Curbside
OVERVIEW
Curbside is a community platform where patients, caregivers, clinicians, and physicians share real-world experiences with treatments. By bringing these perspectives together in one place, Curbside.bio helps people navigate complex medical decisions with clarity and human insight.
PROJECT TYPE
Lead product design, UX research, multi-role collaboration
TIMELINE
3 months (July 2025 - September 2025)
SOFTWARES
Figma, Notion
Problem
Information Without Clarity
Curbside.bio had valuable real-world treatment insights, but the experience made them hard to access. The site felt dense, overly clinical, and difficult to navigate, leaving new users unsure where to start.
My role was to simplify the experience, build clarity and trust, and make the platform feel approachable without losing medical depth.
research
Making Treatment Information Human Again
To understand why users felt overwhelmed on Curbside.bio, I conducted interviews, a competitive audit, and an evaluation of the existing platform. Across patients, caregivers, clinicians, and people casually researching symptoms, a clear pattern emerged: people were struggling to understand information.
Users shared that dense medical terminology, long onboarding flows, and visually crowded layouts made it difficult to trust what they were reading or know where to start.
Alongside this, early usability reviews highlighted three core needs:
Simplicity in Language
Users wanted guidance without being talked down to. Plain-language explanations, lightweight tooltips, and clearer contributor labels helped make complex treatments feel approachable.
Clear Paths Through the Platform
The existing structure forced users to make too many decisions upfront. Research showed that people naturally begin with a condition, then explore treatment options, and finally compare experiences. This informed the shift toward a more intuitive, condition-first flow.
Credibility Without Intimidation
Interviews revealed that users preferred:
Seeing whether a review came from a patient, caregiver, or provider
Lightweight validation signals like “verified provider” or “most helpful”
Consistent review formats that still allowed personal context
How might we
Make treatment information feel clear, trustworthy, and easy to navigate without overwhelming people who are already stressed or unfamiliar with medical language?
iterations
Exploring the Full Design Space
I explored 100+ variations across navigation, filtering, treatment cards, and onboarding flows before narrowing into three key directions.
Treatment Page: Reducing Overload
Problem: The original treatment page was dense, clinical, and visually flat. Users felt unsure where to look first.
New additions
Refined card hierarchy to establish clearer visual entry points and guide scanning
Streamlined filter system tailored to different user roles and contexts
Explored product imagery to gauge clarity vs. noise
Comparing Treatments: Helping Users Decide Faster
Problem: Comparisons required too much digging. Users couldn’t easily see differences between treatments.
New additions
Simpler wording for a friendlier, more accessible read
Aligned content blocks that create a true side-by-side comparison
Improved layout with imagery and balanced spacing
Visual scoring system for instant insight
Minimal CTAs to reduce visual noise
Review Section: Improving Clarity & Credibility
Problem: Early review tags were inconsistent, clinical, and visually dull. Users struggled to parse reviewer roles, treatment context, and what the tags actually meant.
New additions
Streamlined tag system with clearer, action-oriented labels
Role-specific indicators (i.e. “Verified Emergency Medicine Physician”) for instant credibility
Refined metadata (likes, replies, etc.) to improve trust and engagement
final product
For confidentiality reasons, the full high-fidelity designs and flows aren’t shown publicly here. However, I’m happy to walk through the complete product, including interaction patterns, design system decisions, and final usability outcomes, privately upon request.
last thoughts
Next steps
Future improvements include strengthening filtering in treatment comparisons, expanding review tags for more conditions, and exploring light community features to support ongoing engagement. There’s also an opportunity to tailor the experience further as more user data is collected.
Reflection
This project taught me how to balance user-first design with the preferences of a very hands-on clinical client. At times, my recommendations centered on clarity and accessibility while his leaned toward what felt familiar to physicians. Navigating that tension helped me communicate design rationale more clearly, advocate for users, and find solutions that served both medical accuracy and usability.