Onsen
A mindfulness and journaling mobile app that uses AI to help users reflect on their emotions, track mental well-being, and set personal growth goals. The platform blends guided experiences, thoughtful journaling prompts, and AI-powered recommendations to support a more mindful lifestyle.
Country
2025
Involvment
Link
Challenge: While the app offered valuable mindfulness and journaling tools, the experience lacked personalization and emotional connection, making it difficult for users to build consistent habits. The interface needed a careful balance between simplicity and AI-driven insights to avoid overwhelming users. In addition, the onboarding flow lacked clarity, leading some users to disengage before fully understanding the app’s value.
Solution: The experience was redesigned to provide a more structured yet flexible journey for both new and returning users. AI-powered recommendations now adapt content based on users’ emotions, behaviors, and long-term goals, creating a more responsive and human experience. A refreshed onboarding flow offers clearer guidance and a more engaging introduction, encouraging stronger long-term engagement and habit formation.
Design process
The design process followed three key phases: research and exploration, visual style refinement, and design and prototyping. As part of this work, a detailed UX audit was conducted to identify usability challenges, using side-by-side comparisons with industry best practices to inform and guide design decisions.
Scored scope
Following the UX audit and user testing, a prioritized list of improvements was defined based on their impact on the overall experience. This framework guided enhancements to existing functionality and informed the design of new features, which were reviewed and prioritized in collaboration with the client.
Wireframing & iterations
Low-fidelity wireframes were used to map updates to existing flows and define the structure of new features. This approach enabled early testing, collaboration, and refinement before moving into high-fidelity design.
Features / Launch & onboarding
The onboarding flow was redesigned by reducing the number of introductory steps, making the app’s core value easier to understand from the start. Updated visuals create a warmer, more emotionally engaging atmosphere, using custom illustrations and soft, wave-like elements to add a sense of calm and creativity.
Registration & avatar creation
Users personalize their experience by providing basic information and setting personal goals, which the AI uses to tailor content and guidance throughout the app. They can also upload a profile photo, enabling the AI to generate a unique avatar that appears in personalized journal visuals moving forward.
Home Page: A personalized wellness hub
I redesigned the homepage to function as a dynamic, action-oriented hub. In addition to surfacing progress and recent activity, it now encourages meaningful interactions - such as resuming past sessions, logging moods, or responding to the “What’s on your mind?” prompt. This interaction-first approach supports habit formation and emotional reflection from the very first screen.
Recommended for you
Personalized content suggestions were integrated seamlessly into the user journey, surfacing relevant mindfulness exercises based on individual goals and past interactions. These recommendations appear at meaningful moments, helping maintain engagement and encourage consistent self-reflection.
How are you feeling?
To create more entry points into meaningful experiences, a “How Are You Feeling?” feature was introduced directly on the home screen. This lightweight mood check-in allows users to quickly select an emotional state - or explore a broader range when needed. Based on their selection, users can either log their feelings or begin a deeper guided reflection through conversation. The feature bridges emotional awareness and action, creating a seamless path from emotion to insight.
Experiences library
The experience library was restructured to improve discoverability and support future scalability. Thoughtful categorization -such as gratitude, stress management, and self-reflection - combined with popular highlights and filters by duration or rating, helps users quickly find sessions that match their needs.
Experiences filters & sorting
To help users find the most relevant experiences, a flexible filtering and sorting system was introduced. Content can be narrowed by duration, number of steps, rating, or viewed by newly added sessions, while sorting options—such as alphabetical, recently added, or step count - support a smooth and personalized discovery experience.
Experience details
Each mindfulness experience includes a detailed view with its description, number of steps, estimated completion time, and rating. This screen creates a seamless transition from exploration to deeper engagement with the selected experience.
Experience interactions
Chat-based experiences were refined to improve flow clarity and reduce friction. Steps are now easier to follow, AI action buttons - such as “Support” and “Explain” - are more prominent, and the voice-to-text feature was enhanced to improve accessibility and emotional expression.
Suggested goals
To support long-term motivation and habit formation, an automatic goal suggestion system was introduced based on users’ journaling activity and behavior patterns. The AI continuously learns from interactions - such as journaling, guided sessions, and emotional check-ins - to recommend goals that feel personal and achievable. These context-aware nudges encourage steady progress through meaningful actions. Whether suggesting daily gratitude or reconnecting with a friend, the app acts as a digital coach - prompting reflection, tracking progress, and helping users revisit goals in a natural and motivating way.
Journal entries
After completing an experience, users are invited to capture their journey as a journal entry. The app generates both a written and visual summary, including AI-created artwork that reflects the user’s appearance and the emotional tone of the experience -whether meditative, reflective, or empowering.
Each entry includes a recap, key takeaways, suggested goals, and recommendations for next steps, transforming moments of reflection into meaningful, lasting memories.
Journal entries library & search
A dedicated space allows users to browse and revisit past journal entries, each presented as a card with a title, creation date, and personalized visual. This section functions as a reflective diary and includes built-in search, making it easy to find and revisit specific moments from the user’s mindfulness journey.
Insights
Onsen transforms progress tracking into an engaging experience through daily check-ins and streaks that motivate consistency. Features like “This Day in Your Journal” resurface past entries, while personalized recaps highlight milestones using visual stories, journal imagery, and key insights. This dynamic approach encourages deeper self-reflection, helping users stay motivated, build habits, and navigate their journey with greater clarity.
Recaps
To encourage long-term reflection and sustained engagement, Onsen delivers monthly recaps in a visual story format. These immersive summaries combine tracker data, memorable moments, journal-generated imagery, and meaningful reflections. The experience feels personal and rewarding, helping users look back with clarity and move forward with intention.
Guide settings
Onsen’s guide customization system allows users to personalize the tone, voice, and personality of their AI companion to match their communication style. Users can choose traits such as empathetic, logical, or motivational, and fine-tune settings like formality or directness through simple controls. A live preview shows how these preferences shape responses, transforming the guide from a one-size-fits-all assistant into a supportive, individualized presence aligned with each user’s emotional needs.
Notification prompts
Notifications are thoughtfully integrated throughout the journey, providing timely reminders to check in, track progress, or revisit past reflections. Whether highlighting a monthly recap, prompting a mood check-in, or encouraging continuation of a mindfulness practice, they help users stay engaged and on track without feeling intrusive.
Premium subscription
To support monetization while preserving value for free users, a subtle and contextual upsell strategy was introduced. Premium features - such as AI-generated journal imagery - are surfaced through gentle prompts, including blurred previews with clear upgrade calls to action.
A transparent comparison screen outlines the benefits of Premium, from deeper personalization to exclusive experiences and advanced AI insights. These moments are integrated naturally into the app’s flow, encouraging upgrades without disrupting the core experience.
Settings & utility
A centralized hub allows users to manage their profile, preferences, and app settings in one place. From customizing color themes and enabling biometric access to controlling data privacy, these options support a secure, personalized, and seamless experience.
Empty states
Thoughtfully designed empty states guide users when no content is available, helping them understand features and continue their journey smoothly.
Dark mode
A visually adaptive dark mode improves readability and reduces eye strain for users in low-light environments.
Website
Alongside the app’s UI/UX design, the visual style and website were refreshed to reflect Onsen’s compassionate and innovative approach to mental well-being. A clean, calming aesthetic promotes clarity and comfort, while the website emphasizes simplicity and accessibility - helping visitors quickly understand the app’s features and benefits within a soothing, engaging experience.
