Wishes

Screenshots of a mobile app interface with three screens. The first screen welcomes a user named Carlo, showing options for creating key contacts and organizing documents. The second screen asks if the user has chosen a funeral home provider, with yes or no buttons. The third screen shows a user named Susanna Vogt with view-only access, options for creating plans, and emergency contact information.

Designing Trust Around Life’s Hardest Conversations

Role: VP of Product Design

Company: Better Place Forests

Multiple hands holding smartphones displaying various screens of digital apps and websites, representing communication, planning, and memory sharing.

The Opportunity

Better Place Forests had built a trusted brand around memorial forests, but leadership saw an opportunity to serve customers much earlier in their end-of-life planning journey.

Through research, we identified a significant unmet need: people knew planning was important, but felt overwhelmed by where to start. The challenge was creating a trusted digital experience that made end-of-life planning approachable while supporting the company's broader mission.

My Impact

A group of nine diverse young adults posing for a photo in a wooden room with a large whiteboard covered in colorful sticky notes and notes on the wall. They are smiling, sitting and standing casually.

Before stepping into the VP of Product Design role, I built and led Better Place Forests' centralized creative team, establishing the design foundation that supported the company's growth across brand, marketing, and product.

After being promoted to lead the Wishes initiative, I oversaw product discovery, research, experience design, and cross-functional collaboration from concept through MVP. I partnered closely with leadership, engineering, and subject-matter experts to define the product vision and the customer experience.

A two-part diagram with a timeline titled 'At Need' on the left, showing various emotionally supportive and meaningful activities like 'Life Plan,' 'Capsule,' and 'Conceirge,' and a 'Pre-Need' section on the right outlining planning and educational steps such as 'Life Plan & My Wishes,' 'Family View,' and 'Digital EoL Education.'

Identifying the Best Opportunity

I led my team as we researched and conducted concept exploration across multiple opportunities within the end-of-life space to determine where Better Place Forests could create the greatest impact.

The result was Wishes, a free planning platform designed to help people organize and share their end-of-life preferences before a crisis occurs.

Designed for Emotional Accessibility

Screenshots of a mobile app interface titled "My Traditions," with different sections about traditional cultural practices, including one titled "Formal Traditions" and a photo of lit candles at night in one of the screens.

End-of-life planning is emotionally complex, so we focused on reducing friction wherever possible.

Through user testing and iteration, we helped shape a conversational experience that encouraged progress over perfection, making it easy to skip sections, save for later, and return when ready.

Screenshots of a mobile app called Wishes, showing user interface with personalized greetings, plan management options, and contact information in a clean, soothing color scheme of teal, beige, and white.

A Foundation for Growth

Working closely with engineering, we established reusable design systems and component libraries that accelerated development and created a scalable foundation for future product expansion.

Screenshots of a chat conversation with multiple users expressing excitement and admiration, including heart emojis, about a product or idea, with some comments about a growing tree.

Results

  • Created a free end-of-life planning platform centered around seven essential planning areas

  • Transformed a complex and emotionally difficult process into a more approachable digital experience

  • Increased opportunities for customers to engage with Better Place Forests earlier in their planning journey

  • Established a scalable design system to support future product growth

  • Created a foundation for expanding Better Place Forests' mission beyond memorial forests into broader end-of-life planning

Reflection

The biggest challenge wasn’t technology. It was trust.

This project reinforced the importance of meeting people where they are emotionally and helping them take small, meaningful steps forward. Often, the most impactful products aren’t the ones that do the most. They’re the ones that make it easier to begin.

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