NAURA
How can dating feel safer and more supportive for neurodivergent individuals?
Designing nAura, a dating app concept intentionally built for neurodivergent users who often feel overlooked by traditional platforms. By prioritizing clarity, reassurance, and structured communication, nAura helps reduce anxiety and support more authentic connection. I led the end-to-end design process from research through high-fidelity UI and prototyping.
Platform
iOS & Android (Concept)
Role
UX / UI Designer
Timeline
4 weeks (2025)
Tools
Figma • Google Forms
Background
Dating can be overwhelming for neurodivergent individuals, with challenges like social anxiety, communication struggles, and sensory overload.
Most apps don’t account for these needs, leaving users feeling isolated or unseen.
nAura set out to change that by creating a calmer dating experience made with real users in mind.
Design Thinking Framework
I followed a Design Thinking approach throughout the nAura project, empathizing with users, defining key challenges, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing. Each phase was focused on reducing overwhelm, promoting emotional clarity, and supporting autonomy for neurodivergent users. This iterative process helped ensure the final design was both functional and deeply human-centered.
Primary Research: Competitive Analysis
To better understand the landscape of both neurodivergent-focused and mainstream dating platforms, I first conducted a competitive analysis of existing apps. My goal was to identify where current solutions succeed, where they fall short (particularly for neurodivergent users) and where there’s space for innovation.
My analysis revealed a significant opportunity:
There is currently no dating app that successfully combines neurodivergent-first accessibility with the user experience quality of mainstream platforms. Most options either lack critical support features or fail to foster genuine, low-pressure connection.
Primary Research: User Interviews
To better understand the needs and challenges of neurodivergent individuals in dating, I interviewed five participants with a range of lived experiences—including Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Social Anxiety.
Afterwards, I create an Affinity Map to synthesize the data:
💡 Key Themes & Insights
🧠 Overwhelm & UI Overload
Users feel overwhelmed by fast-paced, cluttered interfaces
💬 Communication Anxiety
Users feared being misunderstood, forgot to reply, or struggled with unclear tone and timing
🛡️ Need for Boundaries
Participants want quick ways to set communication boundaries
🛠️ Customization & Control
Customization (text size, brightness, audio options) reduces cognitive load
🎯 Feature Preferences
Built-in prompts & conversation guidance
Option to set intentions: friendship, romance, or both
Text-to-audio options, dark mode, and dyslexia-friendly layouts
These interviews helped validate many of my initial assumptions about communication support while introducing new perspectives, especially around the importance of reducing sensory and social pressure in dating spaces.
Research Synthesis
Research Synthesis
100% of participants felt overwhelmed by fast-paced, cluttered interfaces
80% experienced communication anxiety (fear of misunderstanding, delayed responses)
100% emphasized the need for clear boundary-setting tools
80% valued the ability to set relationship intentions (friendship, romance, or both)
Customization features (text size, dark mode, audio options) were frequently requested to reduce cognitive load
Research validated early assumptions about communication support and uncovered a deeper need for emotional nuance and sensory accessibility.
Define & Ideate
POV
Neurodivergent users feel anxious and stressed when starting or keeping conversations going due to unclear expectations and communication norms.
HMWs
How might we make conversations less stressful and easier to follow?
How might we provide clear, low-pressure ways to start conversations?
POV
Busy visuals and long blocks of text on dating apps overwhelm ND users and hinder connection.
HMWs
How might we create visually calm, accessible experiences?
How might we accommodate different sensory needs in app design?
POV
ND users often struggle to express boundaries, preferences, or traits, leading to discomfort and mismatches.
HMWs
How might we help users easily share boundaries and ND traits?
How might we normalize clear interaction preferences from the start?
Prioritization
After defining key opportunity areas through POVs and HMWs, I moved into ideation: brainstorming features that could directly address users’ emotional, sensory, and communication needs.
The initial list of features included:
AI Assistant for conversation support
Friend vs. Romance intention setting
Customizable trait and interest selection
Accessibility settings (dark mode, text scaling, reduced contrast)
Conversation prompts and icebreakers
Block/report functionality for safety
Mood/status indicators (explored, but later deprioritized)
Customizable communication preferences (e.g., "slow replier" tags)
Preview multiple profiles before opening full profile view
Gentle notification settings to reduce overwhelm
These ideas were then evaluated and prioritized using an Impact–Effort Matrix to determine which features would be included in the first prototype.
I created an Impact-Effort Matrix to evaluate and prioritize features based on user insights, accessibility needs, and feasibility.
High-impact, low-effort features such as block/report, conversation prompts, and gentle notifications were prioritized and implemented.
Some higher-effort concepts, like sensory settings (e.g., dark mode, reduced contrast), were thoughtfully considered and visually represented in the design, though not functional in the prototype due to time constraints.
Notably, the AI Assistant, originally assumed to be a high-effort feature, was successfully implemented in a lightweight form and included in the final high-fidelity designs.
After prioritizing key features, I mapped out nAura’s main user flows to guide the structure of the app.
I organized essential actions like discovering profiles, matching, and editing personal settings into a simplified sitemap, ensuring the experience stayed lightweight and easy to navigate.
User Flow
Sitemap
After mapping the structure and user flows, I moved into low-fidelity wireframes to visualize core interactions.
User Flow
Sitemap
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Usability Testing to validate core user flows:
Create Profile
Match with Someone
Message Someone
Edit Profile
Participants
5 neurodivergent users with varied traits and preferences
Format
Moderated remote sessions (~15 min)
User testing on the low-fidelity wireframes confirmed that the core structure and flows resonated with our participants.
Testers successfully completed key tasks like onboarding, profile creation, matching, and messaging with minimal friction, and they responded positively to the clarity of the layouts.
With this validation, I moved into high-fidelity design focusing on refining visual hierarchy, typography, and accessibility features like text scaling, sensory-friendly color palettes, and conversation support tools.
Usability Testing to validate core user flows:
Onboarding & Profile Creation
Discover & Match
Messaging & AI Assistant Interaction
View & Edit Profile
Preferences & Settings (font size, dark mode)
Participants
6 neurodivergent users with varied traits and preferences
Format
Moderated remote sessions (~60 min)
5/6: AI Assistant eased messaging
5/6: Profile layout felt intuitive
5/6: Visual design was calming
4/6: Understood friend vs. romance distinction
3/6: Text-heavy screens caused fatigue
3/6: Match flow unclear, no feedback
2/6: Would like to use Sensory Settings (Dark Mode, Fonts, etc.)
1/6: Felt 'Discover' label was misleading
Break up long forms / reduce test density
Add match confirmation / interaction feature
Implement Dark Mode feature and other Sensory Settings
Consider renaming 'Discover' label or changing the flow
User testing on the high-fidelity prototype surfaced areas where the experience still needed refinement.
While the overall structure was functional, feedback revealed opportunities to improve clarity, reduce cognitive load, and better support user autonomy.
Iterations
Menus collapsed by default to reduce visual clutter
Before
After
Before
After
Replaced red report icon in chat with a three-dot menu to avoid unintentionally alarming users and provide additional options like ‘Move to Friends’ and ‘Unmatch’
Added confirmation dialogs for key actions:
Profile creation
Matching
Saving profile changes
These were implemented to reduce uncertainty and reinforce task completion, providing reassurance for users who may struggle with ambiguity or ambivalence.
Redesigned Discover flow to preview multiple profiles before expanding into a full profile view.
Gives users more control and pacing when browsing
Reduces cognitive load by breaking up information
Enables low-pressure browsing by reducing decision fatigue.
UI Kit
Interactive Prototype
What's Next
Short-Term Priorities
Run another round of usability testing to validate flows like matching, messaging, and AI Assistant support
Make accessibility settings functional, including dark mode, reduced contrast, and font scaling
Refine onboarding to reduce cognitive load, likely using progressive disclosure and improved layout
Explore ways to communicate interaction preferences between matched users, helping set mutual expectations and promote a safer, more inclusive experience
Long-Term Goals
Expand the AI Assistant with tone adjustment, journaling prompts, and adaptive support
Build toward an MVP-ready prototype for testing with real neurodivergent communities
Introduce mood indicators that allow users to share their emotional availability or current headspace—promoting empathy and reducing pressure in conversations
Develop friendship-first features and non-romantic pathways
Continue centering ND voices in every iteration through direct feedback and co-creation
Reflections
Working on nAura felt like compressing a much larger product into four focused weeks. I had to make faster and more deliberate decisions than I was used to. There was no room to explore every promising direction. I had to identify what mattered most and commit.
This project was personal. Growing up with family members on the autism spectrum and an uncle with an intellectual disability shaped the perspective behind this concept and grounded it in real experiences.
I initially hesitated to include the AI assistant, concerned it would overcomplicate the experience. As the concept evolved, I saw that guided support added structure to early outreach, which was a major pain point for users. Other ideas, such as mood indicators, were intentionally set aside because they required more time to design responsibly.
What I gained from nAura was not just a polished concept, but the experience of delivering under constraint. It strengthened my ability to prioritize, simplify, and move a product forward within a fixed window.
