How to launch your new web app in less than 3 months
I collaborated with our director and Head of Nutrition to announce the new web app during a live stream across multiple platforms.
Our clients were delighted. The signups came streaming in!
How did we do it?
3 months earlier, as the leadership team, we identified this project as critical and urgent
We needed a new product, “JEFF Club”, which packaged our once-off offerings into a monthly subscription. “JEFF Club” would help us scale.
We had to redesign our web app, fast!
In 3 months, we wanted clients to be able to subscribe in the web app, join all our exercise programs, menus and courses, and socialise through posts, comments and likes.
I was the lead UX designer as well as project manager across marketing, product and tech
I was right in the middle of the action from the start and I kicked things off with product strategy meetings with our CEO and Head of Tech.
I made wireframes to get everyone on the same page.
I mapped out the essential pages using Whimsical, and used the project to make the web app more useful and usable overall.
I designed mockups to present at our company meeting
The mockups would illustrate the vision to get buy-in from the whole company.
I used Figma to design the mockups of the main product experience, signup flow and onboarding flow.
I collaborated with our visual designer to add sparkle and shine
Working with our visual designer allowed me to focus on the key UX experiences. I delegated the final mockups to her so they would be ready to present to the company and for the developers to start building.
I presented to the company 6 weeks before the deadline — right on time!
The presentation laid out the product strategy and explained how the redesign contributed to achieving that product strategy.
This was a chance for the company to ask questions and provide feedback based on their expertise and perspectives.
I used Jira to manage the 6-week development pipeline
The development team each had pieces of the project they were responsible for.
We were able to manage timelines and dependencies by using a roadmap.
I collaborated with the developers to polish the frontend
Based on my software engineering background, I jumped into the code to make minor polish tweaks using Vue.
The final polish was done and we were ready for launch!
My lessons
I took away 3 lessons from the project.
1 — Tight deadlines really help (and hurt)
The project was efficient because we combined urgent focus with meaningful pressure.
We set milestone deadlines to focus our scope and efficiency. The deadlines included presenting at the company annual meeting and launching before December.
To ease the pressure the tight deadlines created, I gave the deadlines meaning and purpose. I explained to the team why we had to launch by that date — to catch the fitness wave of southern-hemisphere summer.
2 — Cross-functional collaboration is key
I set up regular project meetings that included team members from marketing, production, operations, product, tech and design from the beginning.
I wanted to have the right people in the room so we could make quick decisions and have parallel pieces of work constantly in motion.
3 — Strong product strategy leads to strong product design
Redesigning the web app was in support of the product strategy to launch our new subscription product. Without a product strategy, redesigns don’t have direction.
The clear product strategy brought the best work out of the team. The team was inspired and motivated by how the redesign would put the new subscription product into our clients’ hands before the start of the summer fitness season!