The question
Owaves, a daily planning app focused on personal rhythms and wellbeing, needed a clearer path from first open to a useful first experience. The redesign focused on reducing avoidable friction while keeping permission choices transparent and preserving a path for people who were not ready to connect Health data.
What I contributed
I proposed and guided the onboarding effort from strategy and redesign through delivery and measurement. The Owaves team implemented and shipped the release. The product decision was to improve how new users reached value, then give the team an instrumented activation funnel to assess the result. This connected product direction, experience design, delivery, and measurement within a defined initiative.
What changed
Our before/after analysis showed nearly 3x estimated first-open-to-account conversion after the redesign. The matched before-and-after comparison covered July 27–August 12 versus August 14–30, with the signup lift still visible in the follow-up through September 8. A secondary signal showed more than 10x recorded Apple Health setup-path participation. *Instrumentation changed between the old and new flows, so this is a less conclusive comparison. It measures reaching setup, not a confirmed permission grant or successful Health connection.
Measurement note: Estimated signup conversion divides aggregate account counts from Cognito by first opens from GA4; it does not follow the same individuals through both steps. The comparison uses two matched 17-day windows, excluding the rollout transition day, with follow-up through September 8. These before/after observations cover a broader release and do not isolate onboarding from other changes. The signup result does not establish an improvement in retention, subscriptions, or revenue.
See the companion guide for the reusable principles behind this work.