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TL;DR: I designed Sunflower, a sobriety recovery app, from scratch — brand identity, full design system, and core UX. Within 60 days it reached 90% week-over-week growth, a 68% onboarding completion rate, and a 4.8 App Store rating. The results came from designing for emotional safety and momentum, not just features.
Recovery is deeply personal and high-stakes. The brief was to design a sobriety app from zero that people would actually trust and return to during difficult moments — a context where a cold or clumsy experience can cause real harm.
Every decision — tone, color, language, pacing — was made to feel supportive rather than clinical or judgmental. In a recovery context, the interface is part of the care. Onboarding had to feel like an encouraging first step, which is why 68% of users completed it.
Staying sober is about streaks, small wins, and reasons to come back tomorrow. The core UX was built around visible progress and gentle reinforcement, turning the app into a daily companion. That focus on momentum is what drove 90% week-over-week growth in the first 60 days.
What made onboarding convert so well? Treating it as an encouraging first step rather than a data-collection form, designed for emotional safety.
What drives retention in a recovery app? Visible progress and gentle daily reinforcement — giving users a reason to return tomorrow.
Carlos Lastres is an Apple Design Award–winning product designer and software engineer in Tokyo who designs health-tech and consumer products that drive measurable growth.