Chai Brand Overview
Chai makes biotech accessible by providing affordable, easy-to-use tools.
As founding designer, I led design across software, branding, and marketing through its eight-year run.
The work taught me how to simplify complex technology, move quickly with small teams, and keep user needs front and center.
Primary Roles
Design Director/Founding Designer
Product Design, UI/UX, Web Design, Advertising, Design Systems
Additional Contributions
Copywriting, Packaging Design, Photo Editing, Presentation Design, Trade Show Materials, Document Formatting
Chai’s flagship product is the Open qPCR thermocycler. I designed its cross-platform app experience; matching the feature set of more expensive competitors and making even the most complex experiments simple to design and run.
Desktop App
To make the Open qPCR a standalone lab anywhere in the world, we needed to make the full desktop experience on its built-in touchscreen.
We embraced the relatively low-resolution screen and designed for high-legibility and easy operation in challenging conditions.
Built-In LCD App
Web Design
My secondary responsibility was to design and maintain Chai’s web presence. This included design, copywriting, information architecture, and development support.
Hardware Advertising
The Open qPCR is marketed to a very broad audience. A mix of brand awareness and targeted, solution-based campaigns helped expand our customer base.
Chai needed a packaging design system that would stand out, amongst its peers and when pulled from a lab freezer.
We created a scalable solution to serve a wide range of box proportions and keep Chai boxes easy to find in low-light situations.
Packaging Design
Results & Takeaways
I’m proud of what we accomplished, and that we delivered on our promise of Real-Time PCR solutions for the real world.
Beyond expanding my technical skill set, my time at Chai refined my design process. Working iteratively at low-fidelity and maintaining buy-in from all stakeholders throughout the process makes life easier for everyone.
