Context

Align Technology (parent company of Invisalign and iTero) wanted to replace a 7–8-year-old doctor portal with a modern, scalable hub.

The legacy “IDS” portal had grown organically: multiple logins, separate iTero portal, scattered education microsites, and a loyalty program that doctors mostly thought of as “a discount scheme.” It supported 16 languages and 2M+ weekly visits, but the experience was generic, hard to scale, and difficult for clinicians to navigate in the middle of a packed clinic day.

My Role

1. Led global discovery and research (AAO, Chicago Midwinter, internal deep dives).

2. Synthesized findings into personas, journeys, and experience maps across orthos, GPs, staff, and DSO leadership.

3. Designed the new information architecture and navigation for the combined Invisalign + iTero ecosystem.

4. Created wireframes for the dashboard, patient lists, patient file, prescription and ordering flows, collaboration, and Advantage (loyalty).

5. Partnered with Align’s internal teams across Americas, EMEA, and APAC to ensure the design could support complex regional and regulatory needs.

Image: Persona sheet (e.g., Dr. Anthony / Dr. Scott / Dr. Joe) arranged as a grid to show different user types.

The Challenge

1. Fragmented portals, fragmented workflows
Doctors bounced between IDS, MyiTero, billing tools, and education microsites just to get through a single patient’s treatment. None of it felt like “one product.”

2. Generic, task-heavy UI
The site was built around forms and tasks, not people and workflows. Doctors described extra hours of “Invisalign homework” after clinic, just to keep up.

3. No real personalization
Orthos, GPs, staff, and DSOs all saw basically the same experience, even though their needs and mental models were completely different.

4. Global complexity with no cohesive structure
16 languages, 100+ countries, regional programs and regulations—everything had been layered on top of the original portal instead of truly integrated.

Image: Before/after IA sketch or a simplified “old vs new” navigation comparison (can be recreated from the IDS + iTero current vs proposed sitemaps).

Approach

1. Discovery & Research

• Ran regional deep-dive sessions with teams in Americas, EMEA, APAC, DSO, Education, Loyalty, and iTero to understand business goals, constraints, and future roadmap.

• Conducted 35+ in-depth interviews at Chicago Midwinter and AAO with orthodontists, GPs, and staff to map real-world workflows, pain points, and workarounds.

• Analyzed on-site surveys and form feedback to quantify what users actually did most: checking ClinChecks, viewing payments, accessing education, and tracking Advantage points.

• Facilitated future-casting workshops around AI-assisted treatment planning, remote monitoring, AR/VR before-and-after, and collaboration—so the new hub would be relevant through 2025 and beyond.

Image: Collage of sticky-note walls or a slide from the Future-Casting Brainstorm deck (treatment planning / AR / remote monitoring).

2. Information Architecture & Navigation

• Audited existing sitemaps from IDS, iTero, and marketing/education microsites, then unified them into a single Align Customer Hub IA.

• Created a product-agnostic top-level structure:

  • Dashboard

  • Patients / Cases

  • iTero

  • Orders & Invoices

  • Academy (Education)

  • Marketing / Practice Growth

  • Collaboration (Forums, OrthoBuddy, Treatment Planning Services)

  • Advantage (Loyalty)

  • Account / Admin

  • Help & Support

• Introduced a global navigation bar with:

  • App picker (switch between Invisalign and iTero)

  • Universal search

  • Messages & notifications

  • Account and Advantage as persistent, first-class items.

• Designed IA variants to support multi-location, multi-doctor DSOs, while keeping the mental model simple for single-doctor practices.

Image: Clean, annotated sitemap for the new Align Customer Hub (from AT18001 Sitemap R5), cropped to show the main sections.

3. Wireframing & Interaction Design

Dashboard

• Designed a new dashboard centered on “today’s work,” not just navigation:

  • Recent patients and ClinChecks ready

  • Available iTero scans

  • Messages & notifications

  • Advantage and business overview widgets

  • Recommended courses and events

  • Tasks to replace paper-based sticky-note workflows.

Image: Dashboard wireframe with callouts for key modules (Patients, Communications, Business Overview, Recommended for You, Tasks).

Patients & Cases

• Developed a flexible patient list pattern with powerful filtering, card/list toggle, inline actions, and embedded promotions.

• Redesigned the patient file to bring together:

  • Patient details, images, and status

  • “Action required” steps

  • Progress visuals (treatment, shipments, billing)

  • Contextual education and Advantage content.

Image: Patient list in card view and the patient file detail page, side by side.

Prescription & Ordering

• Reduced a 20+ page prescription flow into ~5 accordion-based steps, with a running summary and clear order review.

• Simplified delivery and payment options, and moved rarely used elements (like coupons) out of the main path to reduce cognitive load.

Image: Two-step sequence: Prescription setup screen + Review & Confirm order screen.

Results

• Align now has a single, unified Customer Hub that brings together Invisalign, iTero, education, loyalty, billing, and practice growth tools under one UX framework.

• The new IA, navigation, and patient flows are live globally, supporting 16 languages and a wide variety of practice types.

• Clinicians get a clearer, more efficient daily workflow, with key actions and information surfaced in one place—reducing the “Invisalign homework” effect.

• Align gains a scalable, future-ready platform to layer on AI, remote monitoring, and richer analytics over time, without having to redesign from scratch.

Image: Final composite: dashboard, patient list, and nav all visible together as a “system view” of the Align Customer Hub.

Key Takeaways

• Design the hub, not just the page. Unifying tools into a single ecosystem created more value than optimizing any one screen on its own.

• Role-based structure > one-size-fits-all. Ortho, GP, staff, and DSO needs were too different to ignore; IA and dashboards had to reflect that.

• Workflow-first beats feature-first. Starting from “What does a doctor need to do in the next 10 minutes?” led to a completely different dashboard and patient experience.

• Future-casting kept us honest. Planning for AI, remote care, and community features ensured the hub would stay relevant beyond launch.