Hugr is a mental wellness app designed to help people feel connected.

Mental illness can be isolating, unpredictable, and frightening – but it doesn’t have to be that way. Huger empowers people by connecting their social system with information so that they can become educated,

empathetic supporters.

The problem

One of the partners had a major depressive episode and took a leave from work – he didn’t know what was going on, and desperately needed to figure it out. The company, fully supported him.

Everyone in the team has either been greatly impacted by or personally struggled with mental health, the idea was a grand slam. We all recognized the personal and social impact a tool like this could have.

The Vision

Hugr is currently being made from personal experience, but it’s also filling a gap in the digital mental health market. Other tracking apps and social support apps exist, but Hugr is the only product that integrates mental health education, real life social support, and tracking. By straddling these two worlds, Hugr is able to create a unique and powerful feature set that unites the current category divide.

Discovery & Definition

Personally, I struggled with postpartum depression, to me the discovery stage was very real. I collaborated with the team to documented personas and user stories.

With agile approach and design thinking sessions we prioritized the backlog. Rapid prototyping allowed us to quickly test and iterate, before moving into medium fidelity prototyping in Axure.

My journey with Hugr sadly ended, after I relocated to Ontario.

Today Hugr is a self-guided digital program for businesses and their employees so they can measure level of social connection, discover how to build and maintain authentic connections, and regularly share how they’re feeling with those closest to them.

Check out HUGR