Guided support for emotional wellness, turning overwhelmed users into supported ones.
Solace is a mobile experience that reframes mental-health support around emotion rather than technique. Instead of asking overwhelmed users to browse a library of coping exercises, it guides them from a quick emotional check-in straight to relief.
The goal was to remove decisions at the exact moment decisions feel hardest. This case study walks through the research, design, testing, and outcomes across an 8-week project.
User interviews on how people choose coping techniques under stress, and why most apps overwhelm them.
Most mental health apps start by offering a wide range of techniques.
At first, that seems like the right approach. More options should mean better support.
But in practice, it creates friction.
When users are overwhelmed, even small decisions feel heavy. Asking them to choose from a list of techniques adds pressure at the exact moment they’re already struggling.
I had to rethink what “helpful” actually meant in this context.
Comparison of Headspace, Calm, and How We Feel mobile apps showing dense feature menus
Across interviews, one pattern kept showing up.
Users often know they need help in the moment, but struggle to translate their feelings into actions.
Users didn’t want to search for solutions while stressed. They wanted guidance.
That told me this wasn’t a discovery problem. It was a decision problem under emotional strain.
Diagram showing user quotes about emotional awareness leading to a "breakdown" moment, branching into questions about what to do next
At this point, I had to make a choice.
I could improve how techniques were organized, or I could change where the experience began.
I chose to shift the starting point.
This reframed the product from a tool library into a guided support experience.
While this meant reducing user control, it also meant reducing cognitive load.
In this context, I believed guidance would be more valuable than freedom.
Decision tree comparing a technique-first approach (overwhelming) against an emotion-first approach (guided relief)
Designing an emotion-first flow that reduces decision overhead in the moment of need.
Once I committed to an emotion-first approach, a new challenge surfaced.
How much should the system guide the user?
Too much guidance feels restrictive. Too little leaves users overwhelmed.
I explored both extremes. One version gave users too many branching paths. Another pushed them through a rigid flow.
Neither worked. The right solution had to sit somewhere in between.
Three columns showing "too little guidance" (chaos), "balanced" (guided path with optional flexibility), and "too much guidance" (rigid forced path)
The experience became a structured flow:
Check-in → Clarify → Recommend → Guide
I approached this by simplifying how decisions are presented, not by removing them entirely.
Instead of exposing everything at once, I staged decisions across steps. This allowed me to guide users while still giving them a sense of control.
The goal wasn’t to eliminate choice. It was to make each choice feel manageable.
Flowchart of the Solace experience: Start → Check-in form → Check-in complete → Personalized recommendations → branching into Physical Movement, Breathing, or Mindfulness Techniques → Technique complete
Moving into wireframes and prototyping, I made a deliberate constraint:
I avoided adding extra features or visual noise. Every screen needed to answer one question clearly:
“What should the user do next?”
This meant cutting ideas that didn’t directly support the core flow.
The result was a more focused experience, even if it meant doing less overall.
Five usability tests surfaced four targeted improvements, each tightening clarity without adding complexity.
Testing confirmed the core direction, but it also showed where the experience needed more support. I focused the next round of revisions on strengthening clarity and trust without adding complexity.
I introduced small but meaningful changes:
These adjustments helped the experience feel less like a tool and more like guidance.
Outcomes, lessons, and what the next iteration of Solace would look like.
Solace shifted the experience from browsing to guidance.
Users no longer had to interpret their emotions and search for solutions at the same time. The system helped bridge that gap.
The result is a more direct path from stress to relief:
A person holds a phone displaying the Solace welcome screen
This project changed how I think about UX.
People don’t interact with products in ideal conditions. They interact when they’re distracted, overwhelmed, or unsure.
In those moments, too much choice becomes a burden.
Design isn’t just about giving users control.
Sometimes it’s about recognizing when to take some of that weight off their shoulders.
Three Solace mobile screens shown in 3D perspective: Mood Check, Emotional Symptoms, and Physical Symptoms