, research strategy, IA, flows, interactions, workshops, prototyping, testing
Emergency pandemic response
Impact
600K lives protected
Helped reduce infection spread through anonymous exposure alerts at national scale.
4.8 App Store rating
Delivered a trusted, high-quality experience during a critical public health emergency.
30M+ active users
Enabled mass adoption by addressing trust, privacy concerns, and accessibility needs.
Delivered in 6 weeks
Designed, tested, and shipped a national health app under extreme time pressure.
Privacy by design
Built on anonymous Apple/Google technology to create complete user confidence.
Remote collaboration
Coordinated design across four countries and timezones for seamless delivery.
Rapid delivery
Achieved fast iteration and alignment across product, engineering, and research.
Health impact
Provided millions with clear guidance and alerts that supported public health efforts.
Mission
Our mission was to design a national-scale app capable of helping reduce infections by anonymously alerting users when they had been near someone who later tested positive all while addressing the massive trust, privacy, and adoption challenges of a politically charged environment.
Key challenges
Many users believed the government would track them.
People often mixed up NHS and UK Government, impacting trust.
The target audience was 80% of UK smartphone users (~37 million).
Some users (nurses, teachers, supermarket staff) needed unique flows due to PPE.
Vulnerable groups had higher expectations and needs.
Many self-employed users feared isolation meant loss of income.
For the app to work as intended, adoption at national scale was critical, which made UX decisions directly tied to public
health.
Objectives
- We aligned with NHS, epidemiologists, behavioral scientists, and engineering teams to define clear success outcomes:
- Maximize trust and reduce fears around privacy or government tracking.
- Create an onboarding flow capable of converting tens of millions of people.
- Provide clear, simple, and comforting guidance during anxiety-inducing moments.
- Make venue check-in effortless and reliable.
- Provide isolation instructions in a way that minimized fear and confusion.
- Ensure accessibility for users with a wide range of abilities, languages, and contexts.
- Make the entire app usable without training because we couldn’t rely on help centers.
Design process
If you know me, read my previous posts or case studies, you already know that I’m a huge fan of Design Thinking framework and Lean (UX) methodology which I apply not only in UX projects but also in my day to day life. Each project will have its particularities, and it will require different methods and techniques, but the foundation is still the same.
Research & insights
We hosted cross-functional ideation sessions (UX, Engineering, Product, Legal, Compliance, Behavioral Science, Accessibility). Together, we co-created low-fidelity concepts and aligned on the core flows. We created a storyboard which covered all the scenarios we were building, in order to make sure everyone is aligned.
Ideation & wireframes
The UX team developed structured user flows and wireframes covering all MVP features. These were translated into clickable prototypes for rapid testing.
Hi-fi designs & prototyping
Multiple rounds of remote usability testing revealed: Mostly minor issues corrected quickly. One persistent major block: Users still believed the app tracked them, despite clear messaging.
Testing
The UX team developed structured user flows and wireframes covering all MVP features. These were translated into clickable prototypes for rapid testing.
Accessibility
Multiple rounds of remote usability testing revealed: Mostly minor issues corrected quickly. One persistent major block: Users still believed the app tracked them, despite clear messaging.
Design system
The UX team developed structured user flows and wireframes covering all MVP features. These were translated into clickable prototypes for rapid testing.
Critical insights
UX alone couldn’t solve this, the solution required public education, marketing campaigns, and widespread messaging.
We worked closely with NHS marketing teams to ensure the public understood the app’s privacy model before downloading it.