Plant your relationship
Kinnect | Private relationship-based social media platform
2025
Plant your relationship
Adapting a mobile push notification as a guided relationship program
Challenge
Push notifications didn't work the way we designed because people mostly just tapped, skimmed, and left.
Role
End-to-end product UX/UI design based on user research
Led the conceptualized branding video with storytelling.
Company background
Kinnect is a brand focused on improving relationships and preserving legacy. The brand runs a private group-based application that promotes daily prompts and shared archives for families and close communities.
How can we gently remind people to care for relationships that matter, without guilt?
Approach: More frequent, like a habit tracker
Set the exact cycle: Three nudges notifications per week, 30 days entire cycle.
Habit tracker: Once users check the Nudge notification, they can check it as a to-do list
Progress bar: Users can see the achievement of the Nudge cycle through percentage
It turned something emotional into transactional.
With the feature name 'Nudges' and the to-do-list format, users felt pressure. It wasn't offering space to solve the real problem, which is improving relationships. We had to rethink the entire approach.
Failed
Week 1: Seed. -> Week 2: Water. -> Week 3: Care. -> Week 4: Grow.
Ok, step back. I approached the problem by redefining how we want users to achieve the goal through storytelling by using the concept of ‘planting your relationship’.
With the storytelling concept, we approached the Nudge feature to create a space where users can reflect to grow their relationships.
Instead of a to-do-list, we used a weekly check-in model with AI.
After every three Nudge notifications, users reflect on how they were doing, what worked or not. This helps users process their week while AI generates personalized prompts for the next week based on their answers.
To grow relationships, we realized the design should feel meditational, not goal-oriented.
We kept the progress bar minimal.
Users understood what the feature did, but they didn't feel emotionally ready to start.
A button felt too functional for something about relationships.
So we intentionally designed the empty state feel less like a button press by using the onboarding’s first question to type directly to start the Nudge program.
Before
Intuitive entry point gets users to start immediately
Bold CTA can help users to start directly.
Lack of emotional connection
Users understood the feature's purpose, but a 'Start now' button didn't capture the feature's personality.
After
Remove the barrier between understanding and starting
Users can type the onboarding question directly in the empty state.
Make the first step feel like a conversation, not a commitment
It lowers the barrier to start and matches the feature's emotional tone from the first interaction.
Takeaway:
Emotional design requires different patterns than productivity design. What works for task management doesn't work for relationships. The format shapes the meaning. Push notifications made nudges feel disposable, so creating a dedicated space changed how users engaged with the feature. Onboarding is about emotional readiness, rather than just understanding. Even though users knew what the feature did, they weren't ready to start. Pairing AI with weekly check-ins created a feedback loop where users felt heard and prompts became more personal over time. Sometimes, less UI is more supportive. Relationships don't have finish lines, so keeping the progress bar minimal shifts focus from achieving goals to being present.