Case study · Contract product design role
Dyver
Designing a diver's profile page, from my hiring challenge to a shipped MVP, then improving it through testing with real divers.
Outcome
Dyver launched on the App Store in June 2023. Through testing, the profile grew into a more accessible, data-rich page that became the base for Dyver's social features and its dive-mapping work.
Overview
Dyver is a mobile app where scuba divers log their dives, share underwater photography, and connect with a global diving community.
The profile page was my hiring challenge, and it got me the role. As the product designer for the MVP, I shipped it as one of my first features, and a year later it became the base for the app's social and dive-mapping features.
The problem
A diver's profile has to do a lot. It shows who someone is, how much diving they've done, and which certifications they hold, and it still needs room for the photos that make people want to get in the water.
The brief arrived with brand guidelines, a type system, a color palette, and a mood board. It asked for:
- 01Basic information: name, profile photo, location, and bio
- 02The diver's highest certification, with a way to reach the others
- 03Following and follower counts
- 04Dive stats: number of dives, deepest dive, and longest dive
- 05A reverse chronological feed, considered but not the focus
Learning to think like a diver
I knew almost nothing about scuba going in. But as an endurance athlete, I knew what it's like to love a sport full of gear, gadgets, and personal records.
To design something divers would recognize as theirs, I started with secondary research around three questions, then looked at the apps divers were already using to see where they fell short.
- 01Who are certified divers?Many of them travel to dive, and they keep track of their progress through new dive sites, deeper dives, and logged hours.
- 02How do certification levels work?Each certifying agency has its own levels, and divers usually identify by their highest one. So the profile shows the top certification first, with the rest one tap away.
- 03How are divers logging today?Most used a dive computer app for their data and social media for their photos. Neither one did both well.
So I set out to design a profile that could hold a diver's data and show off their photos in the same place.
From concept to MVP
My hiring challenge concept gave us a starting point. Once I had the full brand assets, icons, and early components, the visual designer and I built out the design system together.
We went through several layouts and interactions to get closer to the brand vision. Two details stuck because they show who a diver is right away: tappable certification badges and a simple lifetime stats row.
Testing in Bonaire
Before launch, we brought Dyver to 25 divers in Bonaire and asked them to use it like they normally would. They created profiles, uploaded dives, and interacted with each other. After a few days of real use, I ran a usability workshop. Divers walked through the app page by page, writing what they liked and didn't on sticky notes, and we affinity mapped the notes to find patterns and decide what had to change before the App Store launch.
The biggest pattern was that the app felt cramped. Our 10px grid made screens dense, especially on larger phones, and some buttons were hard to tap. Moving to a 12px grid gave everything more room and made the app easier to read and use.
Leveling up the profile
The MVP profile linked out to a diver's log. In spring 2024, a year after Bonaire, we wanted to bring dives and photos onto the profile itself. Both of my teammates had worked at Strava, so a Strava-style feed was the natural first idea. We didn't want to assume that was the best fit for divers, so we tested it against other options.
I designed four logbook concepts and set up scripted usability tests with a prototype of each. Testing happened on a later dive trip to Roatán, Honduras. I couldn't make that one, so I wrote the plan and script, and a volunteer PM ran the sessions with divers.
Timeline
A Strava-style chronological feed. It was easy to understand, but it felt dated and less engaging than the others.
Dive Trips was the favorite, but it was also the hardest to build on our timeline. Divers liked the grid too, and found it easy to navigate. We shipped the grid and kept Dive Trips as the next step.
Where it was heading
Dyver kept growing through 2024, adding freediving, expanded search, and dive verification, and the team paused development at the start of 2025. The app is still available, and this is where we planned to take the profile next, growing it from a log into a place to explore dives.
- →Build out the hotspots mapping experience, the biggest long term opportunity
- →Expand mapping and dive site exploration, so divers could get current info from the community on conditions, what's been spotted, and how busy a site is
- →Keep developing the Dive Trips concept
- →Add snorkeling, building on the freediving support from late 2024
Reflection
- 01Coming in as an outsiderI wasn't a diver, but my background in endurance sports helped me relate, and research filled in the gaps.
- 02Testing in contextThe grid problem only showed up when divers used the app on an actual dive trip. We probably wouldn't have caught it at a desk.
- 03Shipping the simpler optionThe favorite idea isn't always the right one to build next. Shipping the grid kept us moving, and Dive Trips stayed on the roadmap.
- 04Writing a test someone else can runI couldn't make the Roatán trip, so a volunteer PM ran the sessions from my plan and script. Making them clear enough to work without me in the room taught me to design the test as carefully as the screens.
