Championed a new, iterative product design process within a traditionally campaign-driven organization — winning back trust, driving clarity, and forging confidence in digital product development.
Completed from 2023 through 2025 while Director, Experience Design at VML.
All image, audio, and video content is owned by Potty with Pull-Ups, VML, or Disney and was made in collaboration with those teams.
All data as of October 2025, 6 months after launch
The digital landscape for parenting resources has evolved significantly. As brands create digital presences outside of commerce channels, influencers take to social media with endless “resources” to monetize overwhelmed parents. In the midst of this, the traditional brands that have always supported parenting are facing headwinds from challenger brands and influencers that call the status quo into question.
Kimberly-Clark’s Pull-Ups brand came to VML with an initial idea: a potty training app inspired by Candy Land, where children could unlock new steps on a journey each time they tried to use the potty. While the concept captured the spirit of play and reward, the team quickly realized it needed to meet a much younger audience. And of equal importance, it needed to engage the parents that guide their children.
Two years later, VML, Pull-Ups, and Disney celebrated the national launch of the a groundbreaking app: Potty with Pull-Ups feat. Disney Jr. What follows is an exploration of our process, challenges, solutions, and the measurable impact our work has had on both the brand and the families it serves. I am incredibly proud of what we created. Potty with Pull-Ups stands as a testament to how thoughtful user experience design can transform a stressful developmental milestone into an engaging, supportive journey for both parents and children.
All image, audio, and video content is owned by Potty with Pull-Ups, VML, or Disney and was made in collaboration with those teams.
A music themed tracking and rewards app designed to empower and motivate the potty-training journey.
Initial Discovery
Facing recent declines in both the Training Pant category and Pull-Ups market share, the brand has contended with a growing chorus of online potty training “experts.” Many of these experts openly dismiss Pull-Ups, arguing the category is superfluous. Amidst this challenging environment, Pull-Ups had been internally developing a new game, intended as a follow-up to a 2013 app that had previously underperformed. Recognizing the need for external expertise, they engaged VML to bring their concept to fruition.
The vision for an app that engages children in the potty training process and leverages Kimberly-Clark's longstanding relationship with Disney resonated quickly with myself and the team. We recognized the opportunity to build something meaningful and began to dig deeper into real potty training stories. Would we be able to engage kids in a way that impacted their success in potty training? Likely so, but we almost instantly recognized a second player in the game: we needed to support the parents of these kids.
During discovery, I led design exploration alongside our strategy, copy, and technology teams. This work quickly uncovered a core issue: parents outsource much of their own learning to social media. And while there is power in real life stories and advice from other parents, it was largely the blind leading the blind. One method we noticed becoming fairly popular was the "Oh, Crap" method. While this is a case study and not a commentary on parenting, it is a method and book that recommends potty training could take only a weekend and requires no training pants. This turned out to be the primary voice that accused Pull-Ups, the creator of the Training Pant, of not just creating a product she didn't want to use, but blamed them for creating something openly harmful to children.
Identifying the right pillars
To make sure Pull-Ups was successful, we identified a few key pillars and explore the analagous and competitive landscapes for each.
Expertise | Trust | BEHAVIOR CHANGE | COMMUNITY | PERSONALIZATION
By looking at the best-in-class for each pillar, such as Noom for behavioral change, we could align as a team in the ways Pull-Ups and Kimberly Clark need to adapt to arriving as best in call digital themselves.
Concepting against the pillars
Each of these pillars would help combat the online accusations and self-declared expertise. We used the pillars to ground ourselves and create an opportunity for Pull-Ups to regain the trust parents used to have in the brand. We approached this by not just engaging kids, but supporting parents, even parents who want to use the Oh Crap method. Early research revealed a critical gap: while gamified experiences for kids can encourage progress, parents were equally in need of support, structure, and confidence.
I then led my team in designing high-level initial concepts that could fit within each of these pillars. We brought these to Chicago for a full team review, workshop, and dot vote. We printed our window-size versions of early concepts within what-if statements that tied back to key moments of our user journey and our key pillars These statements shaped the early conversation of how we get to an MVP.
FOR PARENTS
Deliver credible, easy-to-follow guidance tailored to each child’s readiness.
FOR KIDS
Make potty training fun and rewarding through Disney-driven play.
With this dual goal approach, we created refined concepts, user journeys, and force ranked the key ways this app needed to show up.
To validate our direction, we developed and tested early experience concepts stripped of Pull-Ups and Disney branding. The results were clear: success depended on a single integrated experience designed for both parent and child.
Once our concepts were tested, the team immediately began to work to bring them together not only in an app but architecture, data, and high level flows. As Director of Experience Design on the project I led the broader design strategy, planning, and team of an additional UX designer, UI designer, and copywriter.
FOR PARENTS
Deliver credible, easy-to-follow guidance tailored to each child’s readiness.
The parent side of the app required development of a learning structure and a suite of tracking, education, and support tools to bring it to life.
Intentionally blurred to protect backend while showcasing the process.
Supporting parents
Our list of potential features for parents included far more than an MVP would support. Fortunately, the research conducted in discovery did more than confirm that many of our ideas resonated with parents, we also had them rank their importance. Our team just needed to decide where to draw the line for our first launch.
Through another workshop, we prioritized and arrived at high-level sizing for each feature. We decided that the main features need to truly support parents and garner enough interest to keep them engaged to prevent this feeling like another nagging betterment app. We also discovered our need for some type of pedagogy that could effectively guide parents and utilize the expertise Pull-Ups was working to rebuild.
With key features identified, we organized around work stream flows and architecture that kept parental separations, preventing kids from accessing the rest of the app. This allowed parents to clearly navigate between their immediate potty training needs, settings, and long-term education.
We also faced the challenge of creating a language that felt like Pull-Ups but allowed for the introduction and inclusion of Disney assets. A robust design library was created to support these needs, documenting rules around how characters sit within space. We focused on including the playful aspects of the Pull-Ups brand while keeping clear distinctions between what is for parents and what is for kids.
Psychology of Teaching
Not only does this app give a framework for parents to teach kids, we also have to subtly teach parents how to teach. We'll dig into the psychology behind the child's section below, but kids need consistency and rewards from their parents. Our key product focused on breaking the potty training skills into eight specific milestones that build off of the skills of the previous one. For example, at first we expect the child to just try and sit on the potty with the parents’ direction, whether they actually went or not, while later we would expect the child to initiate the need to go sit on the potty to go. These milestones, built alongside Kimberly-Clark’s team of medical experts, matched expectations for preschool and daycare to show progress and help parents get school-ready with their kids, an issue our research found to be a high stress point for parents.
To support building on milestones, we designed an education tab that explains each milestone and skill. There, parents can read articles from Pull-Ups.com that coach parents on teaching the skill. The education section also encourages parents that setbacks are normal and that each milestone takes time. It's in this section that parents can also track their progress against active milestones.
We also built a customizable notification system. This would use a schedule built by parents for when they are home and potty training. It would mark the active milestones to either remind the parent to take the child and use the potty every few hours or to track potty events if there hadn’t been any recent activity.
The last key aspect is the potty tracker which is meant to support instant rewards and feedback for both parent and kid. For parents, the feedback will let them know how this event effects the child’s progress.
Prep & Preparedness
Once parents download the app, they are tasked to create their child’s profile, allowing for multiple kids at once. Each kid will pick their band leader, either Mickey or Minnie. Parents can also set up their reminders or skip them entirely. Once done, they are taken to that kid’s dashboard, where they complete the readiness quiz.
This quiz, created by Pull-Ups years ago is a high-traffic area on their existing site. By bringing this element into the app, we reiterate Pull-Ups expertise and lead with support, making sure parents and kids are ready to start potty training. This also helps them to slow down if the child does not seem to be physically or mentally ready to develop this skill.
Tracking & Education
Once the parent and child are ready, potty training begins. Parents are encouraged to track every potty event from dirty diapers to sitting on the potty, washing hands, and more. If it's practicing or struggling at potty training, it's trackable.
A simple set of questions about what happened, how they tackled hygiene, and who initiated the event. The goal was to get as much possible and keep the questionnaire short. Our goal was that it was Pull-Ups responsibility to make sense of a small amount of information. This was easily the largest development lift and constant adjustment between design, development, and stakeholders.
After each event, we tell the parent the result. If the event was considered 'negative' given the overall progress, we would inform the parent that things didn't go well, support them to keep trying, but remove the opportunity for reward for the child. If the child attempted or had a positive potty event, we would explain what went well, how it tracks toward their milestones, and offer a video celebration from their band leader. Parents can also grant time in the Big Kid Center (which we will talk about later) for the child to play, setting a timer.
Sometimes a potty event means a new milestone can start or even the child can complete an existing one. Here we celebrate with the parents, explaining the milestone and given them a chance to review and agree. If the milestone is completed, a specific video reward introduces the character or instrument the child unlocked.
Lastly, sometimes potty training is a struggle. It's best for the mental health of the parents and kids to take a break. Using overall progress and tracking results, we can let the parent know when we think it's time to pause. If the parent agrees, the app goes dormant for two weeks, sending a reminder then to pick back up. At anytime before then the parent can restart their training.
Throughout the potty training journey, the parent's education tab changes with them. Letting them see open milestones and overall tracking data against each one. Here we allow parents to see exactly what tracking threshold unlocks new milestones and ultimately give parents control. In this section they can manually move on from or start milestones. This supports moments where parents take to the app in the middle of their training and need to catch up, or where they feel the child has met expectations based on their own needs.
It's in this section, we also help parents tie each milestone to a band member. Being able to guide kids expectations of when they may meet their favorite band member.
Tie to the product
Possibly the most challenging aspect of the app was the main question, "how will this sell more Pull-Ups?" To be clear, Pull-Ups and Kimberly-Clark wanted to lead with support, making sure it is possible to use this app to potty train either without a training pant or even with a competitor.
However, at the end of the day, product sales fund this app and we wanted people to use Pull-Ups. While we had great ideas for the future to make Pull-Ups the clear winner for users, the MVP solution was far harder. As more Disney IP is used, we can leverage AR to bring characters to life off the product itself. We could make certain IP require a scan from a box, especially with store exclusives such as Spidey and Friends training pants sold only at Costco. We also looked at how character customization, such as putting Mickey into his pirate attire for the potty training journey, could be unlocked with a purchase. The Pull-Ups team is continuing to look into these.
What we planned to launch was the core aspects of the site, and if we had paywalled anything, it would have negatively impacted the client’s stated goal of wanting to genuinely support all parents in their potty training journey, regardless of their purchase behavior. We also had to fully explore compliance within the App Store. Apple puts high hurdles to how an in-store purchase unlocks content, usually requiring that users can also just pay for the content directly through the app. This would require a change in how the app was monetized and would mean adjustments including building a checkout flow.
Our solution for MVP, which was cut last minute for a fast follow, was a coupon section. Users who complete certain actions in the app can unlock coupons for Pull-Ups, encouraging the belief that Pull-Ups is the right training pant for their kid’s training.
While the app is still too young to understand the ins and outs of its performance, it is worth noting that the cost of acquisition per user is half of what the marketing team had targeted. This suggests the inherent value and effectiveness of the app such that parents are sharing with each other organically and is showing an early increase in sales of Pull-Ups.
FOR Kids
Make potty training fun and rewarding through Disney-driven play.
The Big Kid Center created moments for kids to play alongside their favorite characters as direct rewards for positive potty progress.
Safely Engaging Kids
This app was a slew of firsts for me. While I had built education platforms and integrated coupons, there are minimally two things I had not yet done. First, design a game-like app. And second, build something targeted for kids.
To make sure the app was effective and safe, we first needed to isolate the Big Kid Center. When kids are in the app, we need to use the device’s native security to reduce the ability to leave the app. We also needed to be able to prevent kids from exploring the rest of the app. To accomplish this, we created a timer and lock that would begin each time the Big Kid Center is launched.
This simultaneously accomplished another goal: ease parents’ concern over the high use of screen time as a reward. If the child tries to leave the Big Kid Center or when the timer ends, the user needs to complete a simple math problem or enter the password on the account, presumably stopping the kid from moving forward. After authenticating as the parent, they can grant more time in the Big Kid Center or tell them that the time is up.
We also worked to be sure all hit states on the Big Kid Center were no smaller than a 72 pixel square to meet the dexterity of younger children. We also transform the app to landscape mode when in the Big Kid Center, it also was the only part of the app to be optimized for tablet at MVP launch.
MUSIC MAKERS
As the Big Kid Center came to life, the biggest question was which of the Disney IP to leverage and what interaction or story the child engages in. Pull-Ups sports one of the largest branding deals with Disney, giving us access to Toy Story, Frozen, Cars, Encanto, and of course, Mickey and Minnie. Our team took to various stories to drive an interactive sticker chart, unlocking fun with each new skill a kid learns. Mickey's Fun House was a key inspiration, allowing kids to explore new rooms of each character. We explored how other IP could be leveraged, bringing new worlds to life. The team also explored the various versions of Mickey, having Mickey take kids on adventures to pirate, safari, wizard, and space worlds.
The team leveraged generative AI to create stills of various worlds that, while not perfect art-style to their movies, with interfaces animated above and a AI-pitched voice over, we recorded various videos of how a kid may interact.
In yet another workshop reviewing ideas with Disney and Pull-Ups leaders, we landed on mimicking a certain pant which portrayed Mickey and Minnie playing instruments. As a training tool, when the child wets their pant, the instrument Mickey or Minnie are playing disappear. We spun this positive by creating a band for Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, Chip & Dale, and Pluto.
Partnering with Vault, VMLs animation studio, I directed the full list of animation needs for the app, from onboarding, to rewards, and even a final music video with a song cowritten with Disney. Our team supported our copywriter on a number of scripts to send to Disney for recording. By launch we had over 50 animation sequences for the app.
Creating Child engagement
While Mickey tuned his guitar and Chip & Dale prepped their sampler, we dove into the key ways each instrument would come to life within the app and began to define the supporting rewards as well as games within the app.
In our MVP planning, we identified digital coloring pages, character dress up, and education videos as additional ways for kids to engage with characters and build that connection and motivation to earn more by potty training. However, those features fell off our MVP. Working with Disney on how these characters comes to life was an invaluable point in my career. They were incredibly strategic, collaborative, and helpful. However, what we didn’t account for in our early scoping was the amount of effort it would take to create our characters. Because of their rigorous brand guidelines, our animation, script, and interface changes took far more time and iterations to get right. Characters were required to live within the interface in certain ways, transitions between what is in-app and what is Mickey's world had to be clear. The world of Pull-Ups and the world of Mickey's Big Kid Center had to be unique.
Creating a Band
Knowing that Mickey, like the Pull-Up art, would have a guitar and Minnie a piano, we worked to define what instruments would best come to life for small children. With a target audience of 2-year-olds, the touch targets for each instrument had to be large and the interaction intuitive. We also wanted to be sure the music kids played was similar in sound and style to a final song.
Working with Disney, we pulled together the high-level story where Mickey or Minnie are your band leaders. They welcome you to their stage where everyone is practicing for a concert coming up. This reiterates shared idea of practice between the kid and the characters without the characters being directly involved in potty training, an understandably strict line for Disney.
At the start of each milestone, Mickey will introduce you to a character's instrument, such as Goofy's drums. He invites you to play and practice the drums while Goofy is practicing his solo for the big show. Once the milestone is completed Mickey tells the child that Goofy has learned his solo, now the character appears and dances while the instrument is played and can play a short snippet of the final song. Once all of the band members are there, the final milestone completion unlocks a full music video with all the characters to play a custom song from Disney.
Psychology of Rewarding
That driving psychology behind the app is one of reward and motivation. As we explored with parents, the goal was immediate tracking and rewards. For each of the possible outcomes, kids get opportunities for rewards.
If the potty event was negative, meaning they had an accident or at later stages had to be asked to go potty, we would not show a reward. However, for most events of attempts or successful potty going, one of 7 randomized Mickey or Minnie greetings would appear for the child and, if a parent has allowed, would grant time to play with the available instruments in the Big Kid Center.
Then, if a milestone was started or completed, the message would invite kids to meet a new friend or to play their instrument.
This allows the reward to both be immediate and proportional. Parents can grant variable amounts of time (or no time) to help reinforce the potty behavior, but a greeting from a character is more readily available and celebrated.
Potty with Pull-Ups sits as one of the proudest accomplishments of my career thus far. In my role as Director of Experience Design, walked this concept from idea to launch alongside an incredible team of designers, strategist, marketers, developers, technologist, and animators from VML, Vault, Disney, and Kimberly-Clark.
Led discovery workshops and design strategy that redefined the app to serve both parents and children.
Partnered closely with strategists and technologists to validate feasibility and market trends.
Guided the MVP design process across UX, UI, and content.
Facilitated co-creation with Disney and Kimberly-Clark to align creative, brand, and legal requirements.
Championed a new, iterative product design process within a traditionally campaign-driven organization — building trust, clarity, and confidence in digital product development.
BETA LAUNCH
In late 2024, Potty with Pull-Ups entered beta testing.
500+ parents participated
Majority reported reduced stress during potty training.
80% of parents agreed that this app would help motivate their child to potty train.
NATIONAL LAUNCH
April 2025 brought the official launch of Potty with Pull-Ups.
Data as of October 2025. Completion rate considered 55% of key features completed.
Both Pull-Ups and Disney have continued to support the app, working with partners to create new experiences and richer education for parents.
100,000
downloads exceeding first year goal
4.2
star app rating
21%
uninstall rate
83%
activation rate
76%
completion rate