Building Oats Overnight’s First App
from the Ground Up

Turning a clunky subscription tool into a brand experience that customers love and use every day.
Turning a clunky subscription tool into a brand experience that customers love and use every day.

Context & Friction:

Why the App was Created: Oats Overnight provides D2C subscription products and had a very simple flavor management system on the .com domain. Before I joined, Oats used freelancers to start building a separate experience outside Shopify. The Shopify store was built for acquisition, yet 30k+ returning customers returned each month just to swap flavors… and the acquisition-focused flow didn’t serve them at all. Customers constantly reached out to our CS team for help with simple actions, due to clunky out-of-the-box management system, which drove up operational costs and frustration on both ends.

This Case Study:

You will see 2 parts.

Part 1. Inheriting early iOS app and turning ship around:
  • I defined a proper product development process, talked to actual customers diagnosing pain-points and opportunities, developed a design system from scratch to speed up build velocity and keep experience consistent, completely redesigned flows based on actual user intentions, injected warmth & personality of OON brand, made customization self-serve & painless which massively reduce CS tickets.
  • Creation of iOS app (customer portal) contributed to ~15% reduction in cancellations and ~20% reduction in CS tickets.
  • Built design system called ‘Oaty’ with components, tokens, and documentation adopted by engineering, improving development velocity.
You will see 2 parts.

Part 1. Inheriting early iOS app and turning ship around:

  • I defined a proper product development process, talked to actual customers diagnosing pain-points and opportunities, developed a design system from scratch to speed up build velocity and keep experience consistent, completely redesigned flows based on actual user intentions, injected warmth & personality of OON brand, made customization self-serve & painless which massively reduce CS tickets.

  • Creation of iOS app (customer portal) contributed to ~15% reduction in cancellations and ~20% reduction in CS tickets.

  • Built design system called ‘Oaty’ with components, tokens, and documentation adopted by engineering, improving development velocity.

You will see 2 parts.

Part 1. Inheriting early iOS app and turning ship around:

  • I defined a proper product development process, talked to actual customers diagnosing pain-points and opportunities, developed a design system from scratch to speed up build velocity and keep experience consistent, completely redesigned flows based on actual user intentions, injected warmth & personality of OON brand, made customization self-serve & painless which massively reduce CS tickets.

  • Creation of iOS app (customer portal) contributed to ~15% reduction in cancellations and ~20% reduction in CS tickets.

  • Built design system called ‘Oaty’ with components, tokens, and documentation adopted by engineering, improving development velocity.

Part 2. Continuing to own this product, improve, build new features, experiments etc.
  • Led all product improvements and feature additions (Ratings & Notes tool, Flavor feedback surveys, Loyalty program, etc.)
  • Design of 2 major tools in-app (Ratings & Notes and the Flavor in Development Survey tool) contributed to 58% boost in participation. This increase allowed us to rapidly gather precise data on customer preferences and data that we relayed to R&D for product improvement.
  • Owned user research and onboarded Usertesting.com to inform product strategy and influence decision-making
  • Designed and tested many experiments that drove lifts in conversion, retention, and improved CAC efficiency
Part 2. Continuing to own this product, improve, build new features, experiments etc.
  • Led all product improvements and feature additions (Ratings & Notes tool, Flavor feedback surveys, Loyalty program, etc.)

  • Design of 2 major tools in-app (Ratings & Notes and the Flavor in Development Survey tool) contributed to 58% boost in participation. This increase allowed us to rapidly gather precise data on customer preferences and data that we relayed to R&D for product improvement.

  • Owned user research and onboarded Usertesting.com to inform product strategy and influence decision-making

  • Designed and tested many experiments that drove lifts in conversion, retention, and improved CAC efficiency

Part 2. Continuing to own this product, improve, build new features, experiments etc.
  • Led all product improvements and feature additions (Ratings & Notes tool, Flavor feedback surveys, Loyalty program, etc.)

  • Design of 2 major tools in-app (Ratings & Notes and the Flavor in Development Survey tool) contributed to 58% boost in participation. This increase allowed us to rapidly gather precise data on customer preferences and data that we relayed to R&D for product improvement.

  • Owned user research and onboarded Usertesting.com to inform product strategy and influence decision-making

  • Designed and tested many experiments that drove lifts in conversion, retention, and improved CAC efficiency

Inheriting the Early Build…

Before I joined, Oats used freelancers to start building a separate experience outside Shopify. The initial design work was extremely unorganized, did not match oats visual language or tone, and flows were just as frustrating as before but more steps. Dev team was actively building as they were getting fed piecemeal flows (see below).
TLDR; Inherited messy initial Figma doc, in-flight development, no existing design system or brand guides, aggressive timeline, no product build process, no alignment… no bueno.

Reinforcing the Foundation: “Oaty” Design System

The version I inherited was a frankenstein of components. It was clear I needed to create a cohesive visual language and scalable components. I created a design system that introduced soft corners, brand colors, micro-interactions, and motion that made the app feel like Oats Overnight.



I built Figma tokens, reusable components, motion principles, all in parallel with development.

The “Oaty” design system was born.
We were flying the plane while building it, but at least now it had matching wings.

Discovery & Validating Design Choices:

Without prior knowledge as to why the app looks and functions the way it did, I needed to make sure this redesign was intentional. I set out to understand the core issues.

I used a mixed-methods approach:
  1. Audited user feedback from CX tickets
  2. Reviewed session recordings & heatmaps via HotJar
  3. Conducted heuristic evaluation of the old portal
  4. Interviewed VIP customers on frustrations
Core issues identified:
🧭 High friction: Customers couldn’t find simple actions (swap, skip, delay).
💬 CX overload: Hundreds of “help me swap flavors” tickets weekly.
🧠 Cognitive load: Too many paths, unclear hierarchy.
🎨 Visual inconsistency: lacked warmth and brand voice
❌ Transactional: Felt like a tool, not an experience.
60%+ of CS tickets were solvable via better UX

Actioning Core Findings

3 things stood out that we needed to tailor the UX for:
  1. Subscription Management

  2. Flavor Swapping

  3. Retaining Customers

Order Management

Surfaced top 3 actions customers perform 90% of the time. Made shipping changes apparent and one tap away.

Flavor Swapping

Bundler tool created to improve flavor swapping experience and nudge bundle upgrades (AOV)

Retention

Improvements to cancellation flows included win-back screens with variable offers depending on why the user wants to cancel. Designed flows to improve retention. The old portal experience let people cancel with no offers to stay.

Business Opportunities

With the app restructured and cognitive load heavily reduced, we were able to surface opportunities for the customer to buy more and increase incremental sales (LTV/AOV)

Examples include: New Flavor Announcement UI, New Product Release UI, and a Shop Now Cluster

Outcomes & Impact

Fixing the initial experience cut CX tickets from 5,000 to ~2,000 per month, doubled monthly logins from 30k to 45k, and added ~$50k in additional monthly sales. CX load dropped from +12% to –31%, and user sentiment shifted from ‘confusing’ to ‘fun and easy to manage.

Part 2

Owning Improvements 2023-Present

Since launching the app, I've continued to own this product, improve, build new features, experiments etc. Below are some examples.

In-App Survey Feature

Moving from Typeform surveys to completely custom survey feature. By building this from scratch we were able to inject the OON experience making it fun to give feedback on new flavors/products fueling invaluable data to our R&D team.

Full Case Study Coming Soon

Loyalty Integration

This is another product initiative I'm leading end-to-end experience on. Our app quickly became more than a subscription management app. It’s now the home to a one-of-a-kind loyalty program. We reward customers for actions that drive retention, product learnings, and engagement. We incorporated behavior design heavily into the experience encouraging upgrades, feedback, and repeat purchases.

Full Case Study Coming Soon

Ratings & Notes Tool

Please take a look at the Ratings & Notes tool case study I have. Turning scattered flavor feedback into a fun, structured, & loyalty-powered experience. Led end-to-end.

Go to Ratings & Notes Case Study

Impact:

Designing Oats Overnight’s first standalone app transformed how customers interact with the brand. I turned a confusing subscription tool into a personalized, highly usable, habit-forming experience that 300k+ customers interact with on a monthly basis.

Since launch, the app has become the center of the customer journey:
  • Hundreds of thousands of active users logging in monthly
  • Major reduction in CX tickets as customers self-serve with ease
  • Increased subscription upgrades and incremental sales
  • Surge in customer satisfaction and brand affinity
  • More frequent and better data harnessed from users
  • Actionable insights directly tied to flavor performance
  • A tighter feedback loop between product, marketing, and customers



What began as a simple management portal evolved into the foundation of Oats Overnight’s loyalty, retention, and engagement ecosystem.

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