RunDot – Transforming a Web App Into a Native App Experience
A legacy Angular web experience was limiting growth. In six months, we reimagined RunDot as a native mobile app built to improve activation, engagement, and long-term retention.
The Challenge
RunDot’s original experience lived inside an outdated Angular web app that no longer matched user expectations for a modern training product. The platform had strong underlying training intelligence, but the experience created friction at nearly every critical moment.
Users were being asked to do too much in a dated interface that felt more functional than motivating. Adoption was low, conversion performance was weak, and the product lacked the clarity and momentum needed to support growth.
Low user volume
Poor trial-to-paid conversion
A web experience that felt behind the market
Limited engagement after onboarding
Pressure to improve subscriber retention and reduce churn
Opportunity
The opportunity was bigger than a redesign. This was a chance to reposition RunDot as a modern, mobile-first product and create an experience that could better support both first-time activation and long-term habit formation.
We focused on a few core questions:
How do we help users understand the value of the product faster?
How do we reduce friction between signup and first workout?
How do we increase engagement after launch, not just at onboarding?
How do we design a system that can improve continuously based on real behavioral data?
We grounded the experience in two primary user mindsets:
Mandy
A motivated but overwhelmed athlete who needs confidence, clarity, and simple guidance. Mandy wants to know what to do next without feeling buried in metrics or complexity.
Chris
A more experienced, performance-driven athlete who values structure, insight, and control. Chris wants a smarter training experience that feels efficient, credible, and worth committing to long term.
These personas helped us design for both ends of the spectrum: users who needed more education and reassurance, and users who needed speed, trust, and depth.
The Launch: We Moved Fast
Working with a lean team, fewer than two dedicated design resources and a seven-person development team, we redesigned and launched the new native app experience in just six months.
The goal was not perfection on day one. The goal was to launch a modern, high-confidence product that solved the biggest experience barriers first, then improve it rapidly based on performance data.
Launch was the starting line, not the finish line.
Once the app was live, we shifted into a rapid iteration cycle focused on improving product performance against core KPIs:
Trials
Conversions
Subscribers
Churn
Instead of relying on assumptions, we used funnel and flow analysis to identify where users were stalling, hesitating, or dropping off. Tools like PostHog helped us understand user behavior across onboarding, activation, and early retention moments so we could prioritize the highest-impact improvements.
Introducing Social to Drive Engagement
To strengthen adoption and create more reasons to return, we introduced social features including the activity feed, groups, and community-oriented touchpoints. This helped shift RunDot from a utility experience to a more habit-forming product ecosystem.
These updates were designed to improve engagement, reinforce motivation, and create stronger retention loops over time.
Results
The transformation created a stronger foundation for growth by improving both the quality of the experience and the product’s ability to learn and evolve after launch.
Improved trial-to-paid performance through reduced friction and clearer onboarding
Increased engagement through social and educational features
Stronger subscriber conversion and retention opportunities
Better visibility into user behavior through analytics and funnel instrumentation
Faster UX iteration cycles tied directly to measurable product outcomes
My Role
As Head of Design & UX, I led the product experience transformation from strategy through launch and into post-launch optimization.
I helped define the product vision, shaped the native app experience, aligned cross-functional priorities, and ensured that UX decisions were directly tied to business outcomes.
This wasn’t just a redesign. It was a shift in how the product created value, how the team prioritized improvements, and how UX contributed to growth.
What I Did
- Led UX strategy for the transition from legacy Angular web app to native mobile app experience
- Defined the end-to-end user journey across onboarding, dashboard, workouts, and engagement features
- Partnered closely with product and engineering to execute a six-month launch with a lean team
- Designed and prioritized rapid post-launch UX improvements tied to KPIs
- Introduced funnel and flow analysis using PostHog to identify friction and guide iteration
- Helped shape the social feed and groups experience to drive engagement and repeat usage
- Integrated in-app education and guided UX patterns to improve confidence and reduce drop-off
- Built a stronger foundation for scalable, data-informed product decision-making