Shipping a 0-to-1 Mobile App in 95 Days
Team Members
1 Product Manager, 1 Lead Dev, and 1 QA Engineer
Role
Lead/Solo UX Designer
Toolkit
Agile UX, Project Velocity, Mobile App Design
At a glance
Designed and shipped a 0-1 mobile app (iOS & Android) in 95 days under strict timeline constraints, establishing an early design handoff framework to unblock engineering and driving post-launch insights that reshaped our team's research strategy.
The 95-day sprint
"We need to launch a mobile app by November." - CEO
In May 2022, a decision by our CEO set a non-negotiable deadline to announce the release of a mobile app at a major dental industry event. This left exactly 95 business days to move from kickoff to app store delivery.
We had zero pre-existing mobile research, and my UX team had zero bandwidth. To shield my team’s focus on other enterprise initiatives, I stepped in as a solo UX contributor to take on the challenge of balancing a lack of user validation against an aggressive business deadline.
Glidewell's first mobile app
The Glidewell Mobile App was initiated as a cross-platform B2B mobile app (iOS & Android) designed to bring core features from our existing My Account web portal into a mobile environment. My Account serves as the central hub for Glidewell customers, giving office staff and dentists a desktop portal to track active lab cases, submit digital prescriptions, review billing, and manage daily practice logistics.
Because this was an executive top-down project, I was instructed to design an MVP around an unvalidated problem statement:
Dental practices need a way to track cases, check billing, and manage accounts on the go, but lack access when away from a desktop computer.
Navigating the "messy middle"
Without time for exploratory user research, I couldn't validate if this problem was a priority for our daily users or if a mobile app was even the right solution. Instead, I relied on proxy data and two assumptions to define the MVP:
#1. Mobile App User = Web Portal User
I had to assume that our mobile users would be the same personas (dentists and office staff) with identical behaviors and needs as our My Account users.
#2: Top Web Features = Top Mobile Needs
I analyzed web analytics to identify our customers' top features then worked together with the Product Manager to prioritize our MVP feature set around case tracking, billing, and uploading photos.
The rapid handoff process
Unblocking the Foundation
Defined core design tokens (colors, icon sets, and typography) in the first week so the developer could start working on the app's foundation before I even started working on UI flows.
The 75% Handoff
I handed off screens as soon as layouts and core interactions reached 75% completion. Prioritizing core functionality and layout over cosmetic perfection prevented idle dev time and eliminated costly downstream re-work.
Iterative Design QA
I conducted weekly QA within iOS TestFlight and Android APK builds in close collaboration with the QA Engineer, enabling real-time problem-solving and rapid iteration with the developer.
Successful launch
Our app launched on schedule in November 2022. Within the first 90 days, post-launch analytics revealed how existing users interacted with the new mobile app.
Metrics
Weekly Active Users (WAU): 5% of My Account web portal
Case Views: 20,000+ (4% of Web Portal)
Payments Processed: 700+ (3% of Web Portal)
Photos Uploaded: 2,000+ (11% of Web Portal)
Shipping on time was a win, but the data showed we had not grown our user footprint. We had only migrated a small portion of existing web users onto a mobile device.
The strong performance in photo uploads proved that camera-based tasks were a true mobile win. Otherwise, the app operated as a secondary entry point for current users rather than bringing new users into our customer platform.
Insights & takeaways
Insight #1
The service-design blindspot
Post-launch data revealed a major adoption gap: while dental practice staff were our heaviest web portal users, they rarely downloaded the app. Most practices don't issue work phones, and staff hesitated to use personal devices for work tasks.
Takeaway: We designed for a digital persona while ignoring the physical environment of the workspace. This insight led us to prioritize future on-site contextual inquiry research inside dental practices.
Insight #2
Balancing speed with validation
Shipping an MVP in 95 days proved we could execute under pressure, but bypassing upfront research meant discovering user friction post-launch rather than pre-build.
Takeaway: Today, I have my team bridge velocity and user research using rapid AI-assisted prototyping and quick "micro-surveys" to validate core assumptions in days rather than months.