đź“Ť Quick When You Need It
Whether users have 10 seconds or just enough energy to tap once, Gutsy adjusts. Voice, widgets, and micro-interactions make logging feel effortless—even on tough days.
Gutsy – Health Companion
An AI-powered symptom tracker designed to reveal triggers and improve gut health.
Quick view of some of SlotSpot's unique AI-powered capabilities.
The Problem
Managing chronic digestive disorders is often frustrating, tedious, and discouraging. People dealing with IBS, Crohn’s, or gut-related inflammation are expected to manually log a wide range of daily variables — food, bowel movements, symptoms, sleep, hydration, stress — and do so consistently, sometimes multiple times a day.
Even with the effort, most health apps stop short: users are still left to interpret their own data, connect complex patterns, and figure out what’s actually triggering their symptoms. Sharing this information with doctors can also be overwhelming, disorganized, or incomplete.
Despite the growing number of tracking tools, no existing platform meaningfully reduces this cognitive and emotional burden or pulls all of these needs into one seamless, intelligent experience.
The Solution
Gutsy is a first-of-its-kind health app that uses conversational AI to do the heavy lifting of digestive tracking.
Instead of endless forms and fragmented logs, users simply chat with Gutsy — a friendly AI that understands natural language, keeps track of food, symptoms, bowel patterns, and sleep, and translates it all into clear patterns and personalized insights.
No need to interpret complex charts or guess what’s causing flare-ups. Gutsy learns over time, offers smart prompts, gives real-time advice, and generates doctor-ready health summaries — all while minimizing the need for tedious, repetitive input.
This isn’t just symptom logging — it’s intelligent, compassionate health management that meets users where they are, and actually helps.
My Role
I led the end-to-end design for Gutsy, from early concept definition and user research through to visual design, prototyping, and high-fidelity UI. I created the full design system, designed dozens of mobile screens, and shaped the tone and personality of the AI assistant to ensure the experience felt warm, human, and helpful.
Duration
March '24 - Oct '25
(7 mos. total)
Digestive Health in America
70M+
Americans suffer from chronic digestive disorders
72%
Of patients feel stress worsens their symptoms
6-10x
Typical number of daily symptom-related bathroom visits for severe cases
80%
Of users say they’ve felt dismissed or overwhelmed trying to manage gut health on their own
From Gut Feeling to Design Decisions
I started with a broad investigation of chronic digestive disorders (CDDs) — understanding their medical complexity, emotional toll, and how current digital tools serve those affected. I found that most apps demand frequent and time-consuming data input, offered too little clarity, left users to draw their own medical conclusions, and to take large amounts of information to present to their doctors with little help.
To ground this research, I conducted interviews with people actively managing CDDs. Their lived experiences helped me identify critical friction points: inconsistent logging, lack of insights, and emotional fatigue.
These findings became the basis for Gutsy’s personas, emotional journeys, and feature priorities — ultimately shaping a product that responds to real needs with clarity, empathy, and minimal cognitive load. I also made infographics to summarize and present my research.
The Opportunity
Based on the research, I saw a clear opportunity: simplify digestive health management by reducing input effort, removing interpretation burden, and guiding users with helpful, human-centered feedback — all in one easy-to-use platform.
Turning Patterns Into Product
It became clear early on that most digestive health apps fail not just because of missing features, but because of how they expect users to engage. People managing chronic conditions are often fatigued, in pain, or overwhelmed—and even a well-designed app becomes a burden if it demands constant attention or detailed input. Gutsy couldn’t add to that load. It needed to feel optional, supportive, and low-pressure, especially when users had limited energy.
A core challenge was enabling users to log meals, symptoms, and behaviors without always typing or speaking. Voice input offered a hands-free solution that allowed for ease of use, but it’s not realistic in public settings where users may avoid vocalizing sensitive symptoms. Gutsy addresses this with multiple input options—voice, tap-based widgets, sliders, and quick responses—giving users control over how they log, based on comfort and context.
To keep users engaged, I rethought how logging, feedback, and insights work together. Gutsy had to minimize friction while offering real, personalized value. Every screen was shaped by this principle: reduce effort, deliver clarity, and support action—not just reflection.
Conversational Logging
Trigger Detection
Food Scoring System
Digestive Insights Dashboard
Personalized Recommendations
Doctor-Ready Summaries
Turning Patterns Into Solutions
Gutsy analyzes a broad set of inputs—meals, symptoms, hydration, triggers, energy levels, and stress responses—to help users connect daily behaviors to digestive outcomes. The system begins with simple conversational logging, capturing what users eat, drink, and feel across the day through quick prompts, sliders, and voice inputs. Over time, this data becomes a personalized health record.
Gutsy’s backend uses pattern recognition and rule-based logic to surface correlations between food types, hydration lapses, environmental factors, and digestive events. For example, a user might log Thai iced tea and experience symptoms two hours later. Gutsy notes the trend, scores the risk level of that food, and highlights it in the user’s Food Scoreboard. Combined with daily wellness check-ins and contextual factors (like sleep or caffeine intake), these patterns become the basis for personalized Digestive Insights.
This intelligence is returned to the user via a clear mobile dashboard. The system highlights potential flare risks, reinforces helpful habits, and provides gentle, actionable suggestions—like “Drink 12 oz water now” or “Avoid dairy tonight.” Unlike generic trackers, Gutsy doesn’t just collect data; it actively transforms it into user-specific care. The result is a tool that helps users reduce symptoms, make smarter food choices, and feel more in control of their health.
Low User Effort, High Support
I shaped Gutsy’s interface around moments of discomfort—minimizing cognitive effort and motion, while keeping everything soft, quiet, and easy on the eyes. Gentle animations, large touch targets, and energy-aware components allow users to log, learn, or rest without added friction. The result is a visual system that feels steady, supportive, and emotionally safe.
🔎 Conversations, Not Charts
Users can speak naturally to Gutsy—no medical jargon, no complicated steps. The assistant understands context, remembers patterns, and responds with clear, supportive prompts tailored to how the user feels. It's tracking that talks back.
đź’ˇ Spot the Cause, Sooner
When users log symptoms, Gutsy connects the dots—linking foods, stress, and routines to flare-ups over time. The system flags likely triggers and updates food scores automatically, so users don’t have to guess what went wrong.
🪄 See the Big Picture
Gutsy offers a clear, low-effort view of your weekly trends—showing symptom frequency, food scores, hydration, and key improvements at a glance.
🧠Smart Insights, Daily
Gutsy distills data into bite-sized guidance—surfacing what matters most based on patterns, preferences, and health goals. It's like having a nutritionist and coach in your pocket.
Final Product
The current Gutsy prototype demonstrates two polished flows:
- Conversational Logging — A smart input experience using voice, text, and widgets to help users quickly capture meals, symptoms, and daily activity.
- Trigger Tagging — A clear, visual walkthrough of how the app helps users identify potential symptom triggers, supported by tracked inputs and personalized insights.
The experience is designed to feel intuitive, calm, and friendly—optimized for mobile use during real-life moments of stress or discomfort. Every screen emphasizes ease, gentle nudges, and actionable summaries.
đź”— You can interact with the prototype below or open it full screen for the best experience!
Results & Testing
Built around symptom patterns and tested through real usability sessions, Gutsy was designed to help users track, reflect, and adapt—without overwhelm or clinical friction. From research synthesis and early feedback, we focused on three key goals: logging ease, trigger visibility, and reassuring insights.
The final prototype delivers a smooth, friendly flow for logging meals and symptoms, guided by soft motion and positive reinforcement. Users can choose between voice, text, or quick-tap widgets, and receive instant insight summaries, gentle alerts, and trackable patterns.
Early testing showed strong engagement: even first-time users quickly understood what to do, found the assistant approachable, and identified meaningful connections in their logs. The component system and visual style were praised for being clean, calming, and empowering.
95%
Of testers prefer conversational/widget-based entry over other food/symptom logging apps
3x
Faster on average input time compared to manual searching and logging with apps like Cara Care and MySymptoms
4.5/5
Ease of use rating for trigger tagging and symptom review
100%
Of users found the tone comforting and less clinical than similar tools
Key Learnings
People don’t want to be treated like patients—especially and interestingly, sick people. Gutsy succeeds by inviting reflection, not diagnosis. This meets users with soft guidance, flexible input, and insights that feel human—even more so than some medical professionals. Real pain needs real empathy; Gutsy nails it.
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