J.Hilburn · 2025–2026 · iPad + Web Cross-platform · Shipped

Interactive Favorites.

A stylist recommends, the client rates, and the back-and-forth gets out of the way. Simple and direct — the way he shops.

The brief · my role

Make the #1 sales tool actually work.

Every stylist we interviewed brought up Favorites — already their most-used sales tool, but flat and one-directional, with no way to tell a stylist's pick from the client's own.

I helped run the interviews across two markets, formed my own hypothesis set alongside the PM and engineering lead, then designed both sides of the system — the full iPad experience and the client-facing jhilburn.com pages at every breakpoint. 1,991 frames, designed end to end, solo.

iPad product catalog with the two-state star on every product card — gold for a Stylist Pick, black for a client favorite

One icon, two states — the star lives on every product, catalog to PDP.

Improving Favorites is imperative to the Stylist's sales process and experience.

— My top takeaway from 13+ stylist interviews, Boston & Florida

01 — Research

The workaround was the spec.

Style boards were the official curation tool — but stylists called them "sticky" and "hard to line up" in an appointment, and had quietly drifted to Favorites instead. A user-invented workaround is a spec in disguise: rather than patch style boards, I made the thing they were already doing intentional.

Favorites is the #1 sales tool — every stylist mentioned it.

No way to tell a stylist's pick from the client's own favorite.

It had to be collaborative and two-sided — not a flat, one-way list.

Synthesized from structured interviews with 13+ stylists across the Boston and Florida markets — the PM, engineering lead, and I each producing an independent hypothesis set before cross-referencing.

02 — The system

A loop that runs silently.

A closed loop across two platforms. Each beat happens inside a tool the person already uses — the stylist never leaves the iPad, the client never leaves jhilburn.com, and neither has to message the other.

Beat 01 · iPad app

The stylist marks a pick.

One tap turns the star gold — on a product card, a PDP, or from the client profile. That item is now a Stylist Pick for that client.

iPad product detail page for Bright Navy Solid, the Stylist Pick star tapped gold, shown in an iPad frame

Beat 02 · jhilburn.com

The client rates it.

The pick lands in the client's Stylist Picks on the web — "items your Stylist hand-picked for you" — with a thumbs up or down. The same client view reflows from desktop to iPad to phone, so a client rates wherever they are. No app, no message.

The jhilburn.com client view shown responsively across a MacBook, an iPad, and an iPhone

Beat 03 · iPad app

The feedback comes home.

The rating — and the client's own black-starred favorites — surface back in the stylist's app, ready before the next appointment, with zero coordination.

iPad Favorites view in an iPad frame — the All Favorites grid with gold Stylist Pick stars, black client-favorite stars, and thumbs ratings

The client side shipped on jhilburn.com as responsive web — My Favorites, Stylist Picks, and Looks, each designed at multiple breakpoints.

03 — Favorite Looks

From items to outfits.

Stylists sell in outfits, not single products. Favorite Looks groups starred items into named looks — "Work Favorites," "Daughter's Wedding" — shareable, editable, and rated piece by piece. The loop runs through them too: a stylist sees not just that the client liked the wedding look, but which piece they didn't. And like everything else, looks live on both sides.

iPad Favorite Looks in an iPad frame — named outfit groups with Share Look and View/Edit actions, ratings on individual items

iPad — looks named per client, shareable, with item-level ratings.

jhilburn.com Looks page in a laptop frame — the same looks on the client-facing web

jhilburn.com — the same looks, client-facing.

04 — In production

Shipped — and taught.

Interactive Favorites didn't just ship — it became part of how stylists are brought up to speed. This is the walkthrough J.Hilburn made for stylists on using the feature day to day.

J.Hilburn stylist training — Interactive Favorites · 2:20

1,991frames

Designed end to end, solo

13+ stylists

Interviewed · Boston & Florida

2platforms

iPad app + jhilburn.com

1icon

Two states carry the whole system

05 — Reflection

What I learned.

The hardest part of this system wasn't designing 1,991 frames — it was resisting the urge to add things. Every version of a collaborative feature wants chat, comments, notifications. The discipline was making the loop carry itself — if the star and the thumbs do their jobs, no one needs to say anything.

It also changed how I read research. Stylists never asked for "Interactive Favorites" — they complained about style boards and kept using a flat list instead. The feature was sitting in the gap between what people said and what they did. Designing both sides of it, on two platforms, from one research effort, is the project I'd point to first if someone asked what I do.

IMAGINE · DESIGN · BUILD