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NEW CASE STUDY!
π E-Strum: App + Device for Tracking Light Availability at Home
ABOUT THE APP:
Scheduled and unscheduled power outages in Ukraine made it hard for people to plan their day. The client wanted a hardware device paired with a mobile app that detects light presence in a room and builds analytics from it β so people could plan around real outage patterns, not guesswork.
THE CHALLENGE:
- Take E-Strum from concept to a working hardware + software product:
- Ship secure OTA firmware updates (CI/CD, embedded flashing code, secure distribution server).
- Handle high device load without degrading service.
THE PROCESS:
- Ran discovery first - locked requirements before build, since hardware mistakes are far costlier to fix late than software ones.
- Tackled the riskiest unknowns early - OTA firmware and device-connection logic went first, ahead of UI work.
- Split hardware and backend workstreams in parallel, with device registration/events as the shared contract between them.
THE RESULTS
- Rolled out OTA firmware updates to 1,000+ connected devices with zero manual re-flashing required π―
Kept backend response times under 300ms even as concurrent connected devices scaled past 1,200 π
Held device-connection success rate at 97%+ on first attempt under real-world Wi-Fi conditions π§
β’ Sep 5
97% first-attempt connection success on real Wi-Fi is a hard number to hit, easy to fake on a lab network. The remaining 3% is usually where support tickets come from, a device that fails silently looks identical to one that's just offline until someone digs into the connection logs.
The network for creativity
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π¨ MORE RECOMMENDATIONS CAN MAKE A TRAVEL APP WORSE.
01/30 MOBILE APP GROWTH TIPS
Iβm starting a new series: 30 mobile products β 30 growth decisions.
Not about UI tricks. About product decisions that can actually change retention, activation, and user behavior.
The first case is travel. π
Most travel apps optimize supply. The real bottleneck is confidence.
Users already have no shortage of places to discover. Google Maps, TikTok, Instagram, blogs, saved lists. There are already more options than they can realistically use.
So adding more recommendations often does not create more value. It creates decision entropy.
In Veya, I shifted the core loop.
Not: discover β browse β save
But: context β decision β successful experience β trust β delegation
Weather, time, location, energy level, taste, previous saves and skips are not just personalization data. They are a mechanism for reducing uncertainty.
If the product repeatedly answers βWhat is actually worth doing today for me?β well enough, it stops being a catalog. It becomes a decision layer.
And that creates a stronger retention loop: more usage β more context β better decisions β more trust β more delegation β more usage
π‘ GROWTH TIP #01
DONβT MAXIMIZE RECOMMENDATIONS. MAXIMIZE HOW MUCH OF THE DECISION USERS ARE WILLING TO DELEGATE TO YOUR PRODUCT.
That is when personalization becomes a real growth mechanism, not just another feature.
Day 1/30 Veya Mobie App Redesign
29 more product decisions are coming around gamification, personalization, retention, monetization, and AI driven growth. π
If this is your kind of topic, see you in #02.
#MobileAppGrowth #ProductStrategy #Gamification #Personalization #MobileUX #Asol_design #ProductDesign
One year. Handpicked crew. A few ambitious projects.
Design Season turns 1, and weβre finally ready to start sharing what weβve been building this year, and open our doors to a few new projects.
Some of our biggest work is still under wraps, but thereβs a lot we can finally show.
Starting with Formation.
An iOS app that gives your car a memory, helping you keep track of its history, health, documents, services and more.
We took it from 0 β 1, fully in-house.
Brand. Strategy. Product design. iOS development. Currently in private testflight
http://designseason.co/formation-casestudy
And while weβre at it, our brand new website is live too:
http://designseason.co
A lot more coming soon, including a proper team reveal.
Congrats on your 1 year anniversary π
1 idea + 0 users = a hobby. 1 idea + 10 paying users = a business.
The gap between those two isn't more features. It's the courage to charge money for the ugly version.
