--- title: Pep Case Study - The Twelve Week Silence | We Are Affective description: "Fourteen games and one finding: the science was real, but nothing made it visible between tests. See how we designed Pep’s app to close the gap." --- [Skip to content](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies/pep#main-content) [![we\_are\_affective\_logo\_200](https://weareaffective.com/hs-fs/hubfs/we_are_affective_logo_200.png?width=175&height=48&name=we_are_affective_logo_200.png "we_are_affective_logo_200")](https://weareaffective.com) - [Home](https://weareaffective.com) - About Us - [Our Story](https://weareaffective.com/about) - [How We Work](https://weareaffective.com/how-we-work) - Our Services - [App Planning & Strategy](https://weareaffective.com/app-planning-strategy) - [App Design](https://weareaffective.com/app-design-agency) - [App UX Design](https://weareaffective.com/app-ux-design) - [App UI Design](https://weareaffective.com/app-ui-design) - [App Technical Architecture](https://weareaffective.com/app-architecture) - [Existing App Audits](https://weareaffective.com/app-audit) - [Case Studies](https://weareaffective.com/case-studies) - [Pricing](https://weareaffective.com/pricing) - [Learning Centre](https://weareaffective.com/learning-centre) - [Get Started](https://weareaffective.com/get-started) Supplements & NutritionPEP # The science was real. The twelve weeks were silent. Fourteen games and an app built around one finding: the science was real, and nothing made it visible between tests. 14Games 12Weeks of silence ![PEP check-in screen](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/PEP_2_after.webp) ![PEP result screen](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/PEP_1_after.webp) The brief ## A personalised blend, and nothing personal to show for it between tests. Pep builds a personalised peptide blend from an at home blood test and retests every twelve weeks. Around forty two thousand people subscribe. Between one test and the next, they had a PDF and a monthly box, and nothing to show that anything personal was still happening. The brief was to design the app that lives in that gap. 01 Around week seven, a customer opens the app looking for a sign of progress and finds the same static report they read a month before. "They'd expected a relationship. What they found was a subscription waiting on a calendar." 02 Delight scored 1. The closest thing to a considered moment was a small card in the box, which customers mentioned in reviews without being asked. Trust held at the point of testing, then went quiet exactly when it should have reinforced itself. 03 Customers arrive already dismissed. A GP told them their bloods were normal. They came to Pep for a specific answer about their own biology, so a generic report confirmed their quiet fear: "Is this a template with my name on it?" The process ## Three sessions. Fourteen games. One silence, seen from every side. The First 60 Seconds and the Aspiration Gap named the same fear: is this about me, or a template with my name on it. The Heartbreak Scale put a number against it, with delight at 1. The Identity Shift named the destination, from feeling dismissed to feeling understood. DiscoveryThe Heartbreak Scale™75 min DiscoveryThe Identity Shift™30 min DiscoveryThe First 60 Seconds™45 min DiscoveryThe Aspiration Gap™60 min Tone & CopyThe Voice Sort™40 min Brand PersonalityThe Funeral Speech™60 min Brand PersonalityThe Rejection Letter™15 min Brand PersonalityThe Dinner Party™15 min Tone & CopyThe Word Sort™15 min Design PrinciplesDesign Principles Builder™45 min Visual DirectionOpposite Ends™10 min Design PrinciplesThe Moment Test™25 min Design PrinciplesThe Anti-Principles™20 min Visual DirectionMoodboard Speed Dating™15 min "Supercharge." "Unlock." "Breakthrough." "Next level." "Transform." Every one landed in the no pile, for the same reason. Each depends on the customer feeling behind. The words that stayed were accurate ones, like "calibrated to your ferritin result." Output 01: Strategy & Brand ## From *a template with my name on it* to *someone finally looked*. Three documents carried the strategy. The Feel Factor mapped how the app should feel across three layers, and the arc from dismissed to knowing. Design Principles turned that into six tools for settling decisions. The Animation and Interaction Guide set how the product moves, so motion supports understanding and never performs. [![The Feel Factor®](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_The_Feel_Factor_cover.webp)](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_The_Feel_Factor.pdf) The Feel Factor ### The Feel Factor® Three layers: first impression, the journey and identity transformation. Mapped from the customer who feels dismissed to the one who feels quietly vindicated. The app opens on the customer's own marker, named plainly. No login wall, no tour and no welcome screen. Recognition has to arrive before anything is asked. The twelve weeks build like evidence, not like a countdown. By the retest, the customer isn't hoping it worked. They already suspect it did. The shift isn't transformation. It's graduating from guessing to knowing, and the retest becomes the payoff, not admin. [Download document →](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_The_Feel_Factor.pdf) [![Design Principles](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Design_Principles_cover.webp)](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Design_Principles.pdf) Design ### Design Principles Six principles written as decision tools. Each carries the reason it matters here, the tension it creates and the measures that show it is working. A number never travels alone. Every result pairs its figure with one plain sentence on what it means and what is being done, written in advance for every plausible range, including the uncomfortable ones. Silence is stated, not filled. If nothing new is true this week, the app says the trend is holding and the retest is approaching. Wellness content never stands in for a quiet week. Earn, then ask. Every touchpoint opens on something from the customer's own data before it requests a check-in. The review question: could this have appeared on a supplement shelf? [Download document →](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Design_Principles.pdf) [![Animation and Interaction Guide](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Animation_and_Interaction_Guide_cover.webp)](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Animation_and_Interaction_Guide.pdf) Design ### Animation and Interaction Guide How the product moves: a small set of named timings, decelerating curves and no springs. If an animation does not help someone see what changed, it does not ship. The result screen staggers three elements 80ms apart: your number, then what it means, then where it sits. Under 500ms in total, and only on the first view of a new result. Nothing bounces, overshoots or pulses while someone is reading. Springs are out, and linear easing appears only in the skeleton pulse and the button spinner. With reduced motion on, the trend line is visible from the first frame. Motion that carries information is replaced by the end state, so the information stays and only the movement goes. [Download document →](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Animation_and_Interaction_Guide.pdf) Plus 5 more documents in the full engagement 04 Brand Tone & Copy 05 Brand Copy Handbook 06 Research & Strategy User Personas 07 Research & Strategy Emotional Journey Maps 08 Design Interaction Principles Output 02: The Design ## Five screens, one thread between tests. From a ferritin result that says what it means, to a daily log tied to the marker, a notification that waits for a real event and a record of the protocol. Drag the divider on each screen to compare. Original WAA Output 03: Technology ## A build that protects the result screen before anything else. Two native apps, a NestJS API and a processing layer that keeps clinical logic apart from everything the customer sees. The result screen is the load bearing moment, so it is built to render in under 1.2 seconds. Twenty four weeks across four phases, sequenced by emotional dependency, protect it while everything else is built. [![Technical Architecture](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Technical_Architecture_cover.webp)](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Technical_Architecture.pdf) Technical ### Technical Architecture A layered system with a processing layer between the API and the data store, so the most sensitive operations can be audited and updated on their own. Every trade-off is named at the point of decision. Native over cross platform, because of the result screen. It needs gesture response with no perceptible lag, and HealthKit or Health Connect data in the same view without a bridging layer. React Native was considered and set aside. The result screen renders in under 1.2 seconds with the cache warm, and a miss must resolve within 2.5 seconds. A slow result is the moment a customer's confidence quietly drops. PostgreSQL over a document store, because the chain from subscription to cycle to panel to calibration is genuinely relational. Interpretation copy lives in Contentful, so a clinician can update a borderline result without an engineering deployment. [Download document →](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Technical_Architecture.pdf) [![Implementation Roadmap](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Implementation_Roadmap_cover.webp)](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Implementation_Roadmap.pdf) Delivery ### Implementation Roadmap The order Pep gets built in, and the reasoning behind it. Four phases, 24 weeks, each one building something the next depends on. It is a sequenced argument, not a project plan. Emotional dependencies come first. The week nine experience is set by data decisions made in the opening weeks, so structure is built before surface and the riskiest assumptions are tested earliest. Phases end on evidence, not deliverables. Mid-cycle trend logic is run against historical lab data for at least twenty customers, and no trend from fewer than two data points is shown as a direction. Phase one leaves out the mid-cycle experience, trend charts, notifications and the retest flow. That narrowness is a decision, so the first sixty seconds are made honest before anything is built on top of them. [Download document →](https://weareaffective.com/hubfs/case-studies/pep/WAA_PEP_Implementation_Roadmap.pdf) Plus 2 more documents in the full engagement 03 Delivery Developer Handoff 04 Delivery Build Cost Reference Guide The result ## A product judged on whether the weeks between tests feel like evidence building. Delight at 1 and a week seven with nothing new to find pointed at the same root cause. The science was real and nothing made it visible. The response was a set of rules specific enough to hold when the pressure is to fill a quiet week, in the design and in the architecture that carries it. Their own marker first The app opens on the customer's own result, named plainly, with one sentence on what it means. No tour, no login wall and no welcome screen between the customer and recognition. Silence stated, never filled A quiet week says the trend is holding and the retest is approaching. A notification fires only when something real has happened in the customer's own data. The same voice for good news and hard news A marker moving the right way is stated in the same measured register as one moving the wrong way. No confetti, no exclamation marks and no softening. A build that protects the result screen Native on both platforms, a processing layer for the clinical logic and a first render under 1.2 seconds. The roadmap builds the result experience first, and the handoff names what cannot be traded away under deadline. More work ## Other case studies Start here ## Want this thinking applied to your product? Pick the path that matches where you are. Every one leads to the same honest conversation about your project. ### [Path 01 · Send details Tell us about your project. Short form. Simon reads every submission personally and replies within two working days. Send project details →](https://weareaffective.com/get-started#project-form) ### [Path 02 · Talk it through Book a discovery call. Thirty minutes with Simon. Real conversation, no pitch deck. Book a call →](https://weareaffective.com/get-started#discovery-call) ### [Path 03 · Understand the cost Get an idea of typical costs. No tier grids. 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