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WAVE

Branding E-Commerce Clinical App

FDA Medical Device · Women's Health

The Challenge

WAVE is an investigational, drug-free device from Hush Tech LLC, being studied for menstrual pain. It can't be sold until clinical trials lead to FDA clearance, but the company still needed visibility to build interest and support funding for those trials.

The site served three audiences, and each needed something different: women looking for options for menstrual pain, the clinicians who would recommend the device, and investors. For a regulated device, consumers and clinicians can't be shown the same claims.

The deeper challenge: this wasn't an e-commerce problem yet. It was a trust and lead-generation problem, and it had to be solved by a small founding team with no budget for an agency or a development team.

The Solution

One codebase, two experiences: a warm consumer storefront where every purchase moment becomes a "Notify Me" sign-up, and a separate clinician site for the clinical claims only clinicians should see. A status banner on every page states plainly that WAVE is an investigational device, so the site earns trust through transparency, not claims.

The full purchase flow is designed and ready, so when clearance comes, launch is a switch, not a redesign.

E-Commerce Site

Selected

A pre-launch storefront and gated clinician site, built solo, that turns a device no one can buy yet into a waiting list. Outcome: Built to launch the moment FDA clearance allows a sale.

Product Branding

Selected

Evolving a clinical medical device into a warm, human-centered wellness brand. Outcome: A unified brand carried WAVE into the ACOG exhibit.

Upcoming ePRO App

ePRO App

Selected

Patient-reported outcomes for a $2M pivotal trial with 250+ participants. Outcome: UX and design system in progress for trial reporting.

RoleCreative Director, Brand & Product

ScopeLogo, Visual Identity + Packaging

Timeline4 months

Year2024

TeamWith 3 Teammates

The Challenge

WAVE is an investigational medical device being studied for menstrual pain, with a clinical study being planned to seek FDA clearance. The device had serious clinical work behind it, but its brand undermined it.

Packaging, marketing, and digital presence were inconsistent, eroding trust at the exact moment the product needed to earn it.

The deeper challenge: repositioning a medical device to present as human and empowering as the best consumer wellness brands, without sacrificing clinical authority.

The Solution

A full brand system redesign built around "warm authority", the strategic middle ground between clinical coldness and wellness softness. New logo, visual identity, color and typography system, packaging, messaging framework, and social media direction.

Delivered as a complete, handoff-ready brand system that became the foundation for the website and all marketing going forward.

The Problem

The brand did not match the product.

When I joined the project, WAVE had no cohesive visual identity. Packaging, marketing materials, and digital presence were all pulling in different directions, some leaning clinical and cold, others generic and unbranded.

For a product targeting women managing real, ongoing pain, that inconsistency had a cost: it eroded credibility at the exact moment the brand needed to earn trust.

What the initial audit found

I reviewed WAVE's full unboxing experience, including packaging, inserts, and the product itself, to see how the brand actually showed up at each touchpoint.

01

No cohesive branding or system

The outer box, the product inserts, and the device itself each told a different color story: a coral script logo on the box, a navy icon system inside, and a pink-and-blue product with no visual tie to either.

02

Disconnected packaging and collateral

Some pieces in the box carried the brand, like a customer service card with the navy wave icon, while others, like the satisfaction guarantee insert, had no branding at all: just black text on a plain card, as if it belonged to a different product entirely.

03

Logo mark and wordmark did not feel as if they belonged together

The box used an elegant coral cursive "The Wave," while every other touchpoint used a completely different navy geometric mark and plain sans-serif wordmark. Not a stylistic variation, but two unrelated logo systems representing the same product.

What I Designed

Logo & Visual Identity

Redesigned the logo to move away from generic medical iconography toward something cleaner and more ownable. The updated mark balances precision with softness, reflecting both the device's clinical efficacy and its role in everyday wellness.

The rebranding of WAVE focused on evolving the identity from a clinical medical device into a warm, human-centered wellness brand.

By redefining its visual system, core messaging, and user experience, the new identity brings emotional depth, trust, and clarity to a category often overlooked in women's health care.

Navy, Core

Pink, Warmth

Blue, Trust

Benefits & Value

WAVE provides drug-free, non-invasive relief for menstrual pain and other forms of pelvic discomfort. Its design prioritizes comfort, movement, and usability. With science-backed efficacy, WAVE offers a natural, reusable alternative to medication.

Brand Goals

WAVE aims to redefine how menstrual pain is managed and become a drug-free leading solution for pelvic relief. The brand is committed to making relief more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable.

Target Audience

Women, medical professionals, and women's health advocates. WAVE's primary users are women who experience cyclical or chronic pelvic pain, with a focus on menstruating individuals seeking alternatives to pharmaceuticals, including health practitioners who recommend WAVE as a trusted solution for pain relief.

Color palette

Brand System

Color & Typography System

Built a palette that moved away from the stark whites and blues of medical design toward calmer, more considered tones, still clean and trustworthy, but emotionally warmer. Typography hierarchy was simplified to prioritize readability and approachability over clinical density.

Brand System for Handoff

A system complete enough for independent execution.

Delivered a complete brand system that a separate designer could use to build the website: meaning every decision had to be documented, scalable, and clear enough for another designer to execute without direct oversight.

WAVE website design

Live site design by another designer, built from the brand guidelines.

Packaging

Designed to live on a bathroom shelf, not in a hospital catalog.

Designed packaging suitable for a bathroom shelf rather than a hospital supply catalog. Every decision, material feel, information hierarchy, and label language, was made to reinforce one idea:

This product respects you and the pain you're managing.

WAVE device and box on a bedside table

WAVE device standing beside the navy packaging box

WAVE instructions for use, packaging label detail

Messaging & Social

Stigma-free communication.

Developed a messaging framework built around stigma-free communication. Menstrual pain is chronically dismissed and under-discussed. The brand voice was written to name it directly, without euphemism, and without the performative positivity that makes wellness brands feel hollow.

Social media carousel, Feel Better, Experience WAVE

Stationery, business cards

Outdoor signage / billboard

Poster, Menstrual Pain Solution

Tri-fold brochure, clinical evidence

Packaging, blue variant

Packaging, pink and navy variant

The Outcome

From fragmented to unified.

The before/after tells the clearest story. WAVE went from a fragmented, inconsistent product presence to a unified brand with a distinct visual voice.

The new identity was strong enough to carry the product into the ACOG exhibit, one of the most important healthcare professional conferences in the US, and compete effectively in that environment.

ACOG exhibit backdrop, branded booth display

WAVE branded business card

Alice Curiel at the WAVE exhibit booth

WAVE exhibit materials and branded assets on display

Team & My Contribution

Me, Creative Director

Brand and product vision
Design direction
Brand system
Packaging
ePRO UX

DesignerKayla
Product EngineerDavid
DeveloperAzeem

WAVE packaged product, open navy box with device and inserts

Reflections

What I Would Do Differently

With more time and access, I would have grounded the visual decisions in direct user research, specifically talking to women about how they discover and evaluate products for pain management, and what visual and tonal signals make them trust a medical device.

What This Project Proved

Designing for health is designing for trust. Every color choice, every word, every packaging decision either builds it or quietly erodes it. WAVE reinforced that the hardest design problems in health tech aren't always the technical ones, but also the emotional ones.

Closing illustration, flowing abstract figures in pink, blue and navy

E-Commerce Site

RoleSole Designer & Builder

ScopeStorefront + Clinician Site + Admin

Timeline1 month

Year2026

The Challenge

Build demand for a device that can't be sold yet.

WAVE is an investigational, drug-free device from Hush Tech LLC, being studied for menstrual pain. It can't be sold until clinical trials in Nigeria and the United States lead to FDA clearance, but the company still needed visibility to build interest and support funding for those trials.

The site served three audiences, and each needed something different: women looking for options for menstrual pain, the clinicians who would recommend the device, and investors. For a regulated device, consumers and clinicians can't be shown the same claims.

And it had to be built by a small founding team, with no budget for an agency or a development team.

The Reframe

This wasn't an e-commerce problem yet.

It was a trust and lead-generation problem. How might we build interest in a product people can't buy yet, without making claims we're not allowed to make? That question shaped every decision that followed.

The Approach

Separate the audiences, replace the sale, build for launch day.

As part of the founding team, I took on the full build, from first wireframe to a working site. Three principles guided it:

1

Separate audiences by regulatory risk.

Consumers get brand-level messaging. Clinical claims live in a gated clinician site.

2

Turn every "buy" moment into "Notify Me."

Interest becomes a waiting list instead of a dead end.

3

Build the full store now.

When clearance comes, launch is a switch, not a redesign.

The Solution

One codebase, two experiences, plus an admin backend.

01

Consumer storefront (light)

Warm, plain-language messaging that explains the device and is upfront that WAVE is investigational. Every purchase moment becomes a "Notify Me" sign-up with a WAVE news opt-in, and the purchase flow is designed and ready for launch.

02

Clinician site (dark theme, password gate planned for launch)

Clinical evidence, safety, mechanism of action, a research library, and case studies, plus paths to partner with or invest in WAVE. It sits behind its own password gate once the site moves to its final domain.

03

Admin backend

Orders, buyers, inventory with serial and lot tracking, and pricing in one place, so the team can update prices and run sales without touching code.

My Role

Sole designer and builder, first wireframe to working site.

I'm part of the founding team and not a developer by training. I used Cursor with the Figma MCP to turn my designs into working code. The product decisions, architecture, and data model were mine, and Cursor did the hands-on coding under my direction.

This build is separate from my WAVE brand work (see Branding) and from the original WAVE site, which a previous designer built with an outside development team.

Workflow from Figma designs through the Figma MCP and Cursor to the working site, showing which parts were my decisions and which were Cursor's hands-on coding

Competitive research

Learning from a brand that solved the same split.

Because WAVE is pre-launch and regulated, my research started with competitive and regulatory analysis. I looked for sites that had solved a similar problem: a health product that has to speak to consumers and to professionals without making the same claims to both.

Oura was my main reference: a health wearable with a consumer site and a separate site for organizations. I also studied Dexcom and Abbott, regulated glucose monitoring brands that speak to patients and to healthcare professionals separately. Together they pointed to the same model, which became the split between the WAVE storefront and the clinician site.

I also worked through the regulatory limits with the founding team, defining which claims each audience could see before designing any screens.

Competitive research shows what other brands do, but not how a consumer decides to trust one. The questions on the left are the ones we asked to get at that.

Process

Architecture first, then screens, then checkout, then backend.

I started with site architecture, then core screens, then the cart and checkout flow, and finished with the backend. I mapped the UX in FigJam with a flowchart key covering happy, alternate, and error paths.

WAVE site map grouped into For Clinicians, Support, Legal and compliance, Why WAVE and the shop flow

WAVE shopping flow diagram mapped in FigJam with happy, alternate, and error paths

Decisions & Tradeoffs

Five calls that shaped the build.

01

One site, two experiences, split by regulatory risk

I considered one site with everything, one site with heavy disclaimers, or two experiences on one codebase. One site risked showing clinical claims to consumers, and heavy disclaimers would undercut trust. So a dark clinician site, gated at launch, carries the clinical claims, and the consumer site stays at brand level.

02

Custom build instead of Shopify

Full ownership, no platform fees, and a data model shaped to the business. The cost was far more build effort.

03

Backend moved from Payload CMS to Supabase

I moved to Supabase for real-time data and database-level security. The tradeoff was losing a ready-made admin interface, so I rebuilt the content workflows myself.

04

Single SKU and guest-first checkout

Fewer decisions between interest and purchase.

05

Clinicians sit outside the storefront

They reach WAVE through an email or PO inquiry and a gated, manually set up Bulk WAVE Portal.

Regulatory Constraint

Trust through transparency, not claims.

Since we can't promise results, the site earns trust by being honest about where WAVE stands. Every purchase-implying CTA across the site became a "Notify Me" email capture with a WAVE news opt-in, and payment methods came off the footer. A banner on every page states the device's status plainly:

WAVE is an investigational device under research. Not FDA cleared or approved. Not for commercial use.

A dedicated Clinical Evidence page goes one step further. It shows where the research stands today, including the planned studies and the approvals still pending, and it says plainly that it reports study status only and makes no claim that WAVE is safe or effective. Visitors can email the team to follow progress and ask about taking part in the studies, and clinicians can go straight to the clinician site to learn more or reach out about partnering as a trial site.

The WAVE product page with a Notify Me flow: an email address field, an optional opt-in for other WAVE news and updates, and a Notify Me button that replaces the buy button until launch

Systems Thinking

The data model was part of the UX.

I designed the data model alongside the screens, so what the business needs to know shaped what the interface could do. The model below is the design for the full commerce flow. The tables built so far cover email sign-ups, clinician inquiries, support tickets, and shop settings. The rest comes with the purchase flow.

Designed data model

Product, with sale and discount fields
Order, with the price saved at the moment of purchase
Buyer
Shipment
Reviews, tied to a real order and limited to verified purchasers
Restock notifications
Serial and lot-level unit tracking

Entity relationship diagram with five tables: Buyer, Order, Product, Shipment and Restock Notification

Design System

Light and dark from one set of variables.

The two experiences share one system but shift tone on purpose. The consumer site is light and warm, because someone in pain should know within seconds whether WAVE is worth exploring. The clinician site is dark and evidence-led, so it reads as a professional space.

Built in Figma with light and dark variables, 13 text styles, and components including button variants, email field, badges, cards, the regulatory banner, and the cart button. The palette is navy, pink, and logo blue on Montserrat, with raspberry (#C23A7B) as the primary CTA on both themes.

WAVE design system in light and dark themes: colors, Montserrat type, buttons, badge, link, card and regulatory banner

Build & Tooling

Designed by me, coded with Cursor.

The site runs on Next.js (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind, Supabase, and Vercel. Stripe is the next integration, followed by Resend and EasyPost.

Project structure of the WAVE site: storefront, clinician site, components, content, lib, Supabase migrations, docs and workflows

Accessibility

Many consumers will visit while in pain, so clarity and calm come first: plain language, one clear next step, and strong contrast.

The brand pink (#f59dba) failed contrast with white text, so it couldn't carry buttons. I moved every primary CTA to raspberry (#C23A7B) with white labels on both themes, at 5.0:1. Hover darkens to #A83068 (6.9:1) and active to #8E2A59.

Pink highlights like eyebrows, links, and accent borders moved to blue: #2B67A5 on the light site (5.9:1). On the dark clinician site, the first accent passed contrast at about 10:1 but blended into the body text, so I switched to the logo blue #84B7E3 (8.5:1) and made eyebrows bold with a short accent bar, so they don't rely on color alone.

I removed the decorative hover ring from dark CTAs but kept a visible focus outline for keyboard users. Brand pink now appears only in artwork, the logo, and soft background tints.

Four primary button color options with contrast ratios: navy on pink 7.07 to 1, white on pink 2.02 to 1, white on bright pink 3.20 to 1, and white on raspberry 5.02 to 1, which was chosen

WAVE loader animation, wave mark and the word Loading

The Outcome

Pre-launch, so no metrics yet.

The site is built to launch the moment FDA clearance allows a sale. Until then, its job is to build trust and collect early interest from consumers, clinicians, and investors.

The consumer storefront, clinician site, cart, checkout, and legal pages are built and running on a private preview. I'm not linking it here until the clinician site is gated, since it carries clinical content for an investigational device.

Collaboration

A solo build as part of the founding team. The team set the product vision and the claims we could make, and I turned those limits into the site's structure. I owned design, development, and delivery.

[IMG: The Outcome]

What I Will Measure

Notify Me sign-up rate
Clinician inquiry volume
Trial participation and investor inquiries
Checkout completion rate, after launch
Page load time

The original WAVE site gives us a baseline to compare against. If Notify Me sign-ups come in low, the first thing I'll test is the hero message and CTA placement.

[IMG: what I will measure]

Accessibility audit and fixes
Connect Stripe for payments (next)
Connect Resend and EasyPost
Switch on the clinician password gate
Connect the final domain (WAVEbyHush.com still hosts the old site)
Launch the purchase flow once trials allow a sale
Build out the Bulk WAVE Portal for clinicians

Seven pre-launch steps: accessibility audit, Stripe next, Resend and EasyPost, clinician password gate, final domain, launch the purchase flow, Bulk WAVE Portal

Role[PLACEHOLDER: your role on the ePRO app]

ScopeUX + Design System for a Clinical Trial App

Timeline[PLACEHOLDER: timeline]

Year[PLACEHOLDER: year]

Team[PLACEHOLDER: team]

Challenge

As WAVE moves toward FDA clearance, the ePRO app needs to make patient-reported outcomes effortless and trustworthy, since a $2M pivotal clinical trial's data integrity depends on honest, low-friction reporting from an estimated 250+ participants.

Approach

UX and design system development for the app where trial participants report outcomes directly, currently in progress.

[IMG: ePRO app screens]

$2MPivotal clinical trial

250+Estimated participants

-[Placeholder, current phase]

ePRO Clinical Trial App

Electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes

UX and design system development for the WAVE Clinical Trial ePRO app, a tool built to support a pivotal clinical trial as WAVE moves toward FDA clearance. This app is where patients report outcomes directly, making data integrity and ease of honest reporting the central design problem.

Problems currently in progress

Minimizing reporting burden without losing protocol-mandated granularity, patients rate pain mid-episode, so the UI leans on large expressive face cards paired with a compact NRS strip instead of dense multi-field forms
Preserving data integrity and study blinding directly in the interface, gated Time Zero eligibility checks, automatic dosing-interval enforcement, and arm-blind language prevent protocol deviations before they happen rather than catching them after
Making a highly branched protocol legible without overwhelming someone in pain, three treatment arms, three study phases, and arm-specific rescue medication logic all resolve into one guided flow instead of exposing that complexity to the patient

Time Zero Gate, eligibility check + pain scale

Rescue Logic, arm-aware protocol branching

[PLACEHOLDER: trial protocol validation and participant usability outcomes]

[PLACEHOLDER: next ePRO build milestones aligned to trial start]

[IMG: ePRO app screens]