An iOS "Redesign"

Practice emerged from a simple yet powerful question: could people effectively coach one another through an app? With this spark of curiosity, Arnaud began designing what would become our foundation. While the initial iOS app contained just a fraction of today’s features—maybe 10% of what we see now—it carried 100% of our core vision. At its heart, Practice was always meant to feel welcoming and natural to use, like a familiar tool that just makes sense.

Initial MVP designs from Arnaud

Redesigns can be tricky

As Practice flourished and evolved into a comprehensive suite for managing client relationships, we faced a challenge many growing products encounter. Our success in adding features and capabilities came with a hidden cost: our original architecture and user flows, designed for a simpler time, were beginning to show their age.

A year or two before, while at Hopper, I worked on a complete redesign of the app with Fred Lalonde, our CEO. Hopper at the time had 1000+ employees, divided into verticals with full ownership of their corner of the app. While Practice and Hopper were incomparable in terms of daily active users and team size, I wanted this redesign to be led primarily by data rather than just intuition and opinions.

Data says…

App usage data showed 35% of coaches and clients used the iOS app, with 37% of app opens via push notifications or Universal Links. Top notifications were new messages (64%) and appointments (23%). Weekly active users were 30 coaches and 22 clients.

More clients used the chat than coaches. Nearly half the coaches using the iOS app used the chat.

Coaches primarily shared schedulers (66%), form templates (15%), and chat links (7%), but rarely via private message (15%). They mostly viewed artifacts (appointments, invoices, forms), created appointments and clients, and opened chats from client records.

Unless they get a notification, it takes Coaches 3 steps to get the ability to chat with their clients. Most coaches share artifact templates and tabs are taking more space than events they “get”

Changes

Recent messages on landing tab

The appointment tab was replaced with a new Home tab. The top section displays recent messages with shortcuts to client records. Upcoming appointments are listed below. For coaches not using chat, a list of clients sorted by recent activity could be displayed instead.

Artifacts and templates under a single tab

The payment, forms, and library tabs were consolidated into a new “Quick Find/Search” tab. This tab allows viewing individual artifact types like invoices, forms, and appointments, with their templates displayed in rows for sharing or creating new ones.

Tiny addition

The ability to message clients directly from the client list view provides a more streamlined workflow. Coaches can quickly initiate conversations without navigating into individual client records first.

Takeaways

The redesign - if we can even call it that - yielded positive results without the risks of a complete overhaul. Coaches gave more positive feedback, used new features more, and interacted more with clients. Page views fell while chat usage rose, signaling better efficiency. The incremental, data-driven approach scaled well as features were added, enhancing UX.

Special thanks to Nico and Alexander who built all of the iOS app