Still Ape is the world’s first UX design studio focused exclusively on mindfulness, compassion, and wellbeing.
Role: Founder, Entrepreneur, UX Director, UX Research, UI Design
Timeframe: 2018 - Present
Contributions:
Founded the studio, built the team and launched the brand in response to growing demand in this specialized area.
Helped 30+ startups, nonprofits and institutional partners design, launch and iterate transformative technologies, contemplative communities, and training curricula.
Hired, trained, and/or mentored 20+ junior and intermediate designers and researchers to build internal capacity in our partner organizations (as well as for our internal team).
Services, projects, team information available at stillape.com - scroll down for a few samples of Still Ape project work:
Brightmind is the official app for renowned meditation teacher Shinzen Young’s Unified Mindfulness system.
Contributions:
Helped avoid a disaster scenario by advocating UX research.
Trained and coached the team through the UX research process.
Feedback on tactical materials (research guides, UI designs, etc.)
Guidance and discussion on ethical approaches to marketing.
#SelfCare is a free, simple, and beautiful AI companion for joy and self-connection where you can stay in bed all day.
Contributions:
Onboarded the entire design team to human-centered design through teaching and a hands-on sprint.
Facilitated a 2-day ideation workshop to map current state and vision future state of the app’s onboarding.
Trained individual team members on ideation, moderation, research note-taking, prototyping, and interpretation.
Advising the team as they integrate this knowledge to bear in an ongoing, iterative human-centered design process.
Umay Rest uses meditation, temperature, and vibration to address digital eye strain related to extended screen time.
Contributions:
Applied service design thinking to help frame the full product journey across all touchpoints.
Mentored co-founders and technical leads to incorporate rapid prototyping and UX research at the ground floor.
Reviewing and revising tactical research materials, and prototypes for the packaging, quick start guide, and app.
Helped position and secure a major grant to fund extended clinical research trials and leverage the opportunity for UX.
Retreat Guru is the world’s largest collection of authentic wellness retreats.
Contributions:
Spearheaded a UX culture across the organization.
Trained individuals on design facilitation, interview moderation, rapid prototyping, data analysis, and more.
Designed several user interfaces, including a homepage A/B test leading to a 10x increase in CTA clickthrough rates.
Coached the team through strategic visioning, service design, and discovery/synthesis to support a major pivot.
Koru Mindfulness is an evidence-based curriculum for teaching mindfulness to college students.
Roles: Design Facilitator, UX Researcher, Coach, Strategic Advisor
Contributions:
Mapped student’s journey through the entire 4 week program.
Led ideation workshop to produce 50+ storyboard concepts.
Helped define target audience and recruit screened participants.
Executed UX research on radical new concepts for using tech.
Capacity-building; the team internalized the human-cented design process and is continuing with it independently.
Daily Haloha is a simple, anonymous and refreshing social media app which helps you feel more connected.
Roles: UX Researcher, Strategic Advisor, Content Development
Contributions:
Advisory on strategic processes around UX research activities to execute both before and after product launch.
Helped define target audience and recruit screened participants.
Full execution on discovery interviews exploring product UX.
Content development for app / blog.