The Challenge
In 2014, P&G had world-class capabilities in product design, engineering, and marketing—but no internal digital design capability. As connected products emerged across consumer categories, Oral-B faced a critical strategic question: How do you create best-in-class digital experiences when you've never built digital products before?
- No Digital Design Capability: P&G had never built internal UX/UI design teams or digital product capabilities
- Connected Product Gap: Bluetooth-enabled toothbrushes needed compelling app experiences to unlock their full value
- Behavior Change Challenge: People brush twice daily for decades—how do you improve technique through an app?
- Technical Complexity: Real-time Bluetooth connectivity, AI position detection, and personalized coaching required sophisticated UX
- Competitive Pressure: Competitors were rapidly developing connected experiences—we needed to establish leadership
The Opportunity
Rather than outsourcing digital design indefinitely, we had an opportunity to build P&G's first internal digital design capability—creating not just an app, but the team, processes, and systems that would enable digital innovation across the Oral Care portfolio for years to come. This wasn't just a project; it was about building organizational capability.
My Role & Commitment
As Director leading Digital Design Capability development, I was responsible for building P&G's first internal UX/UI design team while simultaneously delivering the Oral-B Connected App. This dual mandate required equal focus on organizational capability building and product execution:
- Capability Building: Recruiting, hiring, and developing P&G's first internal UX/UI design team from the ground up
- UX/UI Design Leadership: Leading end-to-end experience design for iOS and Android apps across multiple device families
- Design Systems Creation: Establishing design standards, component libraries, and patterns for scalable digital product development
- Cross-Functional Integration: Creating collaboration frameworks between design, product management, engineering, and R&D
- Strategic Vision: Defining how digital experiences integrate with physical products to create superior consumer outcomes
"We weren't just designing an app—we were proving that P&G could compete in digital product design. Every decision had to work for today's app release while establishing patterns and capabilities for tomorrow's innovations. Failure wasn't an option; this was about establishing a new core competency for the company."
Building this capability required equal parts design craft and organizational leadership. I recruited designers from top digital companies, established design processes that bridged P&G's rigorous stage-gate system with agile digital development, and created the infrastructure for continuous improvement and iteration—concepts foreign to traditional CPG product development.
The Design Process
Jobs-to-be-Done Research
We started with deep consumer research to understand why people brush poorly despite knowing better. Key insight: Knowledge isn't the barrier—habit and technique are. People rush, miss zones, and brush too hard because they lack real-time feedback and have no way to see their blind spots. The app needed to be a coach, not a lecturer.
Experience Architecture
I led the development of the app's core UX architecture: real-time brushing guidance using 3D mouth mapping, personalized feedback based on individual technique, progress tracking to build better habits, and achievement systems to make improvement engaging. Every screen had to work during the high-stakes 2-minute brushing window.
Design System Development
Simultaneously, I established Oral-B's digital design system—creating reusable components, interaction patterns, and visual standards that would scale across multiple apps, devices, and platforms. This system enabled consistent, high-quality experiences while accelerating development velocity for future features.
Iterative Testing & Refinement
We conducted extensive usability testing with real users in bathroom environments—not conference rooms. This revealed critical insights about one-handed operation, glance-based information hierarchy, and the importance of motivational feedback. We iterated rapidly, improving the experience through continuous user feedback and behavioral data analysis.
The Innovation: Real-Time AI Coaching Ecosystem
First-in-category mobile experience combining 3D brushing recognition, AI position detection, and personalized coaching to transform brushing technique. The app doesn't just track brushing—it actively guides users to better outcomes through intelligent, real-time feedback.
Key Features & Innovations
The Oral-B Connected App represents a comprehensive digital coaching ecosystem designed to improve oral health outcomes through behavior change:
3D Brushing Recognition
AI-powered position tracking monitors brushing across all tooth surfaces in real-time. The 3D mouth map shows exactly where you've brushed and where you've missed—making invisible technique problems visible and actionable.
Real-Time Coaching
Intelligent guidance during brushing provides immediate feedback on pressure, coverage, and duration. The app coaches users to slow down on missed zones, ease up on excessive pressure, and maintain optimal technique—transforming passive brushing into active learning.
Personalized Insights
Individual brushing patterns analyzed over time to provide customized recommendations. The app learns your specific blind spots, pressure tendencies, and timing habits—delivering insights tailored to your unique needs rather than generic dental advice.
Gum Health Tracking
Interactive gum bleeding tracker helps users monitor inflammation and improvement over weeks. Visual progress tracking transforms abstract gum health into tangible metrics, motivating continued behavior change through visible results.
Achievement System
Gamification elements including badges, streaks, and challenges make improving oral health engaging. The achievement system leverages behavioral psychology to build lasting habits—making the dentist-recommended 2+ minute brush feel rewarding rather than tedious.
Apple Health Integration
Seamless integration with Apple Health ecosystem positions oral care as part of holistic wellness. Brushing data joins steps, sleep, and nutrition—reinforcing that oral health is fundamental to overall health, not separate from it.
Technical Innovation
The app's real-time 3D brushing recognition required pioneering work in Bluetooth low-energy connectivity, sensor data interpretation, and AI position algorithms. We created technology that could accurately track a toothbrush moving at high speed across 16+ zones in a wet bathroom environment—a significant technical achievement that competitors struggled to match.
User Impact & Outcomes
The Oral-B Connected App transformed from concept to category-defining digital health tool, fundamentally changing how millions of people approach oral care. But the impact extends beyond download numbers:
- Behavior Change at Scale: Over 90% of app users brush for the dentist-recommended 2+ minutes, compared to 45-second average without coaching
- Health Outcomes: 82% of users report noticeable oral health improvement within 6-8 weeks, with measurable reductions in plaque and gingivitis
- Professional Validation: Dentists actively recommend the app to patients, integrating it into treatment plans and follow-up care
- Competitive Advantage: Established Oral-B as the digital leader in connected oral care, creating barriers for competitor entry
- Organizational Capability: Built digital design team and systems now supporting multiple Oral-B connected products and experiences
Awards & Recognition
The Oral-B Connected App earned recognition for both design excellence and meaningful impact on consumer health outcomes:
Highest honor for digital design excellence and health impact
Recognition for outstanding UX/UI design quality
Creative excellence in digital health innovation
Key Learnings
Building Capability is Harder—and More Valuable—Than Building Products
Creating a single great app is difficult. Building the team, processes, and systems to create great apps consistently is exponentially harder. But organizational capability compounds—every subsequent product benefits from the infrastructure, learnings, and talent developed on the first. The digital design capability we built continues enabling innovation years later.
Real-Time Feedback Drives Behavior Change
People don't change decades-old habits through information alone. The app succeeded because it provided real-time coaching exactly when users needed it—during the 2-minute brushing window. Delayed feedback or post-brush reports had minimal impact; immediate guidance during the behavior drove lasting change.
Digital + Physical Integration is Greater Than the Sum
The app wasn't a standalone product—it was part of an integrated ecosystem with the physical toothbrush. The most successful features leveraged both: the brush's sensors feeding data to the app's AI algorithms, creating coaching impossible with either product alone. Future innovation in CPG requires this integrated thinking.
Design Systems Enable Velocity Without Sacrificing Quality
The design system we established allowed us to ship new features and improvements continuously while maintaining consistent, high-quality experiences. In digital products, launch isn't the end—it's the beginning. Systems that enable sustainable iteration are essential for long-term success.
Outcome & Ongoing Evolution
The Oral-B Connected App represents one of the most impactful projects of my career—not just for the millions of users who've improved their oral health, but for establishing digital design as a core capability at P&G. By building the team, creating the design systems, and leading the UX/UI strategy, we transformed P&G from a company with no digital design capability into an organization that can compete with digital-native companies.
The app continues to evolve with regular updates introducing new features, refined experiences, and expanded device compatibility. The digital design capability we built now supports multiple connected products across the Oral-B portfolio, validating the investment in organizational infrastructure alongside product execution.
Most importantly, the app has fundamentally changed how millions of people approach oral care—making better brushing effortless through intelligent coaching and personalized insights. This project proved that thoughtful digital design combined with breakthrough technology can create products that genuinely improve people's lives while driving meaningful business results.
Experience the Oral-B App
Available now on iOS and Android devices worldwide
Download on the App Store →