Redesigning Onboarding and Core Features for a Life Planning Web App

Lifeplanner is a web application designed to help users manage the administrative and planning side of life — storing important documents, managing shared information with family or advisors, tracking personal finances, and preparing for future events including estate planning. It sits between a personal organiser and a private document vault.

We were brought in to redesign the onboarding experience, add several missing features, and build a design system the development team could work from consistently.

Client
LifePlanner
Industry
Management
B2C
Product type
Web app
MVP
Role
Lead designer
Redesigning Onboarding and Core Features for a Life Planning Web App

Working alongside an in-house team

This engagement was collaborative throughout — we worked directly with the in-house development team and founders across the full design process. Several new features required significant technical input to design correctly, particularly the file sharing logic and the legal document flow, which meant design decisions stayed grounded in what the team could actually build. It also meant the design system we delivered was one the team had already shaped — not something handed over and then interpreted.

The onboarding problem

The existing onboarding flow was losing users before they understood what they were signing up for. It was too long, asked for too much too early, and didn’t communicate the product’s value clearly enough to justify the effort being asked of a new user.

We redesigned the onboarding flow with payment integrated directly into the sequence — rather than as a separate post-signup step. This reduced the total stages a user had to navigate and removed the jarring transition between “exploring the product” and “now pay for it.” The redesign significantly reduced time-to-completion for new users and improved sign-up conversion.

New features

File storage and event-triggered sharing

Users needed to store sensitive documents — insurance policies, property records, medical records, identification — and share access with specific people at specific times. A standard “share this file” feature wasn’t sufficient.

We designed a file storage and sharing system with event-triggered or date-triggered access:

  • Files become accessible to specified people when a particular event occurs (hospitalisation, death, incapacity) or on a specific date
  • The user specifies who can access, what they can access, and under what conditions
  • Access can be revoked or modified at any time while the user is active

The design challenge: making a conceptually complex system (conditional access with time and event logic) feel straightforward enough that non-technical users would trust it and set it up correctly.

Legal document overview

Estate planning and end-of-life document management is genuinely complicated — wills, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, beneficiary designations — and the relationships between documents matter as much as the documents themselves.

We designed a legal document overview feature that works in conjunction with the user’s legal advisor. The flow guides users through a custom setup process based on their personal circumstances and produces a structured overview of their estate documents and what each covers.

The goal wasn’t to replace legal advice — it was to give users a complete, organised picture of their legal situation in one place so they could work more effectively with advisors.

Personalised security tips

We designed a security tips feature that analyses the user’s stored data and generates personalised recommendations — not generic advice, but specific guidance relevant to what the user has stored and how they’ve configured their account. Tips surface based on actual gaps in configuration: missing two-factor authentication, shared access not recently reviewed, documents without designated emergency access.

The design system

The development team was implementing designs inconsistently — not from carelessness, but from the absence of a shared reference. We built a complete design system covering component definitions, spacing and layout rules, typography, colour usage, and interaction patterns — delivered as a Figma library the team actively used. Subsequent features were faster to implement and more consistent because developers had a single clear reference rather than having to interpret designs case by case.

Reviews

Deep in the trenches with our partners.

★★★★★

I had the pleasure of working with Gytis for a long time, and he has consistently been one of the most thoughtful and dependable product designers I’ve worked with.

Gytis thinks deeply about the product, the user, and the business context behind every design decision. He is very strong at turning ambiguous ideas into clear, polished, usable experiences, and he brings a high level of taste and discipline to the work.

Gytis is someone I could trust with important product problems. He communicates clearly, takes feedback well, and has a calm, mature way of moving projects forward even when the direction is still evolving. That combination of creativity, judgment, and ownership made him a real partner to the product team!

Mike Chen

CEO

·

Cohere Commerce

★★★★★

"I came to Gytis looking for web designer. What I quickly realized is that Gytis's approach to design is to thoroughly immerse himself in the study of a client's company and then construct an information architecture which accurately and directly accomplishes the most important goals for the business. I have worked with all kinds of designers and creatives in the past, and Gytis stands head and shoulders above them all.”

Clay Spence

CEO

·

Nimbus Health

★★★★★

"Gytis consistently demonstrated strong design skills, professionalism, and a great ability to collaborate smoothly with both the team and customer. His work left a very positive impression on our customers, and communication throughout the projects was always easy and constructive. I’d recommend him as a reliable and experienced designer."

Renata Šulekauskė

General Manager

·

Miles Lithuania

★★★★★

"Gytis Mark has highly talented and motivated product designers. We worked together for a year with them collaborating on multiple projects during this time. Gytis Mark consistently built visually stunning designs while also paying attention to the user experience. Their attention to detail and intuitive designs resonated positively with our clients. They were open to feedback and incorporated them into his designs rapidly, which helped us to refine our product experience."

Kensen John

Engineering Lead

·

Tailwind App

★★★★★

"It was an absolute pleasure working with the Gytis Mark on our web and mobile application analysis and design. The team displayed great talents in the user experience field while they worked with us. It's not just their technical skills that impress me, however. It is also their amazingly positive attitude that made it a joy to work together. I recommend working with the Gytis Mark without any doubt."

Diego Dal Cero

CEO

·

Evenfi

★★★★★

"We cannot recommend Gytis Mark more highly. Their designs for our LPGA Tournament turned out better than we could have asked for and our client said it's the best-looking site on the Professional Tour. Their attention to detail, ability to hit deadlines and wonderful communication made them a pleasure to work with. We would be lucky to work with them again!"

Heather Lynch

Project Manager

·

DyrectLync

★★★★★

"The earliest stage of company building is absolutely foundational to ensure long-term success -- despite technically being an external contractors, Gytis's team was deep in the trenches with us, driving impact, understanding complex issues, and creating elegant UX solutions. We are extremely grateful for their thoughtfulness, positive attitude, and care. We know they can drive organizational impact."

Eric Heimark

CEO

·

Fast-Growing Stealth Startup

★★★★★

"Gytis Mark joined the project at a very early stage with no previous knowledge of the industry. They were able to grasp complex ideas quickly and provide valuable product development ideas from the get go. They had a clear and transparent process and kept us well informed. He took full ownership of the project taking in from idea to product from 0 - 1.”

Lorenzo Foglianti

CTO

·

Private equity startup

★★★★★

“Gytis Mark worked with my startup, Lifeplanner, for over a year focusing on product design, UX design and communication. Their team is extremely professional in what they do. They researched our industry, building a true understanding of the business, its customers, competitors and stakeholders. They are also open-minded and likable - a true team players who know when to lean back and listen and when to challenge. We are very satisfied with our collaboration and with Gytis Mark team's deliveries.”

Kathleen Meling

CTO

·

Lifeplanner

★★★★★

"Working with Gytis on defense-sector projects at BPTI was a strong experience. He brought a level of design thinking and professionalism that isn't easy to find in a domain as specific and demanding as ours. He picked up the context quickly, asked the right questions, and delivered work that was both thoughtful and practical. I'd recommend him without hesitation."

Simonas Dapkus

Defense programme manager

·

BPTI

★★★★★

"We've worked with Gytis Mark across a number of projects and what stands out every time is the genuine care they bring to the work. They put real time and research into each brief, considering every angle before settling on a direction, and he never approaches a project on autopilot. They listen properly, get under the skin of what the client actually needs, and delivers great design that does the strategic job it's meant to. I'd recommend Gytis Mark without hesitation to anyone looking for a designers who treat their work like it's their own."

Roxy Crouch

Co-founder

·

Growthmode

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