My Role
Product Designer (UX/UI, Research)
Scope
Team
Product, CEO
Year
2023
Duration
Six Months
Personal Zen
is an app that helps people manage stress and anxiety through short, science-based exercises.
Gameplay Overview
After completing a brief anxiety assessment, users enter 3–5 minute play sessions, tracing paths left by positive sprites while avoiding negative ones and earning medallions along the way.
The Problem
Despite the app's strong therapeutic foundation, many users dropped off after their first session. Reviews suggested the experience wasn't communicating its value early enough, and repetitive gameplay reduced motivation to return.
How might we strengthen first-session engagement and motivate users to return without compromising the app's calming, therapeutic foundation?
The Solution
Internal data identified two early drop-off points: onboarding and gameplay. To better understand why, I analyzed the first-time experience to uncover where users were losing momentum.
First-Time
Experience
To understand where users were losing momentum, I mapped the first-time experience from onboarding to gameplay.
A six-step onboarding added friction before gameplay
Instruction-heavy prompts required excessive reading before interaction
After onboarding, users completed a seven-step anxiety assessment before reaching gameplay. While this supported personalization, it required users to commit before seeing the app's value. Next, I examined the gameplay experience to understand why users continued to lose momentum.
The assessment personalized the experience but delayed access to gameplay.
While playing the game, I swiped on the positive paths as they appeared on the screen while intentionally ignoring negative or unhappy faces.
Sessions lasted 3–5 minutes and were intentionally calm and repetitive.
Progress was reflected through the environment, but it was unclear how it signaled session completion or success.
Core Gameplay Loop
Competitive
Analysis
Since few wellness apps intentionally use game mechanics, I looked at casual games like Cut the Rope and Fruit Ninja, which use short, repeatable loops and simple interactions to understand how Personal Zen could encourage return through its gameplay.
Redesigning a Game Loop
Based on these findings, I redesigned the core gameplay to make progress more visible and meaningful through lightweight feedback, with no competitive scoring.
Prototyping
and Testing
I tested the redesigned experience with nine (9) participants using a high-fidelity prototype, comparing the current and updated flows.
Who We Tested:
Nine (9) Users
How We Tested
45 min moderated sessions (Zoom)
Devices: iOS and Android; some Android users had swipe issues
Research Questions
Was the updated experience
more motivating?Did progress and feedback
feel meaningful?Would you return to the app?
Evaluation Focus
Onboarding comprehension
Emotional response to progress
Replay motivation
Key Decisions
and Outcomes
Lightweight gamified elements increased engagement and encouraged return, while testing identified opportunities to improve reward mechanics and clarify feedback.
Challenge #1
Users found the Resilience Meter and the term “resilient” confusing and evaluative.
“Not a fan of the resilience meter; the app telling me I’m resilient doesn’t sit right.”
Decision
I recommended removing the Resilience Meter and redesigned it as a simpler game summary, reinforcing session completion rather than labeling emotional states.
Challenge #2
Users were unclear about the purpose of collecting medallions and expected trade-in or reward options.
“I guess you collect the medallions, I don’t know what those are for.”
Decision
I explored multiple reward concepts before recommending the simplest direction. Stakeholders aligned on it because it balanced clarity with implementation effort.
These findings shaped the final design decisions carried into the shipped experience.
The
Outcome
This validated the shift toward visible progress and lightweight feedback. While post-launch retention data wasn't available, the testing suggested the redesign was moving in the right direction.
“More structured and calming”
“Encouraging without being competitive”
“Rewarding without feeling like a game”
What’s Next
Potential opportunities to improve upon beyond the scope of this project.