Health
HerbaLink
Verified herbalists, designed around trust
By Hiram BarskyFounder & Principal Designer
Role
Product Design · Frontend · AI
Timeframe
2025
Published
July 2026
Outcome
Shipped & live at herbalink.live
Built with
Lovable, Supabase · Figma Design · Claude Code · Netlify
The result
Shipped and live at herbalink.live: a marketplace where a practitioner's license, training, and track record are visible before you book — with a plain-language AI intake that matches you to the right specialist without needing to speak clinician.
Overview
When you're trusting a stranger with your health, credentials aren't a nice-to-have — they're the whole decision. HerbaLink connects people with verified, credentialed herbalists, and every screen is designed to answer the question a nervous first-time client is actually asking: can I trust this person?
The problem
Alternative-health marketplaces are riddled with claims no one can check. To a first-time client, a licensed herbalist and a confident hobbyist look identical online — so cautious people walk away, and the qualified practitioners they needed go unfound. A marketplace where trust can't be verified punishes exactly the people it needs most.
Research
Spend an hour in wellness forums and app-store reviews and the same blocker shows up on every page: not price, not availability — believability.
Credentials were illegible
Online, a licensed herbalist and a confident hobbyist look identical. Cautious clients — the best clients — walk away first.
→ Drove: Layered verification: license, education, and peer endorsements as separate, openable proof.
People can't speak clinician
Asking clients to describe symptoms in medical terms stalls them at the front door.
→ Drove: An AI intake that accepts plain language and translates it into the right specialist match.
Doubt strikes at decision points
Trust doesn't collapse while browsing — it collapses at booking and payment, exactly where credentials were hidden.
→ Drove: Credentials surfaced at every commitment moment in the flow, not buried in a profile tab.
The approach
- 1
Made verification something you can inspect, not a checkmark you take on faith — layered proof of license, education, and peer endorsements, visible before any money changes hands.
- 2
Designed an AI intake that works in plain language: describe what's wrong the way you'd tell a friend, and it matches you to the right specialist — no medical vocabulary required.
- 3
Put credentials at every decision point in the booking flow — right where doubt creeps in — instead of burying them in a profile tab nobody opens.
Our thought process
In alternative health, the product isn't the booking — it's the confidence to book. Every screen was designed to answer the nervous first-timer's real question: can I trust this person?
What didn't work
A single 'verified' checkmark — the industry default — did nothing. Users have learned to ignore badges they can't inspect. Verification only started changing behavior when it became layered, visible proof: license, education, endorsements, each one openable on its own.
The outcome
A shipped platform where trust is the thing you can actually see — who someone is, what they're qualified for, how they've helped others — turning the scariest part of alternative health into the reason people book.
What this means for your project
Building anything where a user has to trust a stranger — a marketplace, a health or fintech product, a two-sided platform? That's exactly the problem here. we make trust something you can see at the moment doubt actually hits, so cautious users convert instead of quietly leaving.
“His ability to translate complex user requirements into intuitive, visually appealing designs sets him apart. His work consistently garnered positive feedback from colleagues and stakeholders alike.”
