Journify - From Words to Worlds:
Rebuilding Emotional Bonds Through Spatial Journaling
Journify - From Words to Worlds:
Rebuilding Emotional Bonds Through Spatial Journaling
Product Strategy & Design
Creative Directing
Marketing
Video & Animation
UI/UX
3D Modeling & Prototyping
Winners of AI x AR the Augmented Intelligence Track by Lambda AI at the MIT Reality (XR) Hack 2025
Role (72 Hours)
UX Research · UI/UX Design · Product & Creative Strategy
I led the experience design and storytelling framework, mapping our approach to Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT) and Yale’s RULER emotional intelligence model.
Collaborated with engineers to define the speech-to-3D pipeline, multiplayer flow, and real-time emotional feedback loop.
Tools
Blender · Unity · Needle Engine · WebXR · OpenAI · Stability.ai · Figma
Overview
Journify is a multiplayer WebXR journaling platform that uses speech-to-3D generative AI to help parents and children co-create emotional memories in augmented reality.
Created during MIT Reality Hack, Journify reimagines journaling as a collaborative, spatial experience that strengthens family attachment and emotional intelligence through play, storytelling, and shared creativity.
🔥 Problem
Despite the rise of connected technology, parent–child communication is deteriorating.
Over 150 million parents report anxiety about losing emotional connection with their children.
2 in 5 kids lack a secure bond with their parents — half of them suffer from mental health challenges as a result.
Families spend thousands on digital entertainment (AR/VR games, apps, and devices), yet none of these tools intentionally nurture attachment or emotional literacy.
How might we design a digital experience that helps families reconnect emotionally, not just interact socially?
Role (48 Hours)
PUX Research · UI/UX Design · Product & Creative Strategy
I led end-to-end design across research, wireframing, and prototyping, combining insights from community interviews, archives, and local guides to shape an inclusive, self-guided AR food tour.
Tools
Blender · Figma · Adobe XD · Miro · InVision · Sketch
Overview
Journify is an augmented reality journaling app that allows users to pin personal memories, photos, and reflections in real-world spaces. Designed during MIT Reality Hack, the experience reimagines journaling as something lived and shared — an emotional layer on top of the physical world.
🔥 Problem
Chinatown’s historic authenticity has been fading under gentrification and generational shifts. Many long-established businesses were forced to close, and younger residents were moving away. Tourists often visited only surface-level attractions, missing the deeper stories behind the neighborhood’s culture and cuisine.
How might design invite visitors to meaningfully engage with Chinatown’s living history — not just consume it?
Process
1. Research & Ideation
Synthesized findings from social-emotional learning research (ABFT, RULER).
Interviewed parents to understand the gap between emotional connection and tech engagement.
Identified a key opportunity: turn journaling into a shared creative ritual that visualizes emotion through co-creation.
Design Principles
Collaborative, not solitary
Emotionally expressive, not prescriptive
Visually memorable, not abstract
150M+
150M+
parents are anxious bonds with their children are deteriorating.
parents are anxious bonds with their children are deteriorating.
2 in 5
2 in 5
kids lack an emotional bond with their parents.
kids lack an emotional bond with their parents.
50%
50%
of those kids suffer mental health challenges.
of those kids suffer mental health challenges.
2. Experience Design
Each journal prompt is grounded in emotional intelligence research.
Each cloud represents a month, with “hanging pages” for new entries.
Parents and children record spoken reflections, which are converted through AI into 3D visual artifacts — personalized representations of shared memories.
Faded cubes represent past years, forming a spatial archive of family growth.
Through voice-based journaling, players co-create and revisit emotional milestones — a digital scrapbook reimagined in 3D.
2. Experience Design
Each journal prompt is grounded in emotional intelligence research.
Each cloud represents a month, with “hanging pages” for new entries.
Parents and children record spoken reflections, which are converted through AI into 3D visual artifacts — personalized representations of shared memories.
Faded cubes represent past years, forming a spatial archive of family growth.
Through voice-based journaling, players co-create and revisit emotional milestones — a digital scrapbook reimagined in 3D.
3. Technical Architecture
Unity + Needle Engine: Handles real-time WebXR rendering and multiuser interactions.
Generative AI Pipeline: Converts speech → text → image → 3D model using OpenAI, Stability.ai, and custom scripts for latency management.
Network Replication: Enables persistent world-state for families to revisit their shared “memory worlds.”
3. Technical Architecture
Unity + Needle Engine: Handles real-time WebXR rendering and multiuser interactions.
Generative AI Pipeline: Converts speech → text → image → 3D model using OpenAI, Stability.ai, and custom scripts for latency management.
Network Replication: Enables persistent world-state for families to revisit their shared “memory worlds.”
4. Challenges & Breakthroughs
Overcame plugin conflicts and latency in multiuser WebXR environment.
Designed seamless speech-to-3D feedback loop that maintains emotional flow.
Achieved successful integration of multiple GenAI services into a fully functional prototype — all within a 4-day hackathon.
4. Challenges & Breakthroughs
Overcame plugin conflicts and latency in multiuser WebXR environment.
Designed seamless speech-to-3D feedback loop that maintains emotional flow.
Achieved successful integration of multiple GenAI services into a fully functional prototype — all within a 4-day hackathon.
