Tend

Designing a clearer, more inviting patient experience for a dental platform serving 30,000+ people.

Roles: Product Engineer
Timeline: January – May 2025

The brief

As a Product Engineer at Tend, I designed and debugged software for a dental platform serving more than 30,000 patients. My design work explored ways to make the dashboard easier to navigate and appointment booking more inviting.

Design decisions

I explored a vertical navigation bar to give the product a consistent place for its primary destinations. The intent was to make movement through the dashboard feel predictable while leaving room for its different modules.

The patient dashboard with a vertical nav bar on the left listing Home, Treatments, Orthodontics, Visits and Invite a Friend, next to a note from the care team and upcoming visits. — The vertical nav keeps every main destination in one predictable place.

More inviting booking moments

I designed playful dashboard modules to encourage patients to book care. The aim was to make the next step feel approachable within an experience that also had to handle practical patient needs.

The “Your treatment journey” module: a completed dental exam, then a non-surgical periodontal treatment card with a photo, a short explanation and a Book now button, beside a note from the dentist recommending the plan. — The treatment journey shows what's done and puts booking the next step right in view.

Modules that evolve with you

A big critique of the old dashboard was a lack of personalization. As a solution, I created dashboard modules that are context-dependent on the user’s treatment process.

Two versions of the ortho module: before treatment, a “Start your ortho journey” card invites the patient to book a consultation; after their visit, “Your ortho journey” shows a note from the dentist and the costs of two treatment options. — The ortho module before a consultation (top) and after the first visit (bottom).

Lessons

Understanding industry constraints and gaining intuition

From working in healthcare, I realized how specialized design can be–working under constraints like HIPAA forced me to think about patient privacy through many steps in the design process.

The intersection of design and engineering

As a product engineer, I attended all product manager and software engineering meetings. It was interesting to see the different priorities of each team, but largely I realized that a successful product is one where the two are intertwined.