2019-2022
·
perrigo
XLS Nudge
CBT Health and Coaching App
Personalised weight management platform for Perrigo's XLS Nudge product. CBT-based plans, daily tracking, human coaching, and a full web portal for coaches. Live across the UK, Italy, and Spain.
ROLE: Lead Product Designer
STATUS: Live · EU pharmacies
MARKETS: UK · Italy · Spain
The Project
Perrigo wanted to launch XLS Nudge, a physical product, with a digital companion that would give users a real reason to stay engaged beyond the first week. Not just an app, but a full platform: personalised CBT-based plans, daily activity tracking, a community, a library of resources, and eventually live coaching with qualified coaches via video call.
The previous design attempt hadn't landed with the client. I was brought in for a clean start, no existing designs to work around, just a brief and a blank canvas.
I presented two distinct directions in a client meeting at Perrigo's offices. Both went down well. The direction they chose became the foundation for everything built over the following year.
What I Owned
This was a broad-scope project. Over twelve months, I designed and delivered:
Full iOS and Android app: onboarding, personalised CBT plans, daily dashboard, progress tracker, meal planning, exercise library, mindfulness articles, community forums, coaching booking and video calls
Coach web portal: calendar management, user profiles, appointment scheduling, call management
Website redesign
Email campaign designs
App Store and Google Play imagery
Promotional video direction
Training and promotional materials
Localisation oversight: UK, Italy, and Spain
I worked in close collaboration with the client's in-house PM, a sharp, experienced product manager who knew exactly what she wanted and could translate business requirements into clear design briefs. That partnership is one of the main reason the project delivered well.
The Challenge
The core design challenge with XLS Nudge wasn't any single feature. It was the fundamental question every health and wellness app faces: how do you get someone to come back tomorrow?
A CBT-based plan has structure and logic. But structure alone doesn't create habit. The design had to make the daily experience feel personal, achievable, and varied enough that opening the app felt like a moment of support, not a reminder of what the user hadn't done.
The daily dashboard became the answer to that question. One screen that told the user exactly where they were in their plan, what today's focus was, and where to go next, whether that was a recipe, a mindfulness exercise, or a workout. Not a menu of options. A guided next step.
The coaching feature added a human layer on top of that. For users who wanted more than the app alone, a real coach, bookable within the app, reachable by video call, made the platform feel like a genuine support system, not just a tracker.
Onboarding
Getting to Know the User Before the Plan Starts
Onboarding gathered the information needed to build a personalised plan, goals, lifestyle, preferences, starting point. The tone throughout was warm and supportive rather than clinical, which mattered for a product sitting in the sensitive territory of weight management.
Daily Dashboard | The Screen That Drives Everything
One Screen, One Clear Next Step
The daily dashboard is the screen I'm most proud of on this project.
Every day, the app surfaces a specific activity, drawn from whichever part of the plan is relevant that day. It might send the user to a recipe, a mindfulness article, or a workout. It might prompt them to log their progress, check in with their coaching session, or engage in the community.
The dashboard doesn't show everything at once. It shows what matters today, and makes it easy to get there with one tap.
Around that central activity, the user can see their progress at a glance: where they are in the plan, what they've completed, and what's coming.
The calendar feature in the second version added a view of the week, so users could plan ahead, see their scheduled activities, and understand their plan as a journey rather than a series of unconnected tasks.
The CBT Plan
Personalised Plans, Across Three Areas of Life
The personalised plan covered three pillars: meals, exercise, and mindset.
Meal planning Recipes personalised to the user's preferences and plan requirements, with a clear presentation that made them feel achievable rather than prescriptive.
Exercise A library of exercises structured into the plan, with instructions and visual guides. Appropriate to the user's level and goals.
Articles and mindfulness CBT-based content, articles, exercises, and mindfulness prompts, that addressed the behavioural and psychological side of the plan. This was the element that made XLS Nudge more than a diet app.
Progress Tracking
Seeing the Journey, Not Just the Day
The progress tracker gave users a view of their journey over time, not just today's activity, but the arc of the plan from start to where they were now.
Weight, measurements, goals, milestones, all visible in a format that emphasised progress made rather than distance remaining. For a weight management product, the psychology of how you present data matters as much as the data itself.
At the end of the journey, the app collected feedback, closing the loop and giving Perrigo the insight they needed to understand what was working.
Community
Not Doing It Alone
The community section gave users access to forums and group discussions, a place to share, ask questions, and find support from others on the same plan.
The design kept it warm, low-pressure, and easy to participate in, so that users who wanted support could find it without it feeling like a social media obligation.
Coaching | User Side
A Real Coach, Inside the App
As the platform expanded, Perrigo wanted to add a human coaching layer: qualified coaches, bookable directly within the app, with video calls handled in-platform.
My own experience as a mentor informed this part of the design significantly. I knew from both sides of the coaching relationship what a good booking and session flow felt like, and what friction points would cause users to give up before the call happened.
The user-side coaching flow covered:
Booking a session
Calendar integration: seeing available slots and confirming appointments
In-app video calling: no external tools required
Session history and notes
We prototyped the booking and call flow and tested it with both user types (participants and coaches) before building. The feedback validated the approach without requiring major structural changes.
Coach Web Portal
Designed for the Other Side of the Call
Alongside the user-facing app, I designed a web portal for coaches, a separate product entirely, built for a professional rather than a consumer audience.
The portal gave coaches:
Calendar management: setting availability, viewing upcoming sessions
User profiles: seeing the participant's plan progress and history before a call
Appointment management: confirming, rescheduling, managing their full client list
Call access: joining video sessions directly from the portal
A tool for someone doing a job, not an experience to be enjoyed. Efficiency over delight, with enough warmth to match the broader XLS Nudge tone.
Marketing and Beyond
Beyond the App
The design scope extended well beyond the product itself.
I redesigned the XLS Nudge website, created email campaign designs for multiple markets, produced App Store and Google Play imagery, and directed a promotional video, overseeing the creative direction and storyboarding while the production was handled externally.
Training materials for coaches and promotional materials for Perrigo's pharmacy network were also part of the project scope. giving the whole product launch a coherent visual language across every touchpoint.
All assets were adapted for UK, Italian, and Spanish markets: same design, different language, reviewed for each locale.
solution
The Platform
XLS Nudge launched as a complete digital ecosystem. A consumer app across three markets, a professional portal for coaches, and a full suite of marketing and training materials.
The product covered the full arc of a weight management journey: understanding where you are, building a personalised plan, following it day by day, connecting with a coach when you need one, and tracking progress over time.
The design made it feel like support, not surveillance. That distinction, in a product sitting in the sensitive territory of weight management, was the most important one to get right.
OUTCOME
What It Became
XLS Nudge launched and remains live across EU pharmacies.
The project worked because the client relationship worked. The in-house PM brought clarity, experience, and the ability to translate business requirements into actionable design briefs. Close collaboration between design and product, with honest, direct feedback on both sides is what turns a year-long project into something you're still proud of at the end.
3+
Markets
10ks
Users
3
platforms
12
months
0 to 1
The daily dashboard didn't show everything — it showed what mattered today. That's the whole design philosophy in one screen.
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