Loop Case Study — Tog Samphel

The Team

Built Through Collaboration

Designers, clinicians, and engineers — all aligned around one mission.

🧭

CEO

Vision & product direction

📣

Head of Marketing

Growth & user acquisition

🧠

Director of Mental Health

Clinical oversight & program design

💜

3 Clinicians

Exposure therapy & content validation

⚙️

3 Engineers

Platform, infrastructure & video

✨

2 Designers

UX/UI, research & prototyping

including me

Phase 1

Research

Upon joining the team, there was a trove of great research already done by the design and mental health teams.

My time here was spent reviewing reports, meeting with internal teams, and synthesizing the existing intel. The research covered user demographics, competitive landscape, and the clinical foundations of treating social anxiety.

The existing research gave us deep insight into our users' pain points — from avoidance behaviors to the daily impact of social anxiety on their personal and professional lives.

This foundation allowed me to skip redundant research and move quickly into strategy and ideation.

Phase 2

Discovery Workshops

Identifying the core "AHA" factor through cross-functional collaboration.

I facilitated multiple rounds of remote workshops with key stakeholders to identify what the core "AHA" factor was for the app.

The main ingredient of the entire product was the clinical approach to treating social anxiety — which required the mental health team's approval. I worked closely with them to extract and focus on Exposures (putting yourself in socially anxious situations) and to build the entire experience around that.

This cross-functional alignment was critical — every design decision needed to be clinically sound while remaining engaging and accessible for users.

Phase 3

Developing A New Social Anxiety Program

Breaking down "Exposures" into trackable, measurable components.

The next part in developing the new program, I worked with our Director of Mental Health to see what we could actually track. Understanding what makes for an effective exposure, I used those elements and designed trackable metrics that users would be prompted to log after completing each one:

Did they try it?
Was their anxiety provoked? (it must be uncomfortable)
Did they use safety behaviors? (break eye contact, look at phone, etc.)
Did their worst fear happen?
Reflecting on experience

Each metric was designed to be clinically meaningful while remaining simple enough for daily tracking.

Information Architecture

I mapped out the entire user journey — from onboarding through the exposure program — ensuring that the flow felt natural and therapeutic rather than clinical and intimidating.

The architecture balanced structure (clinical requirements) with flexibility (users needed to feel in control of their own journey).

Phase 4

Reviewing Habit-Forming Apps

Doing exposures wasn't enough. It had to be consistent and sustained over time.

What this meant to me was creating an experience that formed habits. After researching a number of different approaches and concepts, the core patterns I recognized was creating an experience that encouraged repetition and provided the satisfaction of completing tasks.

I studied apps like Duolingo, Headspace, and fitness trackers — all masters at creating positive habit loops through streaks, progress visualization, and micro-rewards.

The key insight: users needed to feel a sense of accomplishment after each exposure, even when the experience itself was uncomfortable by design.

Gamified to Form Habits

I designed a gamification layer on top of the clinical program — with streaks, progress rings, milestone celebrations, and unlockable content. This transformed the exposure therapy from a clinical chore into an engaging daily practice.

The balance was delicate: too much gamification would trivialize the therapeutic process, too little would fail to build the habits necessary for treatment success.

Phase 5