Project background
People with opioid use disorder have difficulty with impulse control, which makes their recovery more challenging.
Goal
The activity that helps patients control their impulses, which is useful during cravings.
My role
Senior Product Designer
Visual design
UX flow mapping
Motion direction
User research synthesis
Team
Product Managers
Engineers
Science
Legal team
Regulatory team
QA
Timeline
October 2023 - October 2024
10/23 - 02/24 Discovery and research
02/24 - 05/24 Concept testing
06/24 - 10/24 UI and dev handoff
Solution
Go/No-go is a therapeutic game that helps patients learn to withhold responses on No/go trials. Patients are asked to interact with positive and neutral words while avoiding words associated with their condition.
Onboarding
Onboarding is crucial for treatment, as it educates first-time users on the benefits and effective use of the product.
Practice round
Even after onboarding, some participants faced challenges with the activity.
Confusion arose over task execution. Testing feedback indicated a need for clearer instructions or more support.
Working memory words
An additional activity within Go No/go that works on improving memory.
Score
Participants want to track their performance. The Training Score at the end of the activity displays statistics on each patient’s progress.
How does it help the patient
Autonomy - This activity helps patients feel accomplished
Working Memory - Improving memory
Impulse Control - helps practice the ability to not react to triggers
Engagement - Both a distraction tool and game like experience
Cravings Management - reduces automatic responses to triggers and serves as a distraction tool
How it started - discovery and research
The user research phase lasted 9 months
Conducted 50+ patient and peer advisor interviews. I served as research moderator and note-taker.
“I’m interested in the finer details of the science behind these exercises. Whether these are conducted in clinical studies or what.” - Research participant
Early design explorations
Initial ideas stem from feedback from the science team and user interviews. The design presents patients with "neutral" and "negative" stimuli.
Wireframes onboarding - user testing
These designs were created during the exploration phase and helped gather valuable user research insights.
Iterations
Updates came from user feedback. The first version was too long and text-heavy, making onboarding tiring.
User testing
User testing revealed a desire for more performance and progress details. We added extra score information and exploration options.
Design system
Design system components annotation, and dev handoff
User journeys
Next steps - future concepts
Early explorations for the next steps. In order to make the game more engaging, we wanted to introduce different themes and animations.
Outcomes
Survey: Number of participants - 100
75% are very interested in using Go No/go
70% would use it daily
The solution was shaped through deep, iterative engagement with users. Our exploratory research uncovered critical emotional and logistical pain points, which we translated into targeted features.
Each round of testing sharpened the product’s clarity, language, design, and feature set. The result is a tool built not only for recovery but with those in recovery, every step of the way.
Multiple research rounds led to a prioritized feature set grounded in lived experience.
Concept interest exceeded 75% in all rounds.
Preference insights refined our UI and visual tone; users favored clarity, calm design, and flexible goal-setting.
Scientific explanations for tools (like Go/No-Go) improved credibility and user buy-in.
Final product direction centers on science-backed, empathetic, and adaptive support positioned to meet real recovery needs at scale.