Personal project
2025
Beat doomscrolling with joy handed on a silver platter
Mobile News Recap App: Delivering Positivity to Users in a World of News Fatigue
Overview
People are tired of bad news
This independent UX project explores a bite-sized, emotionally uplifting news app that counteracts news fatigue and the mental health impacts of constant negative coverage by delivering short, daily positive stories in a micro-feed format. Centered on one primary user flow—browsing a curated feed of optimistic headlines, opening stories, and saving them for later—the concept emphasizes emotional design, using calming visuals, micro-interactions, and supportive copy to foster joy, hope, and ongoing engagement.
The competitive landscape includes traditional news outlets and positive-news-specific apps, yet this project focuses on a lightweight, ad-free, highly intentional experience that prioritizes mental well-being over breadth of coverage. Although this first-iteration prototype does not implement monetization, common app and news monetization models such as subscriptions, freemium tiers, and sponsorships were reviewed to understand how future revenue features could be integrated without undermining the positive, low-friction user experience.
Highlights
Challenge: Alleviate news fatigue and increase delivery of positive news to users
Tools: Figma, Figma Make, FigJam, Perplexity, Google Docs/Sheets/Meet
Outcome: High-fidelity prototype showcasing a streamlined user flow: browse → read → save, with a focus on emotional design and low cognitive load
Secondary Research
Breaking news tends to be bad news, and news outlets pushes those to users
To ground this project in real-world user needs, I examined academic and industry research on news consumption patterns and their psychological effects. The data revealed a crisis in how people engage with news.
The Problem is Widespread:
50-70% of users report experiencing fatigue from negative news coverage, describing feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and emotional exhaustion.
36% actively engage in news avoidance behaviors, completely disconnecting from current events to protect their mental health.
This creates a lose-lose scenario: people either experience emotional harm from constant negative coverage or feel guilty and uninformed from avoiding news entirely.
The Opportunity is Clear:
Exposure to positive news increases user satisfaction by 30-40%.
Positive news content reduces avoidance behaviors by 20-30%, helping people stay connected to current events..
Engagement with positive news is up to 50% higher compared to negative news
60% of users report feeling more informed and hopeful when consuming positive news regularly.
These findings confirm that users seek not less news, but better experiences—KindCaps responds by making positive news consumption a mindful, joyful practice.
I also investigated principles of emotional design and positive psychology to understand how digital products can support well-being. Key findings included the importance of micro-interactions, calming color palettes, and encouraging language in creating experiences that feel supportive rather than overwhelming.
Competitive Research
A competitive audit of ten apps revealed:
Direct competitors (such as Goodable, Squirrel News, Good News Network) often overwhelm users with clutter and ads, undermining their positive mission.
Indirect competitors (The New Yorker, NYT, Washington Post, Apple News) offer occasional positive sections but skew negative due to breaking news focus.
KindCaps fills the gap with a calming, intentional interface and curated content, treating news consumption as a mindful ritual.
Personas
User Flow & Journey
KindCaps focuses on a single, low-friction loop—browse → view headline AI summary → optionally save—plus a parallel loop for revisiting saved stories. The core flow is intentionally simple to reduce cognitive load and support consistent, low-effort engagement.
User journey mapping shows that KindCaps’ value for Sam is not just in single sessions but in forming a lightweight ritual: quick discovery, fast comprehension via AI summaries, and a persistent archive of uplifting stories.
Ideate
Sketching and creating the skeleton
Crazy 8s
Using the Crazy 8's method, I generated eight distinct interface concepts in eight minutes, pushing beyond conventional news app patterns. Explorations included:
This rapid ideation reinforced that simpler patterns aligned best with the app’s calming mission, with the strongest concepts emphasizing white space, gentle animations, and a clear visual hierarchy.
Wireframes & Lo-Fi Prototype
The strongest sketches were translated into digital wireframes, defining the core information architecture and interaction patterns. The low fidelity prototype focused on three primary screens:
Home Feed: A scrollable list of headline cards with accompanying graphic designs.
Story View: A clean, distraction-free reading experience, full articles summarized with an AI agent, and a link to the full article for optional further reading.
Saved Stories: A positivity archive for revisiting uplifting content.
Design System
The design system is built to evoke warmth, hope, and calm.
Every element ties back to the core mission: creating a news experience that feels like a breath of fresh air.
Design
Mockups and high fidelity prototyping
Explore the first‑iteration high-fidelity prototype by clicking the link! The mockups and hi-fi translate the research-informed strategy into an intentional, focused interface that encourages users to build a joyful practice of catching up on positive news from around the world.
Business
How do you ethically monetize happiness?
The success criteria for KindCaps focus on both behavior and emotion:
Addressing the core problem: Target users like Sam, who experience news fatigue or avoid news altogether, by providing a low-friction positive alternative.
Behavioral metrics: Daily active users, weekly retention, average session duration (2–5 minutes), stories read and saved per session, and share rate.
Emotional impact: Optional mood check-ins, satisfaction ratings, and qualitative feedback to track how often users feel more hopeful and informed after usage.
Future monetization concepts (freemium tiers, corporate wellness partnerships, and ethical sponsorships) are designed to support sustainability while preserving an ad-free, low-clutter experience for users like Sam.
Lessons
Sometimes vibes are the KPI
Learnings
Simplicity is a feature, not a limitation: Removing filters, comments, and discussion threads kept the experience aligned with Sam’s need for low-effort, uplifting content.
Emotional design requires intentionality: Microcopy, motion, and states all contribute to or detract from a calming experience.
Positive news must feel authentic: Users respond best to uplifting stories that acknowledge real-world context rather than “toxic positivity.”
Monetization and mission can coexist: Exploring business models early help ensure that future revenue strategies would not erode trust or increase cognitive load.
Designing for mental health requires humility: Research and best practices are essential, and future iterations should involve mental health professionals and ongoing user feedback.
Next Steps
Conducting usability testing with a diverse participant group to validate accessibility and cultural considerations.
Exploring content sourcing and curation pipelines, including editorial standards and fact-checking.
Designing an onboarding flow that lets users like Sam set preferences for timing, categories, and notifications.
Testing personalization that adapts to user behavior without creating filter bubbles.
Implementing analytics and feedback mechanisms that track impact alongside engagement.
Investigating partnerships and new contexts (e.g., workplace wellness, healthcare, education) where a positive news ritual could support well-being at scale
Let's get in touch!
Citations
Designlab. (2024, March 27). The impact of emotional design on user engagement. Designlab Blog.
Desmet, P. M. A. (2003). A multilayered model of product emotions. The Design Journal, 6(2), 4–13.
Hassenzahl, M. (2004). The interplay of beauty, goodness, and usability in interactive products. Human–Computer Interaction, 19(4), 319–349.
Newman, N., Ross Arguedas, A., Robertson, C. T., Nielsen, R. K., & Fletcher, R. (2025). Digital News Report 2025. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. (2025, June 15). German findings of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025. Hamburg: Leibniz Institute for Media Research (HBI).
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. (2024, June 15). More people turning away from news, Reuters Institute report says. BBC News.
Constructive Institute. (2024). What are the effects of constructive journalism? Aarhus: Constructive Institute.
Park, B., Knörzer, L., Plass, J. L., & Brünken, R. (2015). Emotional design and elaboration in multimedia learning. Learning and Instruction, 40, 11–20.
Chitturi, R., Raghunathan, R., & Mahajan, V. (2008). Delight by design: The role of hedonic versus utilitarian benefits. Journal of Marketing, 72(3), 48–63.
