Four projects spanning usability research, product design, AI prototyping, and digital strategy.
UX research · Service design
Booking Friction at Ford Salon
Testing revealed that every participant abandoned booking when asked to provide a credit card before trust had been established.
5 participants
Existing booking flow
Prototype validation
Challenge
The salon needed a way to protect against no-shows, but requiring a credit card during online booking created significant friction. The challenge was finding a way to meet the business need without creating a barrier that caused new clients to abandon their booking.
Research
Moderated usability testing with 5 participants (ages 35–55) booking a haircut online on the live site.
Insight
Participants did not object to the salon itself. They stopped because the upfront card requirement appeared before enough trust had been established.
Business constraint
Mandatory cards help reduce no-shows and protect revenue. Removing the requirement entirely could increase cancellations. The redesign had to respect both sides.
Solution
Remove the card requirement for first appointments, then require a card on file for returning clients—building trust first while preserving protection against no-shows.
Validation
Existing flow5/5 abandoned
Mandatory upfront card. Abandonment at payment.
Simplified prototype5/5 completed
Lower first-visit friction. No abandonment observed.
Simplified first-visit flow
No card required up front. Payment due at the appointment. 5/5 completed.
Services
Choose a service and continue.
Date & time
Available slots for the selected service.
Confirm
Contact details only—no card asked.
Booked
Payment due at the appointment.
What I’d test next
Pilot the first-visit flowTest the revised experience with new bookers on the live site.
Run an A/B testCompare it against the current mandatory-card path.
Measure both outcomesTrack booking completion and no-show rates together.
Reflection
Good UX here wasn’t “remove the friction.” It was finding the smallest change that helped users finish while still protecting the business.
Product · AI companion
Wellness App
Designing an AI-assisted wellness experience around one user’s real daily habits.
Designed and iterated with one primary user who had experience with Formula. She found the AI camera, calorie estimates, and macro breakdown easier to use and continued using the app beyond testing.
1 primary user
Multiple iterations
AI meal recognition
Live PWA
Tools: HTML/CSS/JS · PWA · AI meal vision · Netlify
Challenge
Could I build a wellness app comparable in quality to an established product, while making it easier and more personalized for a real user? The challenge was turning her feedback into a simpler experience while exploring how AI could make everyday tracking easier and more useful.
Research
Primary user: Pelma, an experienced Formula user who found calorie tracking overwhelming and frustrating. She used this product over multiple iterations, compared it against her existing routine, and her feedback directly shaped what shipped next.
The experience
The product journey in four moves.
Personalize the planLearn goals, routines, and preferences.
Log food with less effortPhotograph meals and confirm the AI estimate.
Adapt throughout the dayCalories, movement, and suggestions update together.
Receive supportive coachingDaily insights reinforce progress without guilt.
Screens
Each screen does one job in that journey.
Onboarding
Learns goals and preferences before setting a simple plan.
Your plan
Starting targets for food, movement, calories, protein, and water.
Snap food
Open the camera to log a meal with AI.
Meal details
Calories and nutrition breakdown before logging.
Dashboard
Calories, macros, water, and quick actions in one view.
Daily insights
Personalized AI coaching with optional voice playback.
Activity tracking
Exercise adjusts the daily calorie budget without shame language.
Progress
Trends, weekly score, and gentle check-ins.
Validation
The primary user tested the app alongside Formula and preferred this app’s simpler experience, particularly its meal recognition and presentation of estimated calories and macros. She continued using it consistently as part of her wellness routine and made progress toward her personal goals, including weight loss.
Reflection
This project reinforced that wellness products are not only about tracking data. They also need to reduce effort, support motivation, and adapt to how people actually build habits.
Client work · Digital marketing
Real Estate Lead Generation System
An end-to-end lead journey for court-ordered and foreclosure opportunities—from Meta campaign through landing page, CRM intake, and follow-up.
Live client deployment
Meta campaign ready
Lofty CRM integration
Brokerage-compliant messaging
Landing page
Conversion-focused desktop experience for court-ordered sale alerts.
Built the full lead journey from Meta campaign to CRM follow-up, with messaging designed for a sensitive real estate category.
Challenge
A local realtor needed a way to generate qualified buyer leads online while working within brokerage advertising requirements and an existing CRM. The challenge was to create a complete journey from first contact through lead capture and follow-up, with messaging that built trust around a sensitive real estate category.
Insight
People researching court-ordered sales may already feel uncertain, so the experience needed to be informative and reassuring without feeling overly sales-driven. Because real estate is a personal service, the tone also needed to remain consistent from the first ad through the landing page, CRM follow-up, and direct conversation with the realtor.
Ongoing client conversations helped refine the terminology, tone, and sales approach across each touchpoint, creating an experience that felt knowledgeable, neutral, and trustworthy.
System flow
Meta ad
Landing page
Short form
Lofty CRM
Automated email
Realtor follow-up
Key decisions
Sensitive category, neutral tone
People researching foreclosures or court-ordered sales may already feel uncertain.
↓
Used clear, reassuring language instead of urgency-heavy or overly promotional messaging.
One voice across the journey
Real estate is a personal service, so the experience needed to feel consistent from first click to direct follow-up.
↓
Aligned the ad, landing page, automated email, and realtor messaging around the same tone and terminology.
Lower friction at first contact
A long form would ask too much too early.
↓
Kept the initial inquiry to essential fields, with qualification continuing through follow-up.
Message continuity from ad to page
Paid traffic works better when the landing experience matches what the user clicked.
↓
Kept campaign messaging, terminology, and visual direction consistent between Meta and the landing page.
Project scope
Beyond the landing page: messaging, compliance, lead routing, deployment, and campaign preparation.
Client discovery and positioning
Messaging strategy for court-ordered sales
Brand voice across the lead journey
UX for a short, high-intent lead form
Responsive landing page
Lofty CRM integration and lead routing
Automated follow-up
Advertising compliance considerations
Meta campaign preparation
Vercel deployment and UTM tracking
Current status
The landing page, CRM routing, automated follow-up, and campaign assets are complete. The Facebook page is being prepared before paid traffic begins. Conversion performance will be evaluated once the campaign is live.
Reflection
This project showed that a lead funnel is not just a technical system. In a personal service business, the experience continues after the form is submitted. The ad, landing page, automated follow-up, and eventual conversation all need to support the same promise and level of trust.
Product prototype · Community
Chasing Rainbows
Turning Kelowna Into a Queer Treasure Hunt
A location-based community experience that uses hidden treasure, local destinations, rewards, and playful discovery to give LGBTQ+ people more reasons to explore their city and participate in something shared.
The concept grew from conversations with 11 members of Kelowna’s LGBTQ+ community about connection, fragmentation, and belonging. Early field testing showed particular enthusiasm for the treasure-hunt mechanic, helping shift the experience toward a simple question: where’s the next one?
Further testing will explore whether that curiosity and shared participation can translate into a stronger sense of connection to the local community.
11 community interviews
1 initial field test
Interactive prototype
Tools: React · TypeScript · Vite · Tailwind · Supabase
Challenge
Local LGBTQ+ community members described fragmented social circles, limited year-round engagement beyond Pride, and a desire for more ways to connect through shared experiences.
Research
11 interviews with local LGBTQ+ community members
Fragmentation
Existing social circles could feel difficult to enter.
Low-pressure participation
People wanted ways to take part without forced interaction.
Shared participation
Connection was often described through doing things together, showing up, mutual support, and chosen family.
Insight
How might we create low-pressure ways for LGBTQ+ people to explore Kelowna and feel more connected to their community?
Solution
Chasing Rainbows turns Kelowna into a community treasure hunt.
Players discover hidden treasure throughout the city, visit local places, collect rewards, and share in an experience they can participate in alone or with others.
Experience principles
Curiosity over obligation
Give people a reason to wonder, “Where’s the next one?”
Shared presence without forced interaction
Participate independently, with friends, or alongside other Chasers.
Discovery that feels rewarding
Make exploring familiar and unexpected places feel playful and worthwhile.
Product mechanics
Location-based treasure hunts
Hidden treasure throughout Kelowna
Collectible rewards
Live presence of other Chasers
Community chat
Storybook-inspired visual design
Product flow
Map → Choose treasure → Follow the clues → Find it → Unlock reward → Find the next one
Map
Enter the hunt and see what’s out there.
Choose treasure
Pick a hunt to follow.
Follow the clues
What, where, and a clearer hint.
Find it
Clue, map, and arrival at the place.
Unlock reward
Featured keepsake plus secondary collectibles.
Find the next one
Profile, scrapbook, and the next hunt.
Observed field-test journey
What one pilot participant actually did during the first field test, based on real-world behaviour rather than intended product navigation.
Open map
Choose a glow
Travel to location
Follow the clue
Discover reward
Leave a shared note
Field-test findings
One participant completed the initial field test, separate from the 11 community interviews that shaped the concept.
What worked
The participant enjoyed the treasure-hunt experience, responded strongly to the rewards, and wanted to keep discovering more. They said they would recommend the experience to others with similar interests.
What caused friction
Some clues successfully led the participant to the general area but were not precise enough to make the final discovery satisfying.
What changed
Clues became more specific and rewards became more meaningful, but the larger learning was about the product itself. The participant wasn’t motivated by completing a walk or checking off a quest. The motivation was finding something.
The motivation was not the walk itself. It was the feeling of finding something.
That shifted the concept toward making discovery the core experience: more individual treasures across the city, stronger visual rewards, and a repeated loop built around the question, “Where’s the next one?”
Because this insight comes from a single pilot, it remains an early product hypothesis rather than proof that the experience improves community connection.
What I’d test next
Move from “one person had fun” to repeatable evidence across different users.
Clue clarityCan people understand the clues without help?
CompletionDo they successfully find the treasure?
Reward valueDoes the reward feel worth the effort?
Continued participationDo they want to find another one?
ConnectionDo they feel more connected to the local LGBTQ+ community afterward?
ReachDoes the experience work for people outside my immediate social circle?
Reflection
Chasing Rainbows has strong concept appeal and a distinctive visual world, but it is still an early-stage prototype with limited field evidence. Community interviews shaped the original direction, while the first field test revealed that the strongest motivation was not simply going somewhere or completing a quest. It was the feeling of discovering something.
That insight shifted the product toward clearer clues, stronger rewards, and more individual treasures across the city. The next step is broader field testing to see whether different users can complete the experience independently, want to keep searching, and report a meaningful change in how connected or engaged they feel.
About
I’m Michael. I enjoy solving real problems. I talk to users, build something, test it, and iterate. Based in Kelowna, with a background in brand ambassadorship and client-facing work that keeps me focused on how people actually feel in the moment.
Let’s talk
Open to client experience, marketing, administrative, and junior digital roles in Kelowna or remotely.
