Airy
Airy helps therapists reduce admin work and stay more present with clients, while giving clients the between-session support many therapy tools overlook.
Role
Product Designer
UX Researcher
Timeline
Mar-June 2025
Team
Eva Ford
Ramya Ramesh
Krishna Suresh
Xinran Li
Problem
Both therapists and clients face gaps in how therapy is documented and experienced. Together, these gaps create a disconnect that weakens the overall value of therapy.
Therapists juggle presence and documentation. Manual note taking disrupts sessions, and past notes are hard to search and synthesize over time. Between sessions, supporting clients while maintaining boundaries adds strain.
For clients, therapy often feels limited to the session, with little support in between. When progress is hard to see over time, growth can feel slow and motivation can fade.
What if therapy could extend beyond the session, bridging insights, progress, and care between therapist and client in one continuous experience?
Research
Before designing anything new, we looked closely at existing tools therapists and clients rely on today. While these products solve specific problems well, none fully support the therapistβclient relationship as a continuous system.
Across competitors, we identified four consistent gaps that shaped our direction.
Interviewing Stakeholders
We interviewed 4 licensed clinical therapists, 3 graduate psychology students, and 6 clients who had participated in online therapy within the past year to understand both sides of the therapeutic experience. We focused on how therapy is documented, experienced, and supported over time.
Therapists saidβ¦
Clients saidβ¦
Key Pain Points
Through research, we uncovered key insights and a core tension between therapists and clients in how progress and support are experienced.
For Therapists:
Manual note-taking interrupts the flow of sessions.
Difficult to track long-term client progress at a glance.
Valuable insights are buried in raw, unstructured notes.
For Clients:
Therapy feels confined to the 50-minute session.
Lack of support between sessions.
Hard to visualize or feel progress.
Question the value or effectiveness of therapy over time
Tension!
Therapists value clear boundaries and efficient workflows that protect their time, while clients seek continuity to feel supported between sessions.
Our solution needs to extend the impact of therapy without increasing therapist workload or compromising ethical care.
Idea Generation
Therapy progress is often subtle and nonlinear, so it is hard to measure from one session to the next. Therapists rely on scattered notes and memory to spot patterns over time, making progress tracking harder than it should be.
Turning User Needs into Business Impact
To ground the work in measurable outcomes, my team and I started with a business requirements document that defined the scope and success metrics. Airy targets a clear opportunity:
π Client Retention
Increase between-session engagement and long-term continuity through insights, nudges, and progress tracking.
π Therapist Efficiency
Reduce administrative drag, streamline documentation, and free therapists to focus on care rather than logistics.
The long-term vision: an intelligent care ecosystem!
Airy has an opportunity to grow beyond workflow support and become the connective layer across therapists, clients, and clinics.
The MVP lays the groundwork with core subscription value, while premium AI insights and clinic-level analytics create a scalable path toward a full, data-driven ecosystem for modern mental healthcare.
Iterations & Usability Testing
In early conversations with therapists, we learned that the dashboard needed to help them understand what mattered most in the moment. We explored several dashboard layouts to test how tasks, alerts, and client context would be the most helpful.
I conducted usability testing across three iterations to evaluate what worked well and what didn't. Rather than prioritizing information density, I focused on clarity and prioritization of key information. These tests guided the final direction of the therapist dashboard.
First Iteration:
β Clear at-a-glance
β Layout lacks urgency hierarchy
β Client Check-in and daily task list is visually flat
Second Iteration:
β Clearer action framing
β Color code doesn't reflect urgent tasks across interface
β Therapist has to scan multiple zones to build context
Final Iteration:
β Clear hierarchy of urgency (Tasks β Alerts β Notifications)
β High-risk alerts are clearly labeled
β Helps therapists notice client progress without demanding too much attention
Once a session begins, therapists can quickly pull up past notes or homework for context. I explored how AI could support sessions while preserving therapist control.
Through iteration, the design shifted from feeling AI-led to giving therapists more choice and flexibility.
First Iteration:
β AI felt too central to the experience, pulling attention away from the client
Final Iteration:
β Offer optional AI support
β Expandable interface that adapts to individual therapist workflows
AI Synthesis tool after session:
Early iterations that foregrounded AI outputs felt distracting and rigid, making it harder for therapists to focus on their own notes and judgment. Through iteration, we repositioned AI as optional, contextual support that enhances understanding without driving the experience.
First Iteration:
β Difficult to scan
β AI outputs felt primary while therapist-authored notes felt secondary
Second Iteration:
β Clear separation between notes list, note detail, and AI assistance
β AI tool compete for attention
Final Iteration:
β Primary focus on therapist-authored notes and session detail
β Clear, linear reading experience that supports clinical reflection
Solution
Therapists' day at a glance
A focused dashboard that surfaces todayβs sessions, recent notes, and client flags so therapists know exactly where to start without digging or context switching.
Notes without interruption
Structured session notes are generated automatically, allowing therapists to stay present during sessions and review, edit, or refine documentation afterward.
Patterns over time
Key themes and trends are surfaced across sessions, helping therapists track progress and spot insights without manually searching through past notes.
Support between sessions
Therapist-curated prompts and gentle check-ins help clients reflect and stay engaged between sessions, without creating extra messaging or boundary strain.
Lightweight, intentional touchpoints for clients
Airy offers therapist-curated nudges: lightweight check-ins and prompts that support clients between sessions without overstepping boundaries.
Optional mini sessions
Therapists can enable short, focused sessions for clients who need extra support, offering timely care without committing to a full appointment or disrupting boundaries.
Next Steps and Reflection
Pressure test trust, privacy, and governance
Define clear privacy and permission settings for each client, along with a record of what AI can access and do. Make sure the default settings are safe and privacy-conscious, so therapists can use AI without worrying about trust or legal risk.
Validate in real clinical workflows
Test Airy with therapists across different session types to see when AI helps and when it distracts. This would clarify what optional AI support should look like in practice.
Design for edge cases and system scale
Expand for group therapy, crisis language, minors, and multi provider care, where documentation and follow up rules differ. Explore integration with EHR workflows so Airy fits into the system therapists already use.
Building Airy pushed me to think beyond individual screens and design the system as a whole. I had to consider how data, permissions, consent, and edge cases would work across both the therapist and client experiences, while making sure the product still felt trustworthy and practical in a sensitive setting.
What makes this work stand out is the thinking behind the interface. I designed for therapist control, clearer reasoning behind AI suggestions, and safeguards that help the system feel reliable when the stakes are high.
Yay! We've made it to the finish line.
Have a question, some feedback, or an outrageous idea? π