UR Health Companion Mobile App

UR Health Mobile bridges school therapy and home rehab with AR and an AI dragon.

Role:

Product designer

Timeline

3 months

Team :

1 Graphic designer, 2 Game Developer

Engagement Time achieved

Engagement

Time achieved

Telemetry Comprehension

Learning goal completion

Context :

UR Health connects VR school sessions with AR home exercises, turning clinical drills into fun AI-powered games with simple parent guidance.

My contribution:

Recognizing that the original scope wouldn’t fully address the learning gaps, I expanded my role to redesign the UX and align cross-functional teams.

Problem

Students spend hours studying, leading to posture-related pain but staying consistent with physical therapy is often the biggest challenge.

Why this problem mattered?

Live Peace of Mind: Parents get immediate, scannable updates on daily wins, eliminating end-of-day homework battles.

66% drop-off rate due to boring, repetitive paper assignments.

80% Engagement Surge via Gamification ( Yeah they love it )

Nearly 3 out of 4 home therapy programs are abandoned

The Challenge:

UR Health combines school-based VR therapy with a mobile app, but maintaining children’s therapy engagement at home remains a key challenge.

Design Goal :

Gamify Clinical Protocols into Intuitive Play and without exercise drop-off.

Eliminate Friction & Provide Reassuring Oversight for parents

Data synchronization between school VR telemetry and mobile home assignments.

AR quests centered around an AI Dragon Companion.

🎮 Gamify Clinical Protocols into Intuitive Play and without exercise drop-off.

💆🏻‍♀️ Eliminate Friction & Provide Reassuring Oversight for parents

💪🏼Data synchronization between school VR telemetry and mobile home assignments.

🎯AR quests centered around an AI Dragon Companion.

research practice:

Listening, not assuming - 12 families

Qualitative Discoveries

Observation:

Children stayed engaged for only 3.5 minutes before showing frustration or distraction.

Behavioural pattern:

Parents stepping in to remind children made 75% of sessions feel adversarial rather than supportive.

82% of parents report that managing home exercise routines causes daily family friction and stress.

Listening, not assuming - 12 families

Qualitative Discoveries

Observation: Children engaged 3.5 minutes before displaying signs of frustration, boredom, or distraction.

75% of sessions turned adversarial when parents stepped in to correct or remind children.

Finding: 82% of parents report that managing home exercise routines causes daily family friction and stress.

Mapping

Unified Ecosystem Architecture:

Loop A: School → Home

Student completes a VR session.
Telemetry syncs to the cloud.
Metrics auto-configure home AR quests.

Loop B: Parent → Child

Parent gets a quest notification.
Child completes it with the AI Dragon.
Performance data syncs with parent and therapist dashboards.

research practice:

Listening, not assuming - 12 families

Qualitative Discoveries

Observation:

Children stayed engaged for only 3.5 minutes before showing frustration or distraction.

Behavioural pattern:

Parents stepping in to remind children made 75% of sessions feel adversarial rather than supportive.

82% of parents report that managing home exercise routines causes daily family friction and stress.

Listening, not assuming - 12 families

Qualitative Discoveries

Observation: Children engaged 3.5 minutes before displaying signs of frustration, boredom, or distraction.

75% of sessions turned adversarial when parents stepped in to correct or remind children.

Finding: 82% of parents report that managing home exercise routines causes daily family friction and stress.

Mapping

Unified Ecosystem Architecture:

Loop A: School → Home

Student completes a VR session.
Telemetry syncs to the cloud.
Metrics auto-configure home AR quests.

Loop B: Parent → Child

Parent gets a quest notification.
Child completes it with the AI Dragon.
Performance data syncs with parent and therapist dashboards.

Scalling Exploration:

Why it fails :

This version makes the assignment part of a larger learning experience rather than the entire experience.

Why it fails ::

After looking at the screen, a parent doesn't know what action to take. want: What happened? → How is my child doing? → What should I do?

The outcome
The student immediately knows what they need to do today, rather than having to interpret performance data.

To address the UX bottlenecks found in the V1 interface, the redesign systematically shifted the experience from a generic dashboard to an immersive, companion-first therapy environment.

Just a tiny nibble 😋

Positive Reinforcement Loop: Built a shared reward system (Badges & Trophies) that turns clinical compliance into moments of family celebration.

FINAL SOLUTION:

🤫 Zero-Gaps School Sync: Connected therapist-assigned tasks directly to the parent dashboard, eliminating home routine guesswork..

Converted complex cognitive and behavioral metrics into simple, visual health scorecards (Cognitive, Behavioral, Calmness).

Key Impact for Parents

Turning Onboarding into Personal Empowerment For students ;

Children form a stronger connection to daily goals when they see a customized reflection of themselves progressing, earning accessories, and unlocking achievements across quests.

Safe, Non-Judgmental Soundboard :
The mascot listens patiently and responds with encouraging animations, reducing performance pressure and fear of making mistakes.

Impact: Detects early signs of cognitive fatigue or frustration, allowing the system to dynamically soften quest difficulty before a burnout meltdown occurs.

🤩 Safe, Non-Judgmental Soundboard :
The mascot listens patiently and responds with encouraging animations, reducing performance pressure and fear of making mistakes.

Interactive Talking AI Dragon

Adding new UX to shape the story

UR Health combines school-based VR therapy with a mobile app, but maintaining children’s therapy engagement at home remains a key challenge.

Design Goal :

Mental Health Safety Net: AI Dragon turns voice insights into simple guidance for parents.

AI Dragon to passievely detects distress and alerts parents.

Challange :

Alerting parents about negative thoughts without making the child feel watched or turning the AI companion into a "spy."

Differentiating between actual emotional distress and play-acting, silly, or ambient background noise during activegames.

solution

To safeguard child trust while keeping parents informed, the system combines real-time empathetic support with multi-session sentiment monitoring.

How did it go?

We conducted usability testing with 12 school children (ages 6–10) and their caregivers to evaluate avatar customization, AR micro-quest flows, and real-time engagement during routine home practice.

Maya lin

6th grade

I didn't know what to do at first when the app started listening, but then my avatar gave me a hint and it was super easy

Devan

4th grade

"WHOO" the Dragon moves when I move! Can I keep playing this after we leave?

Devan

4th grade

"WHOO" the Dragon moves when I move! Can I keep playing this after we leave?

Maya lin

6th grade

I didn't know what to do at first when the app started listening, but then my avatar gave me a hint and it was super easy

Maya lin

6th grade

I didn't know what to do at first when the app started listening, but then my avatar gave me a hint and it was super easy

Anjali Mohan

Parent

He was immediately hooked by the setup. Since it was his first time, he needed a bit of help figuring out where to tap next, but the excitement was definitely there.

Anjali Mohan

Parent

He was immediately hooked by the setup. Since it was his first time, he needed a bit of help figuring out where to tap next, but the excitement was definitely there.

Vaibhav

parent

First impressions were great. She was surprised that the game responded to her voice so quickly, though the initial tutorial felt a little fast for a first-timer.

Vaibhav

parent

First impressions were great. She was surprised that the game responded to her voice so quickly, though the initial tutorial felt a little fast for a first-timer.

Vaibhav

parent

First impressions were great. She was surprised that the game responded to her voice so quickly, though the initial tutorial felt a little fast for a first-timer.

Anjali Mohan

Parent

He was immediately hooked by the setup. Since it was his first time, he needed a bit of help figuring out where to tap next, but the excitement was definitely there.

The trial showed that avatar-based therapy bridges school and home, turning chores into engaging, self-directed quests.

Engagement Time achieved

Telemetry Comprehension

Learning goal completion

Learnings:

Accepted that real homes aren't quiet UX testing labs, so if an app can’t handle a screaming sibling, a sudden juice spill, it’s back to the drawing board.

What could have been improved:

Testing focused primarily on first-time usage and initial impressions. Conducting a multi-week study would yield clearer insights into long-term game retention and feature fatigue.

Context :

UR Health bridges school VR clinical sessions with at-home AR exercises. It transforms speech, cognitive, and motor drills into fun games led by an AI Dragon Companion, turning clinical data into simple tips for parents.

My contribution:

Recognizing that the original scope wouldn’t fully address the learning gaps, I expanded my role to redesign the UX and align cross-functional teams.

Problem

Students spend hours studying, leading to posture-related pain but staying consistent with physical therapy is often the biggest challenge.