Embers The Dragon
A joyful, child-first emotional wellbeing app that helps young children explore feelings through play, storytelling, and creativity. Designed to support emotional development in a safe, engaging way, Embers brings together characters, activities, and narratives into a multi-role platform for children, parents, and clinicians.
My Role
The Goal:
Create a child-first digital experience that translated emotional learning into intuitive, playful interactions. Use narrative, characters, and game mechanics to help children understand feelings through choice and consequence, while providing parents and practitioners with meaningful insight behind the scenes.
The Challenge:
Leading the design for children aged 4–7 required balancing simplicity, safety, and engagement with the complex needs of parents, clinicians, educators, and researchers. Early design summits mapped user roles, journeys, and system requirements to align clinical rigour with a playful, child-first experience across the app and platform.
The Result
Children explored playful worlds of games, stories, and characters designed to build emotional understanding through choice, consequence, and reward. An NIHR-funded clinical trial validated the platform’s ability to teach emotional concepts through play, providing parents and clinicians with meaningful insight into progress and behaviour.
