Designing a compassionate AI companion to empower self-care and emotional growth
01 Overview
Empowering emotional growth with design and innovation
LePal transforms mental wellness by offering a personalized AI companion that fosters self-care and emotional growth. By integrating empathetic AI technology with engaging features such as companion chat, mood journaling, and gamification, LePal redefines how users interact with mental health tools.
As the founding product designer, I led the journey from ideation to a scalable solution. Working closely with founders, engineers, and the prompt engineering team, I shaped the product vision, delivered core features, and iterated through multiple versions. This collaboration leveraged LLMs to create a conversational AI that felt human and emotionally intelligent, redefining how users engage with mental health tools.
Duration
4 months
My Role
Founding Product Designer
The Team
2 Product Designers, 1 Illustrator, 2 UX researchers, 1 PM, 3 Founders, 1 Tech lead, 2 Engineers
Tools Used
Figma
02 Vision & Challenges
Designing for users and founders
The Vision
In a market saturated with clinical and impersonal wellness apps, users often feel unseen and unsupported, highlighting the need for a more empathetic solution.
We have a shared understanding that users weren’t just looking for another mental health tool app, they were searching for a companion that could understand their emotions and support their self-care journey.
With advancements in conversational AI, we saw the potential to reimagine mental wellness as an interactive, deeply personal experience.
Our mission was to:
Empathy at Scale
Providing emotional support that feels personal and adaptive.
Gamified Self-Care
Encouraging engagement through a rewarding and meaningful experience.
Clarity and Scalability
Offering practical tools that grow with users and demonstrate business potential.
The Challenges
I faced the dual challenge of designing for diverse user needs while aligning with the founders’ vision. The goal was to create an engaging, user-centered platform that demonstrated measurable potential for growth and investor appeal.
Designing for User Needs
How do we create an AI companion that grows with users, offering emotional support and meaningful self-care?
03 Research
Insights that shaped the product
Who we interviewed
To ensure a user-centered design, we conducted user research across four key user groups:
Mental health seekers
Needed empathetic interactions and guidance for emotional struggles.
Self-care advocates
Sought actionable tools like journaling, meditations, and mood tracking.
Explorers
Enjoyed gamified elements and community connections.
Casual users
Preferred engaging, low-effort interactions.
Key findings
“I need someone to talk to, but it shouldn’t feel robotic.”
“Seeing progress visually motivates me to keep going.”
“Too many features make me stop using the app.”
“I like being part of a positive community.”
Based on the research, we identified Mental Health Seekers and Self-Care Advocates as the priority groups. Key findings informed the prioritization of core features like AI chat, mood journaling, and gamification, ensuring the product addressed real pain points.
04 Process
From vision demo to MVP
Phase 1: Vision demo - envisioning the future of mental health
To kick off the project, I collaborated with the PM and founders to brainstorm ideas for the vision demo. We explored initial visual styles, feature directions, and concepts to bring the vision to life and effectively communicate it to potential investors and users.
a Sneak peak 👀
This phase was about dreaming big—envisioning the future of mental health experiences and showcasing how the product could address user needs while driving engagement and growth. The vision demo not only painted a compelling picture of what LePal could become but also helped align stakeholders and set the direction for the MVP.
Phase 2: MVP creation - building and iterating the core
Chat feature: iteration challenges
For the MVP, we prioritized the Chat feature, centering on the Spirit Companion. The goal was to make conversations feel personal and emotionally connected while maintaining a playful and supportive tone.
The initial design focused heavily on immersive animations, displaying only the current chat bubble and Spirit responses on the main screen. While creative, user feedback revealed significant usability challenges—users needed a visible conversation history to feel continuity, especially in therapy contexts.
To address this, I redesigned the chat interface to integrate history directly into the chat screen. This iteration balanced usability with the Spirit’s personality, ensuring interactions remained engaging and supportive.
Initial immersive chat design: Engaging but lacked continuity.
Redesigned interface with chat bubbles: Enhanced usability and clarity
Beyond the chat feature, we collaborated closely with the engineering team to design and implement a suite of core functionalities, including journaling, gamification, user stats, AI-driven recommendations like the Crystal Ball, …etc. Prioritizing these features based on the engineering pipeline allowed us to balance efficiency with innovation, ensuring the product delivered a holistic and engaging user experience while supporting future scalability.
05 Design Highlights
Features that drive impact
AI Companion (Spirit Chat)
Provides users with a personal, empathetic AI companion that adapts to their emotional needs.
Therapy Chat
Offers a structured space for guided, therapeutic conversations.
Guided Journal
Helps users reflect on their emotions and track their mental health journey.
Weekly letter
Personalizes the user experience by summarizing progress and offering encouragement.
AI Crystal Ball
Adds a playful, engaging element by offering insights based on past interactions.
Friend referral
Encourages organic growth by rewarding users for inviting friends.
06 Outcomes & Reflections
Impact & lessons learned
Outcomes
• User growth:
Attracted 2,000 waitlist signups and engaged 700+ beta users, validating strong user interest and market potential.
• Daily active users:
Achieved over 70% growth within a week, reflecting increased engagement.
• Day 1 retention:
Improved by 30%, showcasing enhancements in onboarding and early user experience.
What I learned
🤝 Empathy beyond users
As designers, empathy for users is a given. But working in a startup taught me the importance of empathizing with the founders’ vision. Understanding their perspective and aligning user needs with business goals was crucial to designing a product that balanced functionality, engagement, and growth.
🛠️ Collaboration as design
Great design isn’t created in isolation—it’s built through collaboration. At LePal, I learned to be a proactive collaborator, working closely with stakeholders, engineers, and founders to ensure every decision supported both user experiences and strategic objectives.
🎮 Gamification as subtle encouragement
Effective gamification isn’t loud or overwhelming—it should feel natural, subtly motivating users without drawing too much attention to itself. Designing the Spirit Companion taught me how to weave gamification seamlessly into the experience, encouraging engagement without distraction.
🤖 Future of design with AI
Collaborating with LLMs showed me how AI can support and enhance design workflows. As designers, our ability to utilize AI tools and prompt effectively will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of work and creating intuitive, empathetic experiences.