The pattern that outlived my involvement

The number that made my project look good was the number I went back and disproved. That’s the most useful thing in this case study.

Role

V1 — originator and sole designer V2 — advisor

Timeline

V1 spec Aug 2025, live ~Oct 2025 V2 Jun–Jul 2026

Team

Cross-product — desktop, then Toggl 2.0

Platform

Windows desktop → Toggl 2.0

In short

The problem: I was asked to redesign the onboarding screens for the Windows app. Research said the screens weren’t the problem: users skipped onboarding, and they skipped the tooltips too. Underneath that, there was almost no overlap between web and desktop users — people downloaded the desktop app and stayed there. Desktop wasn’t a companion surface, it was the only surface, and nothing in it ever told them what it contained.
Who it was for: New desktop users who would never see the web app, and who skip anything that looks like a tour. Later, the same problem one product generation over.
What I designed: Not a better onboarding screen — a persistent feature navigator users could explore on their own, with personalised progressive disclosure: four or five items maximum, chosen by what the user picked during onboarding. Designed deliberately as a pattern that could carry to the next product, which was already on the roadmap.
What shipped: Shipped in the Windows desktop app, then rebuilt for Toggl 2.0 by a different team — with V1’s failure modes written into the new spec as requirements.
Outcome: The part I did not expect: a year on I re-derived the retention claim that had justified the original build, and it did not hold. That reversal is the reason this study exists.

One pattern. Argued for, shipped, re-examined, rebuilt.

The locked chapters

Some of the best parts aren’t public.

The full studies include deeper research, decisions, and outcomes from the work. One password opens all of them.

Ask me for a password via email or LinkedIn — also happy to walk you through them live!

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