Turn reading into a moment children and parents look forward to every day.Turn reading into a moment children and parents look forward to every day.

Challenge

Yuna had a real AI engine and a working product, but the retention numbers told one story: strong installs, sharp drop-off. D1 sat at 21.4%, D14 at 3%. The team's hypothesis was that the experience layer was what would bring people back daily. The challenge was to focus on initiatives that were both impactful and feasible — shipping weekly across two markets (US and BR) with very different behavior patterns. Over 16 months with Yuna, we redesigned the onboarding and reading experience, added a fresh-content exploration tab, and layered in motion, sound, haptics, and illustration. With a small team moving fast, the constant risk was shipping shallow.

Approach

I joined Yuna as an experience designer and co-led the experience layer with Julia, another product designer. I owned the sensory craft — UI, motion, sound, haptics, and the illustration system — while together we shaped the reading experience, onboarding, Explore tab, and UI system refresh. The working rhythm was weekly experimentation: hypothesis, design, ship, read the metrics, iterate. Craft was never separated from strategy — every motion, sound, and visual decision tied back to retention, reading completion, and re-engagement.

Results

Over 16 months, retention nearly doubled across every key window. D1 went from 21.4% to 41.2% (+92%), D7 from 5.8% to 10.9% (+88%), and D14 from 3% to 6% (+100%). User stickiness lifted from 27.5% to 29% WAU/MAU, and MAU reached 140,169. D14 doubling was the result I'm proudest of. Users came back two weeks later because the craft made the product feel worth returning to.