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When Anime For Humanity (AFH), a nonprofit supporting mental wellness through fandom, wanted to scale its in-person mental health outreach into a digital platform, we built Anime Self-Care: a 0→1, first-of-its-kind wellness product that blends behavioral health strategies with the power of anime fandom. I helped lead product strategy, interaction design, and research over 15 months.
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1 in 3 fans use anime as emotional lifelines, yet every time they try a mainstream self‑care app, it feels out of sync with their passion.
Engagement drops and stress loops continue.
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Short, low-pressure quiz that tailors self-care recommendations to mood, energy level, and emotional goals.
Turn wellness practices into interactive, anime-inspired ‘trainings’, making building healthy habits engaging, relatable, and fun.
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Users create a “Protagonist” avatar that evolves with progress, while key milestones unlock badges that gently reinforce effort and growth.
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"I can't say enough good things about Emily’s skills and the impact she had on our project. She really understood the anime community's world. The wireframes and prototypes she came up with were spot on and shaped the whole direction of the app, it set a strong foundation for the development team to build upon"
We kicked off the project with a cross-functional assumption mapping workshop to align on key uncertainties and focus our research. From there, we explored the problem space through literature reviews, secondary research, and 20+ interviews with anime fans.
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Top 3 things we needed to learn from fans
Fans don’t just watch anime, they pick specific shows with clear emotional goals (comfort during stress, inspiration when motivation lags).
Conventions and online spaces offer real support and belonging where traditional systems fail.
Many fans want to build better habits but lack structure, encouragement, or tools that resonate with their daily lives.
"I have a major mental disorder and anime gets me through each night. I can forget about my problems at least until I stop watching"
"Welcome to the NHK helped me with finding the motivation to keep applying for jobs and not just stay home after graduating"
"...having anime characters with similar stories I could relate to gave me hope to keep going and helped me realize that the rough times will pass"
The top-ranking self-care apps had a common feature offering that centered around habit formation. I paid particular attention to how they applied gamification and behavioral science principles.
Small, daily tasks ladder up to bigger goals, creating momentum that sticks.
Activities are framed as missions or quests, using narrative to drive engagement.
Current self-care apps ignore niche communities like anime fans.
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Our opportunity: Take these proven mechanics and make them culturally relevant for anime fans.
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Make wellness feel as compelling as an anime arc, so users stick with it and feel supported?
We hosted a cross-functional “How Might We” workshop to define the smallest set of features required to test the following hypothesis:
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Success metrics: at least 60% of participants report feeling less stressed after engaging in the activity, and at least 50% express interest in doing the activity again.
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Onboarding Questionnaire: Questions to tailor self-care recommendations based on needs.
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Interactive 'Trainings': Guided evidence-based exercises reframed as anime quests.
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Progress + Rewards: Simple achievement badges to reinforce every win.
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Avatar Creator: Custom “Protagonist” avatar that evolves with progress.
The perfect place to test our MVP? A hectic anime convention. It would let us reach the most fans — right at the moment when they often feel overwhelmed. If 60% of fans feel calmer after a stress-reducing activity and want more, we’ll know we’re on the right track.
With our features defined I ran a Crazy 8s workshop to generate divergent concepts, then distilled the strongest ideas into wireframes and a clickable prototype for concept testing.
A mobile-first approach ensured content was prioritized, the structure was intuitive, and key functionality was communicated clearly for development.
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Geek therapists are mental health clinicians who use fandom (like anime and video games) to make therapy more relatable for their clients.
Insights from 1:1 interviews with our Geek Therapists inspired Anime Reflections, a guided journaling feature where users draw meaning from shows they love.
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Each designer conducted a 1:1 expert interview with a geek therapist where we discovered a recurring recommendation: use anime the way geek therapists do—by helping people reflect on their own experiences through story parallels.
We conducted pre-test interviews to gather feedback on previous experiences with mental health apps, understand what attracts viewers to anime, and assess openness to using anime as a self-care tool. Post-test interviews were then used to gauge interest, capture likes and dislikes, and collect overall impressions and suggestions for improvement.
"My concern is that in the current phrasing of 'productive' or 'didn't work out' to be further stigmatizing"
- Kristi (Geek Therapist)
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"I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do now"
- Nick (Usability Test Participant)
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Early on, I worked too independently due to remote schedules and async workflows. It led to rework that could’ve been avoided. I learned how valuable it is to get quick, early feedback from teammates and users, it saves time and leads to better ideas.
Inclusive design isn’t just about accessibility checklists, it’s about challenging assumptions and embedding lived experience into every layer of the product.
Looping in engineers early helped us figure out what was possible before we got too far. It made the process smoother and helped us stay creative without getting blocked later on.