A charity transformation into a product led company
Case study
Shift.ms aims to reduce the negative impact of a Multiple Sclerosis (MS) diagnosis by fostering social connections, improving emotional well-being, and increasing self-efficacy.
As an international peer-support community, it focuses on supporting young and newly diagnosed individuals.
Role
• Lead Product designer
• Design Strategist
• Coach
Deliverable
• Design process
• Product design
• Product Strategy
• Service redesign
• Brand refresh
The vision
Transform Shift.ms from a charity to a product and user centric company to better support MSers.
The fundations
From the ground up.
Following many conversations with the main stakeholders
we identified business needs, goals and challenges.
Develop a new APP
Making it a self served platform for MSers.
Introduce new revenue diversification strategy
Partners via Insights, individual donators and fundraisers.
Develop insights to support revenue strategy
Collect the right data and provide value back to users first and partners second.
Fix the Buddy network's 40% drop off
The 1 to 1 connection within members of the community is a unique and central to Shift.ms.
Measure impact on the 3 signals
Increased social connection
Improved emotional health
Increased self-efficacy
Engagement & Retention
With deeper interactions and returning users beyond “crisis” moments and by converting spectators into participants.
The company had a lot of ground to cover to become product-centric.
I oversaw the design function.
Establish design processes from research to delivery.
Coach a Junior designer to take over my position.
Advocate for a user-centric and design thinking approach throughout the company
Introduce new tooling and methodologies. We especially focused on research and user testing.
Defining the APP's proposition
By MSers, For MSers.
The existing web platform and its MSers were a great source of information to establish a strong app proposition.
BUSINESS GOALS
• Focus on high engagement and retention
• Enable for new revenue diversification strategy
Through research, competitive analysis, surveys, workshops and a ux audit we uncovered the MSer journey map, needs and pain points as well as user need statements and the futur app value proposition.
We identified 4 key value propositions that aligned with our business goals, our partners’ goals, and the MSers needs.
Community, Personalised insights, Live better with MS, Treatment.
We were able to focus and iterate swiftly on the app design by involving the community through user testing and rapid ideation.
Key value proposition #1
Community
The Shift.ms community has been a most needed space for MSers, especially for the newly diagnosed. We provided more ways to engage with the community, share their story and be proactive about their MS through a community Feed, Groups, Direct messages and the Buddy network.
Messaging
Feed
Key value proposition #2
Personalised Insights
MSers needed ways to better understand their condition, their progress, and the progression of others in the community. We created a suite of tools to enhance visibility and comprehension of MS, drawing insights from community members, treatment insights, and health trends.
Insights
Key value proposition #3
Live better with MS
Getting reliable and accurate information about MS is difficult. Newly diagnosed MSers feel overwhelmed and often times alarmed with the information they can find online. We added a dedicated explore tab for trusted news and information and areas on their profile to monitor changes in their MS and their treatment.
Knowledge repository
MSer's health trends
App key value proposition #4
Treatment (DMT)
Knowing about treatment options (especially disease-modifying therapies or DMTs) is really important, it empowers MSers to manage the condition better, to start medication early and to slow the progression of MS. Choosing the right treatment can be overwhelming and difficult to do in isolation.
We envisioned a treatment repository that would contain official data, as well as community-reported symptoms and progression decisions. It would also include a treatment decision-making tool and the ability to find community members who have a specific treatment.
Treatments
'Insights' design strategy
Data serving the community
At the core of the new revenue strategy was the development of an insight ecosystem designed to primarily benefit MSers and Partners.
We create a solution that surfaces relevant, contextual insights across the app, enhancing the experience and deepening the understanding of MS for users.
BUSINESS GOALS
• Unlock revenue diversification
• Grow MSer engagement and retention to improve their living with MS
• Measure impact on the 3 signals (social connection, emotional health, self-efficacy)
• Improve MSer monitoring by providing better data to their healthcare practitioners.
The Insights ecosystem
The MS community is highly active, and serving insights back to MSers is essential for creating a habit sharing loop that forms the foundation of this ecosystem and the new revenue strategy.
Community Insights repository
Mser DMT insights
Community member profile
Buddy network service redesign
Prioritising support
The Buddy Network enables one-on-one connections with experienced MSers, offering emotional support, personalised advice, and coaching to empower proactive decision-making from the moment of diagnosis.
BUSINESS GOALS
• Fix the buddy network's 40% drop off to improve support at time of need.
• Make the buddy network self-served
• Grow MSer engagement and retention to improve their living with MS
During the UX audit, we identified opportunities to enhance the service by reducing touchpoints and streamlining the experience through simplification and automation. There was a lot of back and forth between channels and matching users was previously done manually—a time-consuming process that created bottlenecks at every step. Our challenge was to maintain a high match quality while automating the workflow. We implemented a hybrid solution: algorithmically generated matching suggestions refined by human oversight.
Request support
Brand refresh & design system
Digital first
Evolving the Shift.ms brand came hand in hand with the new app to elevate its aspirational and proactive identity and messaging. A strategic evolution for digital products and demonstrate to MSers and partners a new era for Shift.ms.
BUSINESS GOALS
• Initiate a new era of digital transformation.
• Make it positive, up beat and proactive to reflect 3 signals. (social connection, emotional health, self-efficacy)
The results
Improving life with multiple sclerosis
The whole user base moved to the app.
High engagement, retention and satisfaction.
Initiated revenue growth through insights.
Buddy network service redesigned.
Product team and design function set up.
Brand refresh well received by the community.
The new buddy network was yet to be built and launched.
