User Case: Robyn
I worked as a short-term contractor for Robyn, an AI app founded by a Harvard-trained doctor. Think of it as an emotionally intelligent assistant that helps you make sense of your feelings and build better habits. It’s backed by top investors like M13 and even the co-founder of Google Maps.
The app already existed and even had users, but most of them were dropping off before completing onboarding. The main issues? UX and branding. Gen Z didn’t feel represented and weren’t willing to waste their time finishing the signup process.
Old Robyn Design
So I focused on a full rebrand. From dull and lifeless to colorful and vibrant.
I experimented with AI to generate playful patterns using bird-inspired elements, like feathers. The goal was to keep an abstract, modern style while giving the brand more personality.
Take a look and judge for yourself.
I ran several color tests and presented them in different review sessions with the team, always keeping in mind enough contrast for both text and future content.
From the selected designs, we experimented further to lock in the perfect color palette for the brand. I also explored abstract human-inspired figures to bring more personality and create a stronger emotional connection with users, helping them feel represented within the product. The challenge was to create the new branding but with Robyn, the bird, always in mind, because they will co-live.
I also experimented with button designs.
Here are some of the final winners that were later introduced into the design system.
The idea was to keep the main CTAs in white to stand out clearly, while using subtle blur effects for secondary buttons, making sure they didn’t compete with the colorful branding in the background.
We had a clear direction for typography: Be Vietnam Pro, the font already used in the previous app. The team wanted to keep it, but it lacked the strength needed for large headlines. To fix this, we introduced Montserrat, giving titles the bold presence they needed while keeping Be Vietnam Pro for body text.
My main tasks were to create the new branding, improve the onboarding flow, and design the chat , the core screen where users interact with Robyn.
For the chat, I ran an exploration of layouts by studying how other AI apps like Grok, ChatGPT, and Claude approached conversation design.
We started with early low-fidelity wireframes to explore the structure of each screen and how content should be displayed.
After that, I moved on to building a full design system in Figma, setting up all the components needed for both onboarding and chat flows. From there, I created high-fidelity versions of every screen, while constantly iterating during daily calls with the CEO (the project manager) to collect feedback and refine the designs.
