Clarus

Turning early health signals into action at personal and population scale.

Timeline
Sep 8 - Mar 12
Domain
Connected Health · Data-to-Insight
Role
Product Design
Focus
Systems Thinking · Information Architecture · Brand Strategy

Clarus connects a wearable biosensing patch, traveler app, and broader health-data layer to translate fragmented signals into information people can understand and act on.

Quick read

Challenge

Health signals can appear before symptoms, but raw data does not tell people what to do.

Approach

Translate individual signals into clear decisions, then connect them into a broader health picture.

We designed the experience across the wearable patch, traveler app, and anonymized public-health data layer.

Outcome

A connected health ecosystem grounded in traveler behavior and domain expertise.

46 travelers · 6 subject-matter experts · 1,700+ research data points

The blind spot

Disease can travel before symptoms do.

Travel risk can remain invisible while a traveler continues moving through the trip.

3-14 daysAverage incubation period for malaria and dengue used in project research

57%Travel-related illness cases diagnosed after returning home, as presented in the project research

  1. OriginHome / departure
  2. TravelMoving through the trip
  3. ExposureRisk may be unnoticed
  4. Symptom-freeA quiet interval
  5. ReturnSymptoms / diagnosis
The traveler keeps moving while the health risk remains invisible.

Started with

Detect disease earlier.

Clarus began as a narrower detection concept.

What we learned

Detection could surface a signal, but a signal still left the traveler asking:

  • “What does this mean?”
  • “Can I trust it?”
  • “What should I do next?”

Reframed as

The problem was not detection.
It was interpretation.

From a detection device to an information system.

What research changed

We needed to understand what happens between a signal and a decision.

46Travelers

6Subject-matter experts

1,700+Research data points

  1. 01

    Delayed awareness

    Changes often became noticeable only after travel was interrupted.

  2. 02

    Symptom dismissal

    Early changes were easily read as normal travel fatigue.

  3. 03

    Trust barriers

    Autonomy still depended on credible reassurance.

  4. 04

    Surveillance gaps

    Useful signals reached officials after cases had progressed.

System architecture

One signal can guide a traveler. Thousands can reveal a pattern.

One signalOne traveler

Collective awareness

Many anonymized signals reveal shared patterns.

Individual signals become collective awareness.

User flow

How a signal moves through Clarus.

The wearable layer

The patch was the sensing layer of a larger system.

Clarus used a wearable biosensing patch as the capture layer, passing health signals into the traveler experience for interpretation and action.

Capture
Biosignal input
Connect
Synced health context
Interpret
Handled in the traveler experience

Sitemap

The product structure followed traveler needs.

Traveler journey architecture

The app follows the trip, not the data model.

  1. 01

    Prepare

    Before travelTrip context and patch setup

  2. 02

    Monitor

    During travelQuiet monitoring and health context.

  3. 03

    Understand

    When something changesA plain-language explanation of what changed.

  4. 04

    Act

    Next stepClear, contextual guidance

  5. 05

    Review

    After travelA documented trip and health record.

From data to meaning

Health information shouldn’t require interpretation before someone can act.

Data

What changed?

Meaning

What does it mean?

Action

What should I do next?

Branding as product trust

Trust had to begin before the first screen.

One visual languageAcross the product ecosystem
Clarus wordmark
Source pending
Clarus blue
Typography treatment
Source pending
Patch application
Source pending
Mobile app application
Source pending

FromClinical · Sterile · Device-like

ToCredible · Approachable · Calm

Clinical cues created unnecessary anxiety, so we built a calmer visual language across the patch, app, and digital experience without abandoning credibility.

Brand was another layer of product trust.

Testing & refinement

Testing showed where understanding still stopped short of action.

6participants

100%core tasks completed on first attempt

83%completion across secondary navigation tasks

  1. 01

    Sync state

    IssueUsers could not always tell when syncing began or ended.

    Design changeMake system state explicit.

    Connecting · Active · Complete
  2. 02

    Alert action

    IssueUnderstanding an alert did not always lead to a next step.

    Design changeMake the next step part of the alert itself.

    Awareness · Meaning · Action

Final connected experience

One trip. One signal. A much larger picture.

Personal scale

A signal begins in context.

Clarus keeps health information tied to the trip, so a change can be understood in the moment.

Beyond one trip

One signal becomes part of a larger picture.

Anonymized signals can contribute context beyond a single traveler.

At scale

Thousands of signals can reveal what one cannot.

Across people and locations, anonymized signals can help surface broader patterns.

Collective awareness

Patterns become visible at a different scale.

Earlier context can help identify where closer investigation may be needed.

Back to the individual

Scale should add context, not complexity.

However large the system becomes, the traveler still needs one thing: a clear next step.

The more complex the system became, the more important it was to make each interaction feel simple.

Outcome & reflection

What started as a detection problem became a systems problem.

Clarus began with disease detection, but the deeper challenge became interpretation across people and scales. The project taught me to structure complex health information as one connected system.