Role
Lead UX Researcher
& UI Designer
Independent UX case study / 01
Mendora.
Making the road to recovery feel a little less uncertain.
A mobile rehabilitation concept that brings exercise guidance, everyday progress, and therapist conversations into one calmer experience.
A clear daily plan
Therapist, one tap away
01 / Discover
Recovery is hard enough. Clarity should be easier.
Mendora started with a simple question: what gets in the way of following a rehabilitation plan between appointments?
EXPLORATORY CONVERSATIONS
Two athlete perspectives.
One therapist perspective.
I spoke with two student-athletes and one physical therapist over Zoom. Rather than testing a finished product, these early conversations helped narrow the problem to three opportunities: clearer instructions, motivation, and direct support.
Small, exploratory sample. The numerical ratings describe these participants only.
WHAT WE HEARD0–10 response scale
4/10
Instruction clarity
Average across the three participants
4/10
Motivation to follow rehab
Average across the two athletes
6/10
Importance of direct contact
Average across the surveyed group
INITIAL DESIGN OPPORTUNITY
See decisions Make daily rehabilitation understandable, show meaningful progress, and keep the therapist within reach.
IN-DEPTH / RESEARCH EVIDENCE
What the original project documented.
These artifacts come from the December 2024–January 2025 source deck, rather than a new research study.
01 / METHODZoom interviews / surveys
Two student-athletes and one physical therapist
02 / OTHER RATINGS5.5/10 & 6/10
Visual aids helpfulness (athletes) and usefulness of progress tracking (PT)
03 / STUDY LIMITDirectional only
Three people; no population-wide conclusions
COMPETITIVE AUDIT / 2024
Five criteria. Three familiar tools.
The source deck compared MyFitnessPal, Physitrack, and Strava on the capabilities Mendora aimed to bring together. These are my original project assessments, not current product evaluations.
| FEATURE / CAPABILITY | MyFitnessPal | Physitrack | Strava |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 Personalized rehab plan | Not marked | Included | Not marked |
| 02 Progress tracking | Included | Included | Included |
| 03 Intuitive interface | Not marked | Not marked | Included |
| 04 In-app messaging | Not marked | Included | Not marked |
| 05 Multiple connections | Not marked | Included | Not marked |
WHAT THE COMPARISON SUGGESTED
Original audit ↗Progress tracking was the only criterion marked for all three products. No app was marked as meeting all five criteria in this original audit.
“Intuitive interface” is a subjective judgment from the project deck. Feature availability and labels reflect the 2024 student project, not an independently verified market analysis.
PERSONAS FROM THE ORIGINAL DECK
Two viewpoints, two kinds of friction.
These are the project’s illustrative personas; they should not be confused with additional research participants.
Sarah
Soccer student-athlete, navigating ACL rehab and wanting confidence that exercises are performed correctly.
Need: clearer guided routinesTom
Physical therapist managing several athletes, frustrated by fragmented email, phone, and other conversations.
Need: communication in one placePROJECT TIMELINE · APPROX. 3–4 WEEKS
From ambiguity to a clearer path.
Four overlapping phases, from discovery through usability iteration.
PHASE
01 / DISCOVER
Discover & Define
Early sprint · approximately week 1–202 / EXPLORE
Explore & Ideate
Weeks 1–3, overlapping discovery03 / DESIGN
Visuals & UI
Shorter design phase · weeks 3–404 / ITERATE
Test & Refine
Closing phase · late week 3–402 / Define
Three insights. Three design decisions.
Rather than add features for their own sake, I translated the initial research signals into three focused experiences. Each decision points toward an original screen.
RESEARCH SIGNALDESIGN RESPONSEORIGINAL UI
01UNDERSTANDING
“How do I do this correctly?”
Instruction clarity averaged 4/10; athletes rated visual aids 5.5/10 for helpfulness.
Make exercises visual.
Guide each activity with an exercise list and video demonstration.
EXERCISE VIEW02CONSISTENCY
“Am I making progress?”
The athletes’ reported motivation averaged 4/10; progress tracking was rated 6/10 by the therapist.
Bring the day into focus.
Give athletes a readable daily plan and an at-a-glance view of activity.
DAILY DASHBOARD03CONNECTION
“Can I reach my therapist?”
Importance of direct communication averaged 6/10 across the three participants.
Keep help close.
Connect the daily experience to in-app therapist conversations.
THERAPIST CHATPRODUCT DIRECTION
Explore the interface One calmer place for the next recovery decision.
IN-DEPTH / FROM RESEARCH TO FEATURES
A focused scope, not a validated outcome.
These three design responses align with the original deck’s proposed solution: personalized rehab plans, progress milestones, and therapist messaging. The connections shown here are a retrospective explanation of the design rationale, not proof that the features improved recovery.
INCLUDED IN THIS CONCEPT
Dashboard, exercise program, exercise guidance, and therapist conversation journeys
NOT ESTABLISHED BY THE STUDY
Clinical outcomes, long-term adoption, measured motivation improvement, or population-level validation
03 / Design
THE PRODUCT EXPERIENCE
A clearer way
to keep moving.
The research called for clearer guidance, visible progress and easier communication. I explored how two everyday journeys could feel connected rather than fragmented.
ORIGINAL MENDORA UI / PORTFOLIO WALKTHROUGH01 — 02 JOURNEYS
01 / STAY CONNECTED
The right person,
within reach.
A therapist message is visible alongside the daily plan, then just a few taps away.
FOLLOW THE JOURNEY
The daily dashboard puts the new message beside today’s rehabilitation information.
MENDORA / MOBILE CONCEPT
01 / DASHBOARDORIGINAL SCREEN DESIGNS
THE DESIGN LOGIC
01
Make the next action obvious.
A small number of visible destinations helps people move from an update to the relevant task.
02
Place help near the work.
Messaging and exercise guidance stay close to the activities athletes are trying to complete.
IN-DEPTH / PROCESS EVIDENCE
From early structure to interface.
Three stages of the original process, reframed for easier reading. Each step links to its original source artifact.
01 / EXPLOREORIGINAL SKETCHING
Explore the layout
Early sketches considered dashboard, exercise and patient-care screen arrangements.
View original sketches02 / STRUCTURENAVIGATION MAP
Onboarding
Daily dashboard
WorkoutsMessagesProgress
Organize destinations
The original navigation diagram connected onboarding, the daily plan and supporting destinations.
View original user flow03 / CONNECTLOW-FIDELITY JOURNEY
Plan
→Inbox
→Chat
Connect the conversation
The low-fidelity journey explored moving from a dashboard update into therapist messaging.
View original low-fi flowMini diagrams are retrospective visual summaries, not additional original wireframes. The links open the actual project artifacts.
ORIGINAL ARTIFACTS / EIGHT SCREENS
What I actually designed.
Six screens show the two featured journeys. Two more document the signup and patient-report step used in the later iteration.
The device animations and case-study compositions were made for this portfolio presentation. The interface screens themselves are from the original project.
04 / Test & iterate
USABILITY / FIRST-ROUND EVALUATION
The paths worked.
One step was missing.
Three participants completed core navigation tasks. Their feedback raised a new question: where should an athlete add an existing patient report?
EXPLORE THE TEST / SELECT A TASK
Average recorded task times in seconds. Different tasks are not directly comparable.
ORIGINAL STUDY / PARTICIPANT NOTES
TASK 01 / 03
The missing input step.
Participants questioned how to input new patient information while accessing their workout.
FROM OBSERVATION TO ACTION
Make report intake part of the journey.
THE DESIGN RESPONSE
An explicit place to add a patient report.
After the initial sign-up screen, I introduced a dedicated report-upload step. The original deck also notes that users could reach it after creating an account.
This is an untested iteration responding to early feedback—not measured proof of improved usability or recovery outcomes.
IN-DEPTH / ORIGINAL STUDY
Three tasks, three useful observations.
Recorded task times and observations, redesigned for readability. No follow-up testing of the new upload step was documented.
THE RECORDED TASKS03 participants · one exploratory test
01
Send a message
UI worked and was clear as expected
3.83 s
02
Access workout
Participants asked how to input new data
4.32 s
03
Check daily stats
Icons helped guide users
2.85 s
TEST LIMITS
Only three participants. No comparison baseline, confidence interval or clinical outcome measure was reported.
ACCESSIBILITY FOLLOW-UP
The deck mentions adjustments to contrast, buttons and icons for different technical comfort levels; no formal accessibility audit is documented.
05 / Reflection
LESSONS FROM THE FIRST ROUND
A useful study doesn't have to be a victory lap.
The numbers described how people navigated. Their questions revealed what the experience still needed.
Basic navigation can feel clear.
The messaging task was described as working and clear as expected.
The surrounding workflow matters.
Questions about entering patient information pointed beyond the workout screen toward onboarding.
Small visual cues do real work.
The original notes called out icons as helpful when participants checked daily stats.
06 / Next steps · not launched
Recovery doesn't stop when you close an app.
Beyond expanding testing with more physical therapists, I'd explore gentle wearable cues that surface the day's plan and completed exercises without asking someone to keep checking their phone.
New retrospective concept · 2026 · Not user-tested
MENDORA
3/5Exercises
Keep your momentum
Today's progress ↗
A gentler reminder ●