Medical Education App Redesign · Lead Product Designer
MedGrupo is a Brazilian holding company that brings together courses and publishers focused on training doctors and students for medical residency exams. In 2020, 92% of medical residency candidates approved in Brazil were MedGrupo students — the absolute leader in medical education in the country.
I took on as Lead Product Designer a product with outstanding content but a 1.8 rating on the Apple Store. The diagnosis revealed two overlapping problems: on the technical side, critical bugs and degraded performance were disrupting students' study routines; on the organizational side, independent development teams per app section were generating visual inconsistency and a fragmented experience — no design system, no shared process, no common visual language between teams.
The biggest challenge wasn't redesigning interfaces — it was unifying teams that had never worked together. We started from quantitative research with surveys and qualitative research with interviews with 25 students to map real pain points. With insights consolidated, work was split into two parallel tracks: building a Design System that would eliminate inconsistency between teams, and establishing a formal governance process to ensure its adoption and continuous evolution.
Main app issues
• 54% Bugs and errors
• 26% Navigation difficulty
• 12% Slow performance
• 2% Educational content
• 6% Other
• NPS 68
Interviews with 25 students via Google Meet
• App restarts on its own
• Screen goes blank during questions
• Slow video loading
• Progress not displayed correctly
• Hard to find content
• Content is excellent
The solution was built in layers. First, a complete Design System — colors, typography, iconography, components, and spacing — with a formal governance process to ensure adoption and consistency across all teams. Then, the complete MedSoft redesign: reorganized information architecture, simplified navigation, and performance as a design requirement from the wireframe stage. Finally, new products were launched on this consolidated foundation: MedRobot, an AI assistant integrated into the app, and SmartCards, a flashcard module for active content review.
The MedSoft redesign and the structuring of the Design System transformed not just the product, but the company's design culture. Designers and developers started working with a shared visual language, the roadmap became clearer, and deliveries more predictable. For students, the impact was immediate: the App Store rating rose from 1.8 to 4.0, reflecting a real improvement in the experience of those who study for medical residency every day.
