In the wake of the pandemic inIn response to the educational disruptions of 2020, Presence recognized the urgent need for a remote therapy solution that extended beyond its own provider network. What began as "Therapy Essentials," a basic tele therapy tool for school districts, evolved into Kanga - a fully independent, award-winning SaaS platform designed to equip clinicians and administrators with a seamless, flexible online therapy experience.
Joining the team in early 2021, I played a key role in researching, envisioning, and designing Kanga, refining its user experience from early iterations into a robust, scalable solution that continues to support students and clinicians nationwide.
Before Kanga there was ‘Therapy Essentials’
Admin Dashboard & User Management
The initial offering for non Presence clinicians was a pared down experience, where a school district was able to enter an agreement with us so that their providers could continue therapy and assessments remotely via the secure therapy room. Simple enough to create a set of users, who could log in, and use the room.
For the administrators at these districts, they needed a way to be able to view and manage the licenses that they had purchased. This required the creation of a Admin Account and Dashboard where they could gain insights into usage.
The designs that I was responsible for this early iteration leaned heavily into that existing platforms styling and a set up. Interviews with District Admins and the Sales teams that became their liaisons, helped inform the direction we took for both their admin dashboard as well as a License management page where they could self serve and allocate purchased licenses to providers on their staff without needed to reach out to their liasons.
User Research & Product Evolution
Process
Following the release of Therapy Essentials (TE), I conducted an in-depth user research initiative, including:
Comparative analysis of direct competitors and video conferencing tools.
User interviews with clinical and admin TE users.
Discussions with Presence sales, support, and liaison staff to understand workflows.
Consultations with clinical subject matter experts (SMEs).
Alongside my Product Manager, we synthesized our findings and presented insights on the emerging need for a secure, HIPAA- and FERPA-compliant teletherapy platform.
Personas & Key Insights
Our research shaped three core personas—Fully Remote, Hybrid, and Returning—based on work environments and key pain points:
Therapy first: Providers are passionate about working with students but are burdened by administrative tasks.
Lack of time: Repetitive documentation and reporting across multiple tools slow them down.
Feeling unseen: Providers are often underappreciated, both in-person and remotely, and are frequently pulled into non-therapy tasks.
“While we cannot manufacture time, or power, or student progress,
We can produce tools that free up time and make it more efficient,
we can design those tools to be intuitive and easy to use so that clinicians feel empowered
And we can provide functionality and resources to that help foster progress for students.
”
Outcome
Our research was well received by both the product and commercial teams, highlighting a strong market need for:
Secure therapy delivery
Integrated caseload management, documentation, and scheduling
Scalable admin tools for managing licenses, referrals, and provider assignments
Leadership saw the opportunity to expand beyond the current business model, and in Spring 2022, we secured $300M in funding to evolve TE into Kanga. Partnering with a consultancy for additional resources, we accelerated development to launch Kanga for the Fall 2022 school year.
As the team scaled, I remained deeply involved, leading design across three of five product pods, shaping critical aspects of the platform against a tight deadline.
User Flows & Mapping
Establishing the site mapping and flows for Kanga for admin and clinical users.
I led the creation of a detailed site map and user flows to visualize Kanga’s potential structure and features. This process was informed by an audit of the existing platform and key insights from user research. By mapping out the different user journeys, we identified and prioritized focus areas, ensuring a seamless experience for both clinical and admin users. As the team expanded with additional PMs and developers, these foundational flows guided our deliverables and product development roadmap.
Sign-Up Flow & License Selection
As part of one of the core work streams, I designed the self-serve sign-up experience for Kanga, aiming to support both individual clinicians and organizations, including schools and districts. The goal was to create a seamless path for users to identify the best-suited plan based on their discipline and practice type.
Initially, the sign-up flow was designed to guide users toward selecting the right license tier. However, due to leadership and business decisions, the approach shifted to a simplified freemium model, allowing all users to sign up with minimal barriers. This enabled them to explore the platform before committing to a paid plan, with the option to upgrade to Premier or Elite by contacting customer support.
Landing Page
The launch of Kanga provided the product team with an opportunity to adopt and refine our use of Material Design, which has since become a foundational standard across both Kanga and the main Presence platform. This shift allowed for greater consistency and efficiency in designing new features and updates, including a reimagined site navigation with a side-panel layout and a standardized approach to page structure.
I led the design of the Kanga landing page, ensuring it functioned beyond just a homepage—serving as both a navigation hub and a notification center. This work later influenced the Presence platform’s user onboarding experience and evolved into a more dynamic dashboard, offering personalized insights tailored to different user types.
Scheduling & Calendar Design
One of the key insights from our user research was the central role a provider’s schedule plays in delivering quality therapy. While we couldn't control external users' caseload sizes, we could provide a streamlined scheduling tool connected to their caseload—reducing the need to switch between multiple platforms. From my user interviews, it became clear that providers prioritized the ability to:
Create and differentiate between event types (therapy, documentation/planning, meetings, etc.)
Schedule both 1:1 and group therapy sessions
Set up a flexible, modifiable schedule at the start of the school year
View schedules in multiple formats (Month/Week/Day/List)
Create and edit recurring events for a structured workflow
Easily distinguish between event types
Export their schedules to personal calendars for accessibility outside the platform
I designed a streamlined version of our existing calendar, removing ties to reporting and timesheets since they were out of scope for Kanga’s MVP. Incorporating Material Design, this project became an exploratory sandbox that later informed enhancements to the Presence platform’s calendar.
Additionally, I conducted studies on optimizing pop-ups and modals for improved functionality, including event details, expanded daily views, and an intuitive event creation/editing experience.
Event Documentation Flows
A key aspect of Kanga’s scheduling experience was ensuring that providers could efficiently document their sessions without disrupting their workflow. Our goal was to create a seamless documentation process that integrated directly with scheduled events, reducing administrative burden and minimizing the need to switch between tools.
Key considerations for the documentation flow included:
Direct Integration with Scheduled Events: Providers could document sessions directly from their calendar, streamlining the process.
Flexible Documentation Timing: Allowing providers to document immediately after a session or return later without losing track of pending entries.
Auto-Saving & Drafts: Ensuring work wasn’t lost if a provider needed to step away before completing documentation.
Pre-Filled Data Fields: Pulling relevant details from the scheduled event to reduce redundant data entry.
Compliance & Security: Ensuring documentation met HIPAA and FERPA standards while remaining easy to access and edit.
Through user research and iteration, I designed an intuitive documentation workflow that balanced structure and flexibility. This feature significantly reduced the time providers spent on administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on delivering quality therapy.
Providers could document sessions through three primary entry points:
Within the Therapy Room (during or after a session) – Purple
From the Schedule (once the session has started) – Green
Via the Student’s Record (within the caseload) – Blue
These pathways were mapped out with detailed mockups to ensure seamless navigation, clear connections between screens, and a cohesive user experience across all entry points.
Event Documentation in the Student Record
For in-room and schedule-based documentation, we could build upon existing patterns from the main platform. However, when it came to documenting sessions within the caseload, specifically in the student record, prior feedback from Presence providers highlighted significant usability challenges.
The original session log was structured as a table, which worked well for scanning dates and attendance but became cumbersome when viewing detailed notes, objectives, or documentation. The rigid format often broke when handling longer text, requiring in-cell headers to distinguish information.
After exploring multiple layout options, we adopted a chronological card-based design. This approach offered a clean, structured, and easily scannable view, where:
Session details were consistently displayed in the card header.
Notes and objectives could be clearly presented without disrupting the layout.
Editing and completion were streamlined by enabling users to click into a card for modifications.
This shift significantly improved readability, navigation, and overall workflow efficiency for providers managing their session documentation.
Caseload Management
Alongside scheduling and conducting therapy, providers needed a way to create and manage student records—not only to associate them with scheduled events but also to track documentation and notes from each therapy session.
Most providers already maintained a caseload list in spreadsheets (Excel or Google Sheets), making it a natural progression to support bulk imports into Kanga. I designed a workflow that allowed providers to:
Upload student lists in bulk, ideal for the start of a school year or new referrals.
Add students individually, accommodating real-time caseload updates.
Through iterative testing, we identified a key friction point: erroneous data uploads, which could lead to inaccuracies in caseload records. To address this, I implemented data validation, ensuring providers could:
Verify errors before finalizing uploads
Correct discrepancies within the import process
Confidently manage caseloads with clean, accurate data
This solution streamlined caseload setup, reducing administrative burden and improving overall usability.
User Management
With the rebranding of Therapy Essentials to Kanga and the introduction of new features, we had the opportunity to rework the User Management system for admin users. This included adopting the Material Design palette for consistency while also enhancing management controls for a more intuitive and efficient experience.
Kanga launched in Fall 2022, quickly gaining traction with strong adoption and sign-ups. Presence providers were given complimentary licenses, further fueling engagement. By Spring 2023, the product team behind Kanga was strategically reallocated to apply our expertise in modernizing the main Presence platform and tackling key friction points across the ecosystem. Despite this shift, Kanga’s external sales have consistently met or exceeded annual revenue goals, generating over $1M per year—a testament to its lasting impact and market demand.
Awards:
2022 New Product of the Year category award winner - Business Intelligence Groups BIG Awards for Business
2022 Best Accessibility Solution category award winner - Excellence in Equity Awards
2022 Platinum Award in the new product category - THE Journal | Technological Horizons in Education Awards
2023 Readers’ Choice Award winner - SmartBrief