Designing for Digital Closure
The Challenge
Breakups often collapse at the level of communication. Digital platforms intensify emotional speed, while healing remains non-linear and embodied, and physical regulation matters. Repose responds to this gap by designing pace as an interaction principle: creating space between feeling and sending, and supporting regulation before expression.
Research Question
“How might interaction design support digital closure, helping people communicate gently and process endings at their own pace?”
Project Involvement
- Research
- Concept
- Art Direction
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Interaction Design
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UX Writing
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Visual Design
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Testing Synthesis
Deliverables
- Research + synthesis
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Archetypes + user flow
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Low-fidelity prototype
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Testing + iteration log
- High-fidelity prototype
- Accessibility checks
Context
MA Interaction Design, NCAD
MA Interaction Design, NCAD
Research & Synthesis
Methods:
- In-depth interviews + 10+ survey responses synthesised into an empathy map and themes.
- Group analysis through story sharing, affinity diagramming, and How Might We reframing to identify opportunities around closure, supportive communication, and rediscovering self.
What the research revealed:
- Breakups collapse at communication.
- Digital platforms intensify emotional speed.
- Healing is non-linear.
- Physical regulation matters.
Who it’s for:
Research surfaced four emotional archetypes: each with a distinct rhythm and relationship to closure: The Seeker, The Self-Renewer, The Romantic, and The Avoidant. Repose adapts through tone, pacing, and prompts to meet those needs.
Rather than prescribing one “correct” breakup pathway, Repose is designed as a supportive companion: enabling expression without performance, language without escalation, and closure without pressure.
The Concept
Five phases:
- Reveal: noticing emotion without words.
- Release: transforming inner dialogue into private expression.
- Reframe: discovering calm, balanced phrasing for difficult conversations.
- Regulate: grounding the body before moving toward closure.
- Renew: downloading a summary of the journey and choosing gentle closure.
User Flow & Core Tools
Repose is designed around fast entry into a calm state, then optional deepening.
- Onboarding establishes privacy and intent (reflection and release, not therapy).
- Repose Centre provides a grounded home base and clarifies the non-linear journey.
- User selects a phase/tool based on current emotional state
(Reveal → Release → Reframe → Regulate → Renew). - Pause vs Let Go offers autonomy without interrogation: users can stop, return later, or close a chapter.
Prototyping
Testing
Repose was tested across low-fi paper, mid-fi, and hi-fi prototypes against tone, pacing, and navigation clarity. Users described it as “soothing,” “non-judgmental,” and “emotionally intelligent,” reinforcing that people value autonomy and pacing during reflection.
Iterations
Onboarding tone (trust + boundaries)
In testing, users responded positively to the onboarding message “Your space, your privacy,” describing it as safe and calm. To protect that sense of trust while setting appropriate expectations, I kept the tone gentle and validating and added a clear boundary: “This space is for reflection and release, not for therapy.” This strengthened expectation-setting at entry and increased user confidence in what the app is for.
Reveal pacing (reduce pressure)
“Enter quietly” was consistently read as calming, but two testers asked for more visual breathing space at this early stage. In response, I increased whitespace, reduced text density, and introduced a 24-hour gap cue to slow the perceived tempo of the experience. This reinforced the idea of pace as care and reduced the urgency users felt to move forward too quickly.
Navigation clarity (tools vs journey)
Some users were unsure whether they were navigating a set of tools or a structured journey, but the word “Centre” felt grounding and intuitive as a home base. I rebranded the home dashboard as the Repose Centre and added a short explanation paragraph to clarify how the experience works. This created a clearer mental model: a place to return to when needed, rather than a checklist to complete.
Pause vs Let Go (remove judgement)
Users valued having the option to pause, but reacted negatively to being asked “why,” which introduced a sense of judgment at a sensitive point. I removed the forced explanation and replaced it with softer, optional options such as “Taking space” and “Ready to close.” This preserved autonomy in the flow and made the decision point feel supportive rather than interrogative.
Microcopy & restraint (companionship tone)
Micro-interactions like “You’re here” and “In your own time” were described as human by 4 out of 5 testers, reinforcing that tone was doing meaningful work in the experience. I retained the empathetic microcopy and reduced notifications to maintain a quiet, non-demanding presence. This strengthened the “companion, not coach” feel and supported a calmer relationship between the user and the app.
Visual Language & Accessibility
Typography plays a central role in setting tone. Serial Blur was chosen for its softness and contemporary balance: legible yet gentle, with headings that feel grounded and assured without becoming dominant. Body text is kept calm and readable to support longer, reflective interactions, while the overall typographic rhythm reinforces the idea of moving through the experience in your own time.
Accessibility was integrated into the system's care logic, not an afterthought. Key colour pairings were checked for contrast to ensure text remains readable across contexts, achieving AA/AAA outcomes across multiple combinations. This helps the interface remain inclusive and reliable, particularly in emotionally sensitive moments where clarity is most crucial.
Outcome & Reflection
Building Repose also clarified for me that “calm” is not a visual style; it is a structural decision. A key learning was how quickly tone can shift when the interface asks for justification, gives too many options, or moves users forward too fast. Much of the trial and error in this project came down to reducing judgment and reducing demand: rewriting microcopy until it felt permissive rather than prescriptive, simplifying decision points, and rebalancing density and whitespace so the experience could breathe. Iteration showed that small choices, like naming the home as a “Centre,” removing “why” questions, or adding a pacing cue, had an outsized impact on how supported users felt.
The project strengthened my approach to care-oriented interaction design: grounding conceptual intentions in concrete mechanics, testing for emotional tone as much as usability, and treating accessibility and clarity as part of the care logic rather than a final check. If I were to take Repose further, I would run longer-term testing to understand how people return to the tools over time, and explore a “sunsetting” approach that supports letting go rather than ongoing dependence.