Goal-setting App
Designing a goal-setting app and a responsive website focused on promoting dental health for teenagers.
My role: Lead Service Designer & UX Researcher
​
Responsibilities:
User Research, Problem Framing, Co-Creation, Workshops, Information Architecture, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing, Visual Design, Design Documentation, and Iteration
.
Introduction
Teenagers often leave dental appointments with a list of recommendations but little clarity on how to turn those into realistic daily habits. In my PhD research, I discovered that communication during consultations is complex, shaped by social dynamics, emotional comfort, and the perceived relevance of advice. This insight inspired me to design a mobile app — in English and Norwegian — that bridges the gap between the clinic and everyday life.
The app enables teens and their dental care team to co-create small, achievable oral health goals in under three minutes, track progress with a single tap, and receive supportive, non-judgmental feedback between visits. For clinics, it offers a quick, privacy-safe way to check in on goals without adding administrative burden. This case study walks through my end-to-end design process, from research and ideation to prototyping, usability testing, and final implementation — showing how I transformed evidence-based insights into a practical, teen-friendly digital tool.
Imagine you’re 15, sitting in the dentist’s chair. Instead of a long list of “shoulds,” you and your dentist agree on one small goal you actually feel ready to try — like brushing before bed every night. You pull out an app and set it up together in just a couple of minutes.
Over the next few weeks, the app sends you gentle, friendly reminders — no nagging — and you log your progress with a single tap. By the time your next appointment rolls around, your dentist gets a simple, consent-based snapshot of how you did, so you can celebrate wins and tweak things together.
Project duration: 12 weeks for the MVP (design + development + basic analytics). (Followed by a 4-week pilot in one dental clinic.) In progress...
Problem statement
Teens leave dental visits with plenty of advice but little support to turn it into daily habits. Existing tools feel nagging, and clinics lack a quick, positive, privacy-friendly way to set and track goals together.
The goal
Make in-clinic goal setting possible in ≤3 minutes (1–2 goals + follow-up plan).
Improve adherence to a primary goal over 6 weeks through reminders and positive feedback.
Support autonomy and competence for teenagers with friendly, non-shaming communication.
Provide clinics with consent-based, easy-to-read insights for effective follow-up without sharing unnecessary details.
Understanding the user
When I started this project, I thought the main issue was simple: teenagers just needed more reminders to brush and floss. To test this, I spent time in dental clinics, ran semi-structured interviews, and held participatory workshops with teens (12–18) and dental professionals.
Pretty quickly, my assumptions were challenged. I noticed that it wasn’t motivation that was missing, teens actually cared about their health. What really mattered to them was having choice, feeling in control, and not being spoken to in a judgmental way.
To capture these insights, I created personas that reflected different levels of motivation and dental experiences. I also mapped their journeys to see exactly where daily habits were breaking down between visits. From there, I built a simple sitemap to show how an app could bridge the clinic-to-home gap.
This phase completely reframed the problem for me: the challenge wasn’t that “teens forget dental advice.” Instead, it was that teens need co-created, realistic goals, plus gentle, supportive follow-up that respects their autonomy.
Pain points
1
Overwhelming advice in short appointments – Teens often leave with too many recommendations to remember, which leads to low follow-through. This guided the design toward focusing on just 1–2 co-created goals per visit.
2
Perception of reminders as nagging – Teens resist frequent, directive notifications. This led to autonomy-supportive language and the option to customize reminder style and timing.
3
Lack of visible progress between visits – Without feedback, motivation fades quickly. This inspired the inclusion of streaks, badges, and positive reflection prompts.
4
Privacy concerns with parental oversight – Teens want support without feeling monitored. This informed an opt-in parent support feature with limited visibility and teen control over data sharing.
Teenagers’ engagement in oral health conversations during consultations is shaped by a complex mix of social dynamics, emotional comfort, and topic relevance. While they can identify both barriers and motivators, current approaches do not account for the nuanced, often fluctuating communication patterns that occur in these settings. As a result, opportunities to co-create meaningful, relevant goals are often missed.
A user journey gave an understanding of where there is an opportunity.
This empathy map tries to cover the voices of teenagers we interviewed observed and gathered their needs and feelings towards dental health.
Starting the design
The sitmap covers the homescreen and some other main screens. In each screen, you can go back to each step, and some steps could be skipped.
The storyboard covers the flow of the user at the dental clinic and the interaction between the dentist and the user with the app.
Vibe Design✨
 Homepage |  Goals |  Progress |
|---|---|---|
 Tips |  Myth |  Messages |
This is me trying out vibe design with Figma make. It is a reflexive process, and I use it to get an overall view of the screens and flow. Also, it is excellent for catching early prototype issues before human testing, making the design process more efficient.
“We noticed teenagers need a concrete goal, so we designed a goal-setting app. This should help teenagers collaboratively set a goal and track it with dental personnel.”