ThriveGuide Design System

An experience that helps people achieve lasting behavior change through personalized, AI-driven coaching grounded in what universally matters.

What This System Is

This design system is organized around moments — not features. Every component, pattern, and interaction exists to serve a specific moment in the user's behavior change journey.

The system is structured as a progression from philosophy to implementation:

  • Philosophy — The behavioral design doctrine that governs every decision. Grounded in the "Want vs Like" research and the healthy flywheel model.
  • Principles — Five design principles with practical tests and anti-patterns for design reviews.
  • Moments — The eight Moments That Matter — the organizing spine. Each moment has a job to be done, a tension, and a coach presence mode.
  • Outcome Flywheel — How the Learn → Prioritize → Guide flywheel accelerates over time, mapping to moments and interaction patterns.
  • Patterns — Component intents and engagement principles — what each pattern must do before specifying what it is.
  • Coach Presence — The three coach modes (Silent, Speaking, Listening) as design system primitives.

Visual Exploration

Look & Feel Exploration — Seven aesthetic directions for ThriveGuide rendered side by side. Same content, different visual treatment. Start here to converge on the product's visual identity.

Experience Concepts — Animated explorations of how core ideas feel in motion. Not prototypes — emotional proofs of concept.

How to Use This Reference

Designing a feature? Start with which Moment it serves. The moment defines the user's job, the tension you're solving, and the coach mode that's active.

Reviewing a design? Run it through the Principles. Each principle has a litmus test and anti-patterns.

Building a component? Check the Pattern intent. It defines what the component must do, must feel, and must not do — before you pick a visual treatment.

Unsure about tone or timing? The Coach Presence guide defines the voice register, information density, and anti-patterns for each mode.

Questioning a decision? Return to the Philosophy. If a pattern serves the healthy flywheel, it belongs. If it short-circuits the flywheel for engagement metrics, it doesn't.

Core Model

Want → Effort → Progress → Satisfaction → Meaning → More Want

This is the healthy flywheel. Every design decision must serve a stage of this loop and never short-circuit it. See Philosophy for the full doctrine.

The Five Core Health Behaviors

Everything in ThriveGuide is grounded in five universal behaviors:

  1. Sleep
  2. Nutrition
  3. Movement
  4. Stress Management
  5. Connection

Personalization is how these behaviors get expressed differently for each user — not a different app, but a different emphasis and framing.