Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

Work

Services

About

Contact

Let’s talk

Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

Work

Services

About

Contact

Let’s talk

Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

Let’s talk

Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

All work

(Case study)

Product

2025

Evenfall: bedtime, redesigned for

people who are already tired.

Evenfall is a sleep and wind-down app for iPhone and Android. I redesigned onboarding, the evening routine and the motion system so the app asks for less at the moment people have the least to give.

Client

Evenfall Studio

Role

Product and motion designer

Timeline

10 weeks, 2025

Services

Mobile app, Onboarding, Motion

Visit live site

(01)

Overview

Nobody opens a sleep app with energy to spare. Every extra tap at 11 pm is a reason to put the phone down and give up.

Evenfall had beautiful sounds and stories, but new members met nine onboarding screens, a long survey and three permission prompts before they heard a single note. Most of them never made it to their first night.

Our goal was simple to say and hard to do. Get a new member from download to a playing sound in under a minute, and make the evening routine feel like dimming a lamp, not filling in a form.

of new members finish onboarding, up from 34

median time from install to the first sound playing

4.7

average App Store rating in the first quarter after launch

4.7

average App Store rating in the first quarter after launch

Onboarding, cut from nine screens to four, on paper first.

Testing the wind-down flow at 11 pm, with the lights off.

(02)

Approach

Three decisions that shaped it.

Sound first, questions later

The first screen plays a gentle sound and asks one question. Everything else, from goals to reminders, is asked later and only when it becomes useful.

A routine with one button

The evening routine became a single timeline: dim, breathe, listen. One tap starts it and the app moves on by itself, so members never have to decide what comes next.

Motion that slows down

Transitions get longer and softer as the evening goes on. By the end of the routine the interface barely moves, and the screen dims itself before the story ends.

The night palette, checked on a dimmed screen in a dark room.

(03)

Outcome

“Mara designed for the version of our members we kept forgetting: the tired one. Our numbers changed in the first week.”

Hana Sato, product lead at Evenfall

The redesign shipped in September 2025 and was shortlisted for Best Health App the year after. The wind-down timeline is now the most used feature, ahead of the sound library itself.

Design

Mara Hollis

Engineering

Evenfall mobile team

Research

Inês Duarte

Copy

Evenfall writers

(Next)

Product

2026

Tessel

Read the case study

(05)

Contact

Have a project in mind?

Tell me what you are building and where it hurts. I reply to every email within two working days.

hello@marahollis.studio

Booking from November 2026. Two project slots left this quarter.

(05)

Contact

Have a project in mind?

Tell me what you are building and where it hurts. I reply to every email within two working days.

hello@marahollis.studio

Booking from November 2026. Two project slots left this quarter.

(05)

Contact

Have a project in mind?

Tell me what you are building and where it hurts. I reply to every email within two working days.

hello@marahollis.studio

Booking from November 2026. Two project slots left this quarter.