PolarUs

Building an Icon Library for a Mobile App

PolarUs is an app built by researchers and people with lived experience to support the quality of life of people living with bipolar disorder. Previously, I had collaborated with PolarUs as an independent contractor, helping them to craft user personas for the application.

For this particular project, I was contracted again, but this time through UBC Studios. At the time, they came to me with their dilemma: they were a start-up app that needed a quick turn-around time for a design library full of high-quality assets. I led the completion of this design project, collaborating closely with their team and a junior graphic designer that we subcontracted through UBC Studios.

Roles

Lead Graphic Designer
Visual Storytelling

Year

2022

Worked With

Dr. Erin Michalak / Primary Investigator
Dr. Steven Barnes / Content Expert

Agencies

UBC Studios
PolarUs
UBC Department of Psychiatry

Building a Stylesheet and Anticipating for Flexible Design Needs

After meeting with their project management lead to go over their project needs and discuss their pre-existing branding stylesheet, I built out a sprint schedule and guided them through a project scope that aligned with both their design vision and budget.

Once all parties were on board with the design,

Iterative Design With Multiple Stakeholders

Since our client needed some time to decide on what Learning Management System (LMS) platform we would deploy this course, I had to maintain an agile workflow. By staying constantly on top of user-testing across different web browsers and screen sizes, I was able to ensure with my team that the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) package could be ready for product deployment across a variety of potential platforms.

Research-Appropriate and Patient-Centred Visuals

Below are some screenshots of some select visual development work completed for the project.

Closing Notes

Feel free to watch a recorded demo that I shared on a slide deck presentation that I talked through at the annual Instructional Design Community of Practice forum at UBC. The course material was positively received by the community with lots of interest in how we implemented our collaborative design workflow, which involved lots of documentation and communication updates for our satisfied client.