Designed the first ever digital therapeutics for Migraine from concept to FDA authorization
Overview
Design an efficacious digital medicine with an uncenventional process
Migraine affects 1 billion people worldwide, but existing treatments often fail to address the daily challenges patients face.
As one of the founding designers, I took initiative on hypothesis-driven research and end-to-end design for core features, working alongside our Design Lead, Vanessa Jimenez.
Together we collaborated across clinical and engineering teams to create the first FDA-authorized digital therapeutic for migraine.
Get daily therapeutic lessons
Clinically proven therapeutic exercises such as muscle relaxation for migraine prevention
Self-tracking on medication intake and migraine episodes
Build up healthy habits to reduce migraine symptoms and improve quality of life
Product vision
A "software-as-medicine" product that meets FDA standards and delivers meaningful clinical outcomes to migraine sufferers.
Over 39 million Americans affected by migraine. Many of them experienced inadequate relief or side effects from existing migraine medications.
People are looking for options, but there's a lack of non-pharmaceutical treatments available on the market.
Existing migraine apps on the market mostly focused on data tracking instead of solving actual pain points.
Great opportunities lie in evidence-based solutions like CT-132. Our treatment framework is designed by clinical scientists to deliver real efficacy with validated interventions and therapies.
Drive and facilitate conversations
Orchestrate and untangle cross-functional collaborations
Flying while building the plane
We had to build the product while content, requirements, and timelines were constantly changing.
Instead of waiting for perfect requirements, we worked in parallel—starting design while defining what to build.
The roadmap you thought would be
The reality
Defined Our "Micro-dosing" Engagement Philosophy with Product
Migraine sufferers managed complex symptoms, and the app shouldn't add more burden to them.
That's why we gave patients small doses of treatment daily, not overwhelming sessions.
James's impact
Visualizing the daily engagement flow with a patient-centered approach. Allowed teams to dive into potential scenarios and align on the experience.
Designed flexible screen layout templates to unblock engineering before content was ready
While waiting for finalized therapeutic content, we proactively designed modular interface templates based on anticipated content patterns.
This kept engineering moving and gave us flexible building blocks to quickly structure lessons once clinical teams delivered the materials.
James's impact
I designed and documented UI layout and flows so developers could start building.
Support the brainstorming and evaluation of the content design
I worked closely with teams throughout content creation, reviewing proposed materials and ensuring they fit seamlessly within our established UX framework and lesson structure.
James's impact
I worked with Clinical Science and Content to create a lo-fi prototype to test the content design draft in an early stage clinical learning study.
Design challenge
How do you create user-centered experiences when traditional user research isn't an option?
The roadblocks
As the project progressed, we realized that formal UX research wasn't happening, because of the following reasons:
Tight deadlines
We need to develop the MVP version for the imminent clinical trial.
Testing of therapeutic elements are not allowed
Regulatory constraints forbidden us from testing efficacious treatment elements with patients.
Confidentiality of content
We can't bear the risk of revealing the app content to public before the trial.
How might we gather actionable insights about our target users to inform design decisions?
Alternative research method
We created three distinct app concepts and put them in front of users to see what resonated.
A hypothesis-driven approach
While features and content were locked in, we needed to discover what type of app experience would resonate with migraine patients.
We created three concepts that balanced visual style, tone, and narrative differently to test what would feel supportive vs. overwhelming:
Concept 1. Clinical & trustworthy healthcare app
Concept 2. Minimalist migraine toolkit
Concept 3. Migraine treatment companion
Key research insights
Patients need a caring companion, simple interactions, and content that adapts to their needs.
Patients crave humanized companionship to fight isolation and make treatment enjoyable.
We created a character Selene and featured her in the app UX to add human touch and sense of companionship.
Patients want daily engagement to be effortless due to exhaustion and brain fog from migraine.
We simplified the UI while using richer visuals to help patients focus on important tasks, even during brain fog.
Patients need flexibility in how they consume content. Some days text works, other days only audio is tolerable.
We built dual-format content delivery, allowing users to switch between audio and text based on their current symptoms or sensitivities.
Real-world impact
The first FDA-authorized self-funded digital therapeutic that reduced migraine days for 500+ patients through thoughtful, user-centered design
Proved digital therapeutics can be both clinically effective and user-friendly.
Showcased design capabilities that attracted partnership inquiries and new opportunities.
First to prove user-centered design can meet FDA regulatory requirements.
Our CEO thinks we're killing it
My takeaway
• There are many ways to achieve great design. Be adaptive. Choose the design approach that can provide the most actionable insights or data under the constraints.
• Design is about communication. Designers should help the team connect the dots and be more effective.
• Be comfortable with managing unknowns and constant reprioritization, especially when things are moving in parallel.