Nuage — A gentler way to understand what you need.
Nuage is an independent wellbeing platform that brings immediate support, personal reflection and longer-term insights into one experience. I designed its product architecture, user flows and interface system around helping people find support that fits the moment.
Start with the person’s current need, not the product’s feature list.
That principle shaped the product architecture, navigation, support flows, AI boundaries, privacy decisions and approach to progress
Grounding wellbeing design in applied psychology
Translating professional critique into disciplined interaction patterns.
I reviewed an earlier version of Nuage in person with a professional experienced in applied psychology. She saw potential for the platform to support her work and suggested improvements to strengthen trust, personalisation, and navigation.
Making support more transparent
She highlighted the importance of explaining the evidence behind exercises and support methods, helping users understand their purpose and build trust in the platform.
Making evidence more accessible
Building on Nuage's existing learning courses, I introduced a chatbot that allows users to ask questions about support methods and their relevance, making explanations more accessible within the experience.
Evaluating understanding and trust
Test whether users can find relevant explanations, understand the purpose of support methods, and feel more confident using Nuage's tools.
Balancing Support, Choice and Complexity
My research explored how to offer different forms of wellbeing support without overwhelming the user. It helped me identify three design challenges: balancing depth with simplicity, guidance with freedom of choice, and personalization with clear boundaries.
Depth vs. Cognitive Load
Nuage offers multiple ways to find support, from quick grounding to deeper reflection. Presenting every option at once, however, can turn choice into additional cognitive load.
Create clear starting points and progressively reveal deeper tools rather than requiring users to understand the entire system upfront.
Guidance vs. Autonomy
Some moments benefit from a clear suggestion; others call for independent exploration. A single prescribed journey would not work across both.
Offer meaningful next steps while keeping alternatives visible, allowing users to choose how—and how far—they want to continue.
Personalization vs. Boundaries
Check-ins, reflections and AI-assisted guidance can make Nuage more relevant, but sensitive information also makes transparency, privacy and product scope essential.
Keep personalization intentional and understandable, with clear boundaries around what features can access and the role they are designed to serve.
Understanding Needs & Evaluating the Experience
Five participants explored the live app: two target-audience participants, two visual artists and one general feedback participant. They reviewed the flows, perceived usefulness and visual clarity. The table below distinguishes changes informed by their feedback, separate expert input and my own design review.
I Need Something Now
Lower capacity for decision-makingNeed: Something immediate and easy to begin, without navigating through multiple features or making several decisions.
Experience: Reduce choice and move quickly toward something actionable.
Nuage Support: Breathing · Grounding · Immediate Support · Voice to Self
I Need to Understand
Capacity for reflectionNeed: Space to process what is happening and put thoughts or feelings into words.
Experience: Offer different ways to reflect, with enough structure to provide direction without prescribing the process.
Nuage Support: Check-ins · Journal · Voice Reflection · Nuage Coach
I Want to Understand Over Time
Capacity for deeper reflectionNeed: Context that connects individual moments and helps make longer-term patterns easier to recognize.
Experience: Bring previous reflections, goals and emotional context together without reducing progress to a score.
Nuage Support: My Journey · Gentle Goals · Calendar · Learning
Product & Experience Constraints
Journals, voice reflections and personal entries require clear privacy expectations and careful handling.
Some experiences must work with minimal interaction, while others support longer periods of reflection.
The interface should feel gentle without making important actions difficult to find.
New tools need to fit within the existing architecture without making navigation increasingly complex.
Feedback & Design Iterations
Feedback from two visual artists
Updated the colour palette across light and dark modes to improve readability and contrast between interface elements and their backgrounds.
Expert feedback
Simplified the flows and introduced clearer stages with fewer controls shown upfront.
Designer-led review
Brought calendar planning forward, with analytics supporting the planning experience.
Designer-led review
Separated account information and settings into clearer groups.
Building a Connected System
Nuage brings together tools that serve very different moments—from quick regulation to deeper reflection and longer-term growth. Rather than treating every feature as equally important, I structured the product around what the person needs from the experience in that moment.
REGULATE
Calming, balancing, rescue and custom breathing exercises designed as focused, low-friction experiences.
A clear route to grounding and additional support when someone needs help finding a next step.
REFLECT
A lower-friction alternative to writing, allowing users to capture and explore thoughts through speech.
Guided and open reflection that gives thoughts space without forcing a rigid structure.
Conversational guidance that helps users explore what they need and find an appropriate next step.
GROW
Brings previous reflections and activity together so users can revisit their experience over time.
Supports small personal intentions without turning progress into rigid productivity tracking.
Provides structure for revisiting activity and exploring wellbeing content over time.
From Immediate Need to Ongoing Reflection
Nuage does not require every visit to follow the same path. The experience provides a clear way to begin, adapts to how deeply someone wants to engage, and allows the journey to end whenever their immediate need has been met.
Choose What You Need
The user starts with Nuage's support options and chooses what fits the moment—whether they want to reset, reflect or explore further.
Choose How to Engage
Depending on their intention, the user can move into breathing, journaling, voice reflection, guided support or another activity.
Focus on the Activity
Once an activity begins, the interface reduces secondary navigation and unnecessary actions so attention can remain on the experience itself.
Leave Without Pressure
The experience can end when the user's immediate need has been met. Where relevant, reflections or activity can become part of their personal history.
Revisit Over Time
Previous reflections, goals and activities remain accessible through My Journey, allowing individual moments to gradually form a broader personal history.
The journey does not have to be completed.
Designing Beyond Individual Screens
Four decisions shaped how Nuage approaches progress, AI, privacy and the boundaries of support.
Progress, not engagement
Consideration: Gentle Goals can use streaks when they represent consistency toward something the user intentionally chose.
Decision: Nuage does not use an app-wide streak simply for returning. Progress mechanics belong to the goal itself, not general product usage.
AI as guidance
Consideration: Nuage Coach needed to be useful across a product with many different forms of support without becoming the product itself.
Decision: Coach helps users understand their needs, navigate Nuage and identify an appropriate next step. It acts as a guidance layer around the wider experience rather than replacing its tools or professional support.
Privacy by separation
Consideration: Journals and voice reflections can contain information users may not expect an AI assistant to automatically access.
Decision: Private reflection content remains separate from what Coach automatically uses, making that boundary understandable rather than assuming technical privacy alone is enough.
Clear product boundaries
Consideration: A wellbeing product can easily blur the line between everyday support and professional or emergency care.
Decision: Nuage supports reflection, grounding and everyday wellbeing without positioning itself as diagnosis, therapy or emergency care. Those boundaries shape its language, AI behaviour, Immediate Support and overall scope.
07 • VISUAL & RESPONSIVE SYSTEM
Calm Without Becoming Passive
A visual system that balances softness with clarity, using hierarchy, contrast, and consistent interaction patterns to keep the experience calm but actionable. Feedback from two visual artists informed refinements to Nuage’s visual system, including its presentation and visual consistency.
01 / Typographic Foundation
1 TypefacePoppins
Regular 400 · Medium 500 · SemiBold 600A rounded geometric sans-serif keeps Nuage approachable and contemporary while maintaining clarity across reflective, supportive and information-rich experiences.
What would feel supportive right now?
02 / Color System
2 PalettesLight Mode
Airy cloud surfaces with blue, lavender and purple accents.
Cloud White
#F4F8FFLight SurfaceSky Mist
#DCEBFFSecondary SurfaceCloud Blue
#C6DCFABorders & Soft UIPeriwinkle
#A9BDF5Secondary AccentSoft Lavender
#B69CFFSupport AccentNuage Purple
#9348F5Primary ActionDeep Sky
#243B73Primary TextDark Mode
Deep indigo surfaces preserve the same lavender-purple identity.
Midnight Sky
#171F4ADeep SurfaceNight Indigo
#242D67Primary SurfaceTwilight Blue
#343A7BAtmospheric BackgroundCloud Violet
#6864B3Secondary AccentSoft Lavender
#A99BFFSupport AccentNuage Purple
#9848F5Primary ActionCloud White
#F4F6FFPrimary Text03 / Iconographic Vocabulary
1.5px Rounded StrokeSimple rounded line icons keep navigation familiar and lightweight, while Nuage’s atmospheric cloud imagery carries the more expressive side of the visual identity.
04 / Component Language
Illustrative component examples from Nuage’s interface4-7-8 Breathing
For settling racing thoughts before rest.
Inhale 4 · Hold 7 · Exhale 8
2-5 minutes
Your voice, your space
Reflect on how you feel, or leave a message for yourself when you need it later.
Begin a voice reflection
Record how you feel before, then return to reflect afterward.
How are you feeling before?
Say what is on your mind before you begin.
Record before check-inWhat has been taking up space in your mind?
How are you feeling?
From Feature-Led to Need-Led
As Nuage expanded, iteration focused less on adding functionality and more on making existing tools easier to enter, understand and act on. Three redesigns show how the product moved toward clearer intent, lower interaction effort and more actionable experiences.
From one page to clear account structure
All-in-one → Organized by purpose
Profile information, personal context and account actions shared one surface, making settings harder to scan as the product expanded.
Profile, preferences and plan information are separated into clear areas, while privacy and account actions remain accessible without competing with everyday profile editing.
As Nuage grew, the profile needed to support more than basic account details. Separating information by purpose made the page easier to scan and gave new settings somewhere predictable to live.
From insight to action
Analytics-first → Planning-first
Weekly Balance focused primarily on analysing how time had been distributed, making the experience informative but less useful for shaping the week itself.
Planning became the primary interaction. Users can organise time directly in the calendar, while summaries and insights remain available as supporting information.
Understanding a pattern is more useful when the user can act on it. Moving the calendar to the centre of the experience connects reflection with the next decision: how to spend time differently.
Making reflection feel lighter
Form-heavy → Guided and progressive
Reflection tools exposed multiple inputs, tags, controls and recording states at once. The functionality was available, but beginning a reflection required navigating more interface than the moment needed.
The redesigned flows establish a clearer sequence. Journal begins with a prompt and emotional check-in before optional details, while Voice Reflection guides users through distinct before and after stages.
Reflection already asks for emotional effort. The interface should not add unnecessary interaction effort before someone can begin.
From Immediate Support to Deeper Reflection
The final experience brings Nuage's different levels of support into one coherent system, from quick grounding in the moment to reflection, planning, and understanding patterns over time.
1 / 2Start With What You Need
The home experience gives people a simple starting point based on what feels supportive in the moment. They can move directly into breathing, reflection, or grounding without needing to understand the full product first.
1 / 2Support in the Moment
Breathing offers a low-effort way to slow down and regulate in the moment. Exercises are organized by purpose, allowing people to choose a guided practice that fits their current need without adding unnecessary decisions.
1 / 2Reflect Without Having to Write
Voice Reflection gives people another way to process what they are feeling when writing does not feel natural. A simple before-and-after check-in frames the reflection while keeping the experience focused on the person's own thoughts.
1 / 2Build Understanding Over Time
Learning extends Nuage beyond support in the moment with guided content around wellbeing and personal growth. Courses can be explored at the user's own pace, giving deeper understanding a place within the same connected experience.
What Designing Nuage Changed in My Process
Building Nuage reinforced that designing for wellbeing is not only about making an interface feel calm. The harder challenge is deciding how much choice, guidance and information a person can reasonably use in different moments.
Context changes usability
What feels simple in one moment can become demanding in another.
An interaction that works during calm reflection may create unnecessary cognitive load when someone is overwhelmed. This pushed the design toward different levels of interaction rather than one universal flow.
Choice has a cost
Choice is useful until choosing becomes work.
Adding more tools did not automatically make Nuage more supportive. Clear starting points and progressive disclosure became more important as the product expanded.
Personalization needs boundaries
More personal should not automatically mean more access.
Private reflections and AI guidance needed understandable separation. Personalization is more trustworthy when users can understand what information is — and is not — being used.
Progress is not the same as engagement
Product engagement and personal progress are not the same thing.
Progress mechanics should reinforce something the user intentionally wants to build. This is why Nuage uses streaks within Gentle Goals without turning returning to the product itself into a goal.
These are the areas I would validate next to understand how the system performs across different users, contexts and longer periods of use.