ConNext Ed – Pharmacy Education App
An app that gives pharmacists the resources and consultation scripts they need to help patients who are managing diabetes, right at the counter.
Roles:
Product Designer, Project & Production Management
Collaboration:
Agency leadership (President and VP)
Development Director
App Developer
Senior Designer
Ascensia Diabetes Care project and development teams
Platform:
Ionic, shipped to both iOS and Android from one codebase
Deliverables:
Wireframes, user flows
Project Status
The app design template was built from the existing binder's visual language
App prototype
Timeline and scope:
6 Months
Responsibilities:
Owned the user flows and wireframes end-to-end
Set the visual hierarchy and directed a senior designer who built additional screens from my structure and specs
Ran client presentations
Managed timeline and status across the agency and Ascensia teams
Led quality assurance through development
OBJECTIVE
The original content lived in a bulky binder, hard to search on the spot while a pharmacist was mid-conversation with a patient.
The ask: turn that binder into a tablet app that pharmacists could actually use mid-conversation. The catch: budget meant a literal translation, not a redesign. Same content, same structure, just on a screen.
Our agency had designed the original binder, so I already had every file and asset available. That saved real time. The real challenge was making dense, clinical content survive the jump from a flat printed page to a vertical, tap-through screen that was easy to navigate.
Process
I started by mapping the binder page by page, what was actually a distinct topic, what was just formatting, and where content could collapse into fewer taps.
About the Program is a good example. In the binder, it was its own page. In the app, it became a dropdown right on the home screen. One less page to navigate, same information.
Pharmacists could access any section by tapping buttons on the landing page or using the side navigation menu for direct access to a specific section.
Each section had its own landing page. Tapping a topic button launched a page that slides in from bottom to top.
Design decisions:
The binder's side blue bar became a swipeable callout in the middle of the page.
Bullet blocks shifted from blue to orange for better contrast.
Tooltips replaced footnotes for references and "Helpful Tips."
Dropped the gradient behind the "Did You Know" callouts, since it was fighting the text instead of framing it.
I built the layout vertically. Text-heavy content needs a bigger reading area, which means fewer scrolls, and the client agreed.
I also added a Quick Access section that didn't exist in the binder at all, a shortcut to the content I thought pharmacists would reach for most.
For the deeper background pages, tapping a topic slides a new page up over the current screen. Pharmacists move forward and back within the section using the buttons at the bottom of the page or the arrows in the top bar. To get back to the section landing page, they close out from the top left.
The Dialogue was the feature the client cared about most: one-page, 2-minute consultation scripts for pharmacists to use right at the counter. Every topic ships with two versions, one for a patient newly diagnosed, one for someone who's been managing diabetes for years. That's the part of the binder that actually mattered, so I made sure it survived the translation intact.
Results / Reflection
The app launched, then quietly didn't stick. Pharmacists don't have time mid-shift to read dense content, no matter how well it's organized. A literal translation solved the wrong problem. The binder crammed everything into one place, and moving it to a screen kept that intact.
Looking back, I'd have pushed harder to cut content rather than just reorganize it, keeping the consultation scripts, the meter videos, and the path to free samples. I did raise the amount of content with agency leadership at the time, but the client had already locked in a literal translation due to budget constraints, and I never had a direct line to make that case to them myself. The deeper diabetes education material deserves its own app, built for patients who want a trusted source to learn from directly, not bundled into a tool designed for a pharmacist with no time to spare.
I didn't get the outcome I wanted. What I got was full ownership of a product from binder to build, working across agency leadership, a development team, and a healthcare client. That's where I learned to manage scope, not just design screens.
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