Bloom
Bloom was created to explore how immersive design could make mindfulness more approachable — especially for people who might otherwise avoid it.
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From the beginning, I actively avoided the visual and cultural tropes often associated with meditation. While I didn’t avoid the word itself, I stepped away from imagery and tone that can make the practice feel intimidating, esoteric, or inaccessible. Bloom was designed to feel simple, modern, and emotionally neutral — something users could enter without preconceptions.
Reframing Meditation for Broader Adoption
A core design challenge was overcoming the quiet stigma that still surrounds meditation. For many people, it carries assumptions: spirituality, silence, eyes closed, “doing it wrong.”
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I approached Bloom with a different framing: not as a spiritual practice, but as a practical tool for mental and emotional regulation. The experience avoids traditional meditation iconography and instead presents calm as something you do, not something you have to believe in.
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This shift in tone made Bloom easier to approach — especially for users coming from clinical, workplace, or everyday wellness contexts rather than mindfulness communities.
Using unexpected environments to make meditation feel modern and accessible
Designing for a Visual Mind
Bloom leverages what VR does best: object-focused meditation, which centers visual attention rather than closing the eyes.
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At the center of many experiences is the Bloom itself: a flower-like object designed to hold attention gently without demanding it. Users don’t have to imagine calm — they can see it.
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This made meditation feel less abstract and more grounded, especially for users who struggle with traditional inward-focused techniques.
Focus object — designed to ground visual attention
Designing Calm Through Sound
Bloom’s audio was designed with the same care as its visuals. Instead of looping melodies, the music uses non-repeating structures that keep the mind from anticipating patterns. This helps avoid the mental “filling in the blanks” that can pull users out of a relaxed state.​ The compositions also feature a gradually decreasing tempo, allowing the body to naturally sync with the rhythm and slow down over time. Instead of telling users to relax, the music quietly leads them there — supporting regulation through design rather than instruction.
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In addition to the music, ambient soundscapes were carefully designed to evoke a sense of place — transporting users into each environment without ever competing for their attention.
Designed for Real Life, Not Ideal Conditions
User research revealed something important early on: many people were using Bloom right before bed.
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In response, I introduced light and dark modes — not as a cosmetic feature, but as a functional one. Darker environments reduce overall brightness and blue light exposure, helping make late-night use feel more comfortable for users who are sensitive to screen intensity.
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Environments shift in tone, lighting, audio, and even ambient life to support different times of day and different sensitivities.
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This allowed Bloom to become part of nighttime routines, not just daytime practice — making it easier to integrate into real life rather than idealized schedules.
Light and dark versions of the hot springs environment
Simplicity as a Design Principle
Bloom’s interface was designed around one guiding rule: reduce friction at the moment someone needs calm the most.
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To start a meditation, users make just three choices — and only one appears at a time. Instead of presenting a complex UI up front, the experience unfolds in small, manageable steps.
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The result is an interface that feels almost invisible. In practice, we’ve never received a support call from a user who needed help once they opened Bloom — a quiet but meaningful validation of the design approach.
One clear user choice at a time
48%
Reduction in Stress
34%
Reduction in Depression
32%
Reduction in Anxiety
Outcome
Bloom’s impact wasn’t measured only in engagement; it was measured in outcomes. In studies conducted with UnitedHealth, users showed meaningful decreases in reported stress, anxiety, and depression.
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In one particularly striking case, call-center employees who used Bloom demonstrated a measurable increase in empathy-related language during customer interactions — suggesting the experience didn’t just change how people felt, but how they related to others.
This reinforced a core belief: when emotional design is taken seriously, it can shape behavior in ways that are both human and measurable. Bloom became a flagship example of how immersive design can make wellness feel accessible, modern, and emotionally grounded — not a niche practice, but a practical part of everyday life.
Real-World Impact
Hearing directly from users reinforced something we believed from the start: thoughtful design can change not just behavior, but how people experience themselves and others.