ELISE HU

UBYou — Student Wellness App

UBYou is an app designed to help college students access campus-specific mental health and wellness resources. By providing a tailored platform, UBYou aims to create a personalized, engaging, and easy-to-navigate experience that empowers students to prioritize their well-being.

Role
Team lead, competitive analysis, information architecture, wireframes, prototyping, UI/UX design

Tools
Figma, Figjam, Google Meets, Discord

Duration
5 weeks

Project Context

As a design team of four, we worked closely with our client to develop a solution that improved UBYou’s user experience. Our collaboration spanned research, strategy, and UI design. While we had individual strengths, we took a flexible approach, sharing responsibilities to ensure a well-rounded and user-centered outcome. By integrating research insights, iterating on designs based on user feedback, and refining key features, we created a more intuitive and engaging platform for students seeking mental health and wellness support.

Users + Audience

UBYou’s primary audience is college students seeking accessible and personalized mental health and wellness support. These users often juggle demanding academic schedules, social pressures, and personal challenges, leaving them little time to navigate complex or poorly organized platforms. They value simplicity, clear guidance, and engaging features that help them address their mental well-being without adding additional stress. The redesign focused on creating an experience that resonates with these users by prioritizing ease of use, personalization, and a visually engaging interface tailored to their needs.

Problem

Users face barriers in accessing mental health and wellness resources due to a lack of seamless navigation, engaging interactions, and personalized support. UBYou’s current design struggles with visual hierarchy, an underdeveloped wellness check-in flow, and an overwhelming resource organization, making it difficult for students to find and utilize the support they need. A strategic redesign was necessary to enhance usability, improve engagement, and create a more intuitive and supportive experience for students.

Solution

To address the key challenges in UBYou’s design, our team implemented a series of targeted improvements.

Redesign Home Page: Establish a clear visual hierarchy to enhance navigation, prioritize key information, and create a more intuitive user experience.
Enhance Wellness Check-In Flow: Introduce engaging, gamified elements to encourage regular use and provide meaningful insights tailored to each user.
Organized + Personalized Resources: Restructure the resource section to reduce overwhelm, making it easier for students to find relevant support based on their individual needs.

These changes were designed to create a seamless and engaging experience that empowers students to prioritize their mental health and wellness.

My Role

As the team lead for the UBYou redesign project, I was the main point of contact with the client, ensuring consistent communication and managing project expectations. I sent out weekly meeting agendas and follow-up notes to keep the team and stakeholders aligned. My responsibilities also included defining the project scope, creating user stories, and leading brainstorming sessions to generate design solutions. I contributed to the research, wireframing, high-fidelity design, and prototyping stages while ensuring our team maintained cohesion throughout the process. Additionally, I managed timelines, provided constructive feedback, and ensured that our deliverables met the expectations of both the stakeholders and the end users.

Research and Discovery

In the Research and Discovery phase, we focused on understanding the existing landscape of mental health and wellness platforms while identifying the specific needs of our users. To guide our design process, we conducted a competitor analysis, evaluating similar platforms to identify effective design patterns, key features, and common pain points that could inform the UBYou redesign. Additionally, we developed user stories to capture the unique needs, frustrations, and goals of our target audience, ensuring that our solutions were thoughtfully aligned with their expectations.

Existing Research

Before diving into our own research, we reviewed user feedback gathered by the client to better understand the current challenges of UBYou’s design. The home screen received mixed reviews—some users found it easy to navigate, while others felt it was overwhelming and lacked clarity. Additionally, in terms of general design, users noted that the app felt endless and disorganized, making it difficult to find relevant resources efficiently. These insights highlighted the need for a more structured and intuitive user experience, guiding our approach to the redesign.

Competitor Analysis

Apps like Headspace and Calm inspired us with their user-friendly meditation flows and clear navigation, which we aimed to replicate in UBYou for a smooth experience. Duolingo's use of gamification, such as rewards and progress tracking, offered valuable insights to boost user engagement. We also analyzed Tao (Therapy Assistance Online) and You at College, which focus on mental health and campus resources but lack personalization and engaging features. This highlighted opportunities for UBYou to offer a more tailored, intuitive, and motivating experience with personalized content and gamified elements to encourage regular engagement.

User Stories

Based on insights gathered from user research and the competitive landscape, we developed user stories that captured the primary goals and pain points of UBYou’s users:

As a new user, I want to easily navigate the app so I can quickly find relevant mental health and wellness resources.
As a student, I want content that is personalized to my specific needs and preferences, so I can engage more meaningfully with the platform.
As a user, I want regular reminders and engaging features that motivate me to prioritize my well-being and check in often.
As a student, I want to easily access campus-specific mental health resources without feeling overwhelmed by a cluttered interface.

These user stories helped guide our design decisions, ensuring that UBYou would be intuitive, personalized, and motivating to engage with regularly.

Key Insights

From our research and existing user feedback, we identified the following key insights that shaped our redesign approach:

Inconsistent Home Page Experience: Users had mixed reactions to the home screen—some found it easy to navigate, while others felt overwhelmed, indicating a need for clearer visual hierarchy and organization.
Disorganized Content Structure: The app's layout felt endless and difficult to navigate, making it challenging for students to find relevant mental health and wellness resources.
Limited Engagement in Wellness Check-ins: The current check-in flow lacked depth and interactivity, reducing user motivation to engage with the feature regularly.
Lack of Personalization: Resources were presented in a one-size-fits-all manner, making it harder for students to find support tailored to their individual needs.

These insights informed our design decisions, ensuring that the final solution addressed user frustrations and improved overall usability.

Define

In the Define stage, we took the insights from the Reserach + Discovery phase and focused on mapping out key problem areas and solutions. The team identified the primary red routes, or the most critical paths users take in the app, that needed improvement. We also created a sitemap to outline the structure of the app, ensuring clear navigation. Additionally, we designed user flows for two primary red routes to guide users through their most essential tasks, such as checking in for wellness tracking and accessing personalized mental health resources.

Sitemapping

User Flows

We created detailed user flows for two key red routes: completing a daily wellness check-in and scheduling a counselor call through campus resources, making sure each flow was intuitive and streamlined.

Design

With clear insights and defined red routes from the earlier stages, we moved into the Design phase to bring our ideas to life. This phase focused on creating visually cohesive, intuitive, and engaging designs for the wellness check-in flow, resource tab, and home page.

Wireframes

We began by creating low-fidelity wireframes to explore layouts and flows, ensuring our solutions were user-centered and functional. For the home page, we conducted Crazy 8s, a rapid ideation technique, to generate a variety of design ideas and determine the most effective approach for improving visual hierarchy and engagement.

Style Guide

The style guide was developed to align with UBYou’s goal of creating a fun, inclusive, and youthful experience for college students. We focused on a vibrant yet approachable visual language, incorporating playful colors, modern typography, and engaging UI elements to foster a sense of warmth and accessibility while ensuring the design remained functional and easy to navigate.

Color Palette

The existing brand colors, strong blue and lime green, set the foundation for UBYou’s identity, reflecting a sense of trust, growth, and vitality. To complement these bold hues, we introduced neutral tones to provide balance, improve readability, and create a structured, modern interface. Additionally, we incorporated accent colors light cyan, vivid orange, and vivid pink to add vibrancy and playfulness, ensuring the app feels engaging, inclusive, and visually dynamic for its student audience.

Typography

We chose Fugaz One for its bold, energetic character, adding a fun and youthful personality to key headings while maintaining readability. To balance this, we used Outfit in Semibold and Regular for body text and subheadings, ensuring a clean, modern, and highly legible interface. This combination creates a visually engaging hierarchy that aligns with UBYou’s approachable and student-friendly aesthetic.

High Fidelity Designs

Conclusion + Takeaways

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges in redesigning UBYou was balancing usability with personalization without overwhelming users. College students already navigate a flood of information, so we needed to streamline features while ensuring they felt relevant and engaging. Collaborating as a team also posed challenges, as we had to align on design decisions and iterate efficiently while considering different perspectives. As the team lead, I managed client communication, sent out meeting agendas, and handled follow-ups, which required strong time management to balance administrative responsibilities with design work.

Lessons Learned

This project reinforced the importance of iteration in the design process. From Crazy 8’s to wireframing and user testing, I saw firsthand how refining ideas through multiple rounds of feedback led to stronger, user-centered solutions. Clear communication was another key takeaway—keeping the team and stakeholders aligned through regular updates and discussions ensured we stayed on track. Additionally, working on a mental health and wellness app deepened my understanding of designing for emotional well-being, emphasizing the need for intuitive, supportive, and engaging experiences.

Next Steps

The next phase of UBYou’s development involves implementing our redesigned features into the existing app and conducting user testing to measure their impact. We would evaluate whether the improved home screen enhances user engagement, track app usage to determine if students interact with UBYou more consistently, and analyze whether the reorganized resources make it easier for users to find the support they need.