I began at Fitbit by leading the design for a new project team at Fitbit. We were gearing up to launch an "App Gallery" for two new smartwatches, encompassing first-party apps, brand partnerships (2nd party apps), and an SDK for third-party developers.
We had a cross-functional team of around 15 people, mostly contractors, leveraging the existing private Fitbit SDK and other internal resources to create a series of 2nd party apps.
I led design for the project team and worked closely with Bogdan, Product Manager for the project.
Over the course of 3 months I interviewed and hired 4 design contractors: Teo, Andra, Madalin & Bogdan.
There were also a total of 8 Javascript contractors, that would be able to use the yet in-progress Fitbit SDK in order to build simple apps much faster than previously.
I assured recurrent syncs with internal engineering team to build a strong collaboration model and to improve our overall workflow. This helped us to understand when priorities would shift and align accordingly.
The SDK team would ”expose” the UI components built by the graphics engine team to the SDK, so App Factory devs would be able to use them when building the watch apps.
The SDK itself being a work in progress sometimes meant overlapping timelines and the need to re-align the different roadmaps of teams.
For example: list-tiles and buttons were not yet completely designed when we started the design process, so we had to change our team priorities based on what was available and start taking small steps. Overall design definition around components was missing at times and I needed to track the responsible people or teams and either get more definition or propose solutions coming in from App Factory designers.
Negotiating priorities at a higher level and selling the value of the changes was an important part of my contribution.
After setting up the team, I prioritized establishing a clear perspective for our design goals. Essentially, we aimed to prioritize and translate key mobile app experiences into a wearable format.
We began by focusing on how users interact with the device, considering their posture, awareness, and attention spans—differing from mobile phone usage. This led to rigorous prioritization, narrowing our focus to the most essential part of the mobile experience.
I allocated tasks ensuring every designer felt involved and challenged. In our weekly reviews, our small design team aimed to streamline app functionality, like focusing solely on Wallgreens' code scanning in a wearable context. For other partnerships, this core feature often served as the sole function or a foundation for further additions.
To ensure our designers thrived, I established guidelines in the App Factory team, promoting smooth collaboration and minimizing time spent on engineering tickets. If we were addressing basic alignment issues more than enhancing designs, our approach needed adjustment.
This definitely got better with time and if our design specs were initially a noticeable workload, eventually they shrunk in size and effort, focussing on just the most important definitions, thus collaboration with engineers evolved into free conversations and exchanges of ideas rather than “handoffs”.
Establishing a consistent process and allowing focused design time fostered confidence among designers. They soon worked autonomously, liaising with engineers, addressing concerns, and suggesting innovations.
✅ This paved the way for some, like Andra & Madalin, to become full-time Fitbit employees.
