FitXR
A fitness app built for VR that allows you to work out at home through multiple different modalities
MY ROLE: senior product designer, co-lead of the design team, design advocacy within org, mentorship for other designers
OFFICIAL LINKS: Website, Oculus Store, App Store, Google Play Store
Design Leadership
Agata Inventio and I co-led the design team from hiring, to leading design rituals, to raising design team concerns with senior management, to representing design needs at cross functional meetings.
During our time as co-leads, we:
- redefined what design weekly standups and biweekly town halls looked like to make them more useful for the team
- made stronger connections between the design team and other teams, such as marketing, content and art, to make sure their concerns were being flagged when the design team was making designs
- raised design team concerns to senior management team
- improved design processes by updating the design system, encouraging more use of VR prototyping to visualize designs, and working with the design team to create design pillars
- hired and onboarded 2 new designers and interviewed many more. The vast majority of candidates that passed our approval stages in the interview process went on to perform well in future interview rounds
Mentorship
I worked with junior design team members (folks who needed a bit of guidance in solidifying work) and new joiners (to help acclimate them to design at FitXR and provide a point of contact within the design team).
APP AUDITS AND DESIGN SYSTEMS
I worked to document existing design debt and tried to make timelines around how to solve it. I created multiple audits around core app areas that tackled everything from navigation to content discovery and display. These were communicated to the Senior Management Team and the Product Team to highlight areas of concern. Since this can be a bit of a downer, I tried to propose alternatives and fixes as ideas to start the conversation and encourage problem solving.
Features Launched
Challenges, minimal Rebrand launch, Home Screen 2.5, Milestones. There were a few hiccups and project rescopes that delayed timelines, but I worked across many teams that shipped features during the short time I worked at FitXR.
I was actively involved in all parts of the process, from problem definition and ideation, all the way through to final implementation and launch.
Learnings
- I enjoy doing a combination of leadership work and IC work. I'm at my best when working with very cross functional teams and everyone is given a lot of flexibility to tackle the problem in different ways
- Design systems, while important and I'll work on them, are definitely not my favorite things to do. I'm much more a fan of breaking them for impact.
- I can get up at 7am for work if I have the need to, provided I give myself a bit of time to nap in the afternoon when everyone in London logs off 😅