DanceAway
Turning an evolving dance platform into a structured product system.
I helped turn an evolving dance platform into a more structured product system — from user research and product architecture to scalable UX patterns and implementation review.
The challenge
More than screens: structure
DanceAway targets a broad ecosystem where dancers, teachers, organizers, studios and other roles overlap. The challenge was not simply to design screens, but to create enough structure for the whole product to work coherently.
The product was pre-launch and still being defined. I set my own scope across research, product and design.
What I owned
Research to implementation, end to end
User interviews · recruitment · synthesis · competitive analysis
Roles · onboarding · profile logic · content architecture
Core flows · mobile screens · interaction patterns · states
120+ components · semantic tokens · light/dark · reusable patterns
TestFlight review · UX risk analysis · Figma redesign · handoff
Audience
A wide audience, like Spotify’s
Spotify serves people who listen to completely different music in completely different ways, so one “average listener” can’t describe them (The story of Spotify personas ↗).
DanceAway has the same challenge with dance. People dance different styles, at different levels, and play different roles: dancers, teachers, studios, organizers. So instead of designing for one generic dancer, I mapped the whole ecosystem and built proto-personas around these differences.
Research process
A research system built from scratch
I built a research process the team could repeat as the product evolved.
Implementation-first
Reviewing live builds, not only files
As the team experimented with implementation-first delivery, I reviewed live builds in TestFlight, identified product and UX gaps, and translated those findings back into clearer Figma flows and reusable system rules.
Design system
120+ components on semantic tokens
Outcome
Ready to scale and to validate
A large, varied ecosystem now works as one coherent system.
120+ components and reusable patterns instead of one-off screens.
A research system and clear structure, ready to test with real users at launch.
Key product decisions are covered in the private walkthrough.
Full case study available in a private walkthrough.
DanceAway is currently pre-launch, so detailed product flows, unreleased screens, implementation reviews and internal research materials are protected under NDA. I'd be happy to walk you through the full case study during an interview or portfolio review.
Hiring for a Product Designer role? I can share the full case study during our conversation.