Constructing
WRK.01Case study
SaaS & productTurning emotional support into an intelligent digital product
Built end to end by Matter — product strategy, brand and motion, interface and launch foundation for an AI-powered, non-clinical support experience designed to help people talk, reflect, reset and move forward: nine tools that behave like one companion rather than a folder of features.
- Client
- Talk to Kaya
- Category
- AI consumer product
- Status
- Product and launch platform
- Duration
- Product, brand and launch foundation
- Scope
- Product strategy · Brand & identity · UX & interface design · Motion design · AI product design · Mobile product experience · Launch infrastructure
The problem
Support is usually available exactly when it is hardest to ask for: late, alone, and below the threshold that would justify calling anyone. The products that fill that gap tend to be either a clinical service with a waiting list or a journal app with a chat box bolted on — neither of which is a companion, and neither of which is honest about what it is not.
Objectives
- 01Make support available at the moment it is needed, not at the next appointment
- 02Design nine tools that read as one companion, not a feature list
- 03Be explicit about what the product is not, and route crisis honestly
- 04Give the brand a character people would actually return to
Work delivered
One project. Every layer.
01
Product and experience strategy
The shape of the thing: which modes of support belong in one product, how they hand off to each other, and where the line sits between a companion and a clinical service.
02
Brand and motion language
Kaya herself, drawn and animated in code rather than illustrated — eight segment-chain arms ridden by travelling sine waves so she never loops identically, eyes that follow the pointer, breathing that squashes and stretches so her volume holds. The mark, icon and wordmark are generated from traced artwork by committed scripts, so they are reproducible byte for byte rather than redrawn.
03
The nine tools
Talk, journal, mood check-ins, recaps, glow notes, unsent letters, hold space, reset walks and calendar preparation — each designed to perform itself in the interface: a letter folds into an envelope and drifts into the stars, hold space keeps a real 4–2–6 breathing cadence, a walk draws itself and drops a pin.
04
AI and personalisation
Conversational support that carries context between sessions, with recaps and pattern recognition drawn from a person's own check-ins and journal rather than from a generic model of how anyone feels.
05
Honest positioning
The hard questions answered first and in public: end-to-end encryption, delete-everything-any-time, an explicit statement that this is not a clinical service, and crisis routed to real help rather than absorbed by a chatbot.
06
Launch foundation
The commercial surfaces around the product — free and paid tiers, an at-work offering, partner routes for clinicians, employers, universities and charities, and the waitlist and launch infrastructure behind them.
StackCanvas & requestAnimationFrameGenerated SVG brand assetsScroll-scrubbed motion systemConversational AI
Before
- Support available at the next appointment, not at 2am
- A feature list where a companion should be
- Products vague about whether they are clinical
- Nothing to return to between the hard moments
After
- Nine tools that behave as one companion
- A character with physics, not a mascot on a page
- What it is and is not, answered before it is asked
- Crisis routed to real help, honestly
Talk to Kaya is a non-clinical support product and not therapy, medical treatment or a crisis service. No usage figures or outcomes are published for it.
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