Speculative Design • Divergent Thinking
AURORIA
4 Weeks • 2025
TEAM OVERVIEW
1 Product Designer
MY ROLE
Narrative Design • Concept Development • Experience Architecture • Flow Design • Visual Language • Worldbuilding
RESEARCH METHODS
Self-Ethnography • Cognitive & Emotional Mapping • Reflection Prompts (Experimental Research) • Design Fiction
THE CHALLENGE
How might I create a gentle space that helps me reflect, feel safe, and stay connected to who I want to become by 2040?
THE OUTCOME
Auroria emerged as a 10-min practice, an immersive guided meditation ritual, to reinstill my confidence and self-belief
In Auroria, memories come alive, emotions feel safe to explore, and self-connection feels natural.
Auroria is a calming, imagined world I created; a space where I’m reminded of my inner strength. It exists in 2040, a future shaped by clarity, courage, and care.
For my 2025 self, I designed Return to Auroria: A Guided Meditation ritual as a gentle way to pause, reflect, and realign. In the chaos of everyday life, this ritual offers a moment to reconnect with what truly matters: memory, intention, and self-compassion.
Journey to this World
1
THE WEIGHT OF DOUBT
You're overwhelmed. Self-doubt creeps in, “Am I even good enough?” Motivation feels far away, and imposter syndrome whispers louder than your inner voice.
2
A GENTLE INVITATION
An old, glimmering Mirror Locket appears. Maybe tucked away in a drawer. It opens with a soft click, as if it’s been waiting. Inside, a poem gently speaks to something deep within you. You pause. You breathe. And without knowing why, you follow.
I call the winds of
time and space,
To guide me back
to a familiar place.
Let me step
where once I stood,
Not to change, but to remind me of the good.
3
ENTERING AURORIA
You're transported to Auroria, a glowing, calming world. In your hand is the Memory Ring. As you scroll, the world shifts each zone designed to reflect an emotion. You stop at the Resilience Zone. A memory calls to you. You choose to step into it not to relive it, but to reclaim your strength.
4
THE FLORAL ECHO
As the memory fades, you hear a gentle echo: words, images, maybe a song. It’s your Floral Echo, a reminder that you’ve always carried light inside you. You return, not fixed but reconnected. Ready.
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"Real win is alignment, not approval. Keep choosing what aligns, even when it’s hard. Especially, then."
THE PROCESS
01 Self-Ethnography
Reflected on personal emotional cycles, memories, and triggers to make sure the experience felt honest and deeply human.
After hundreds of journal entries and countless honest conversations with myself, I came to realize…
Rigid. Restricted. Predictable.
The world I'm currently in, everything has a place. Everything has a rule. And me? I am the koi, swimming in circles; chasing productivity and perfection. Structure gives me safety…but it comes with,
Guilt for resting.
Fear of falling behind.
High expectations pulling me inward.
Fluidity. Curiosity. Confidence.
I crave a world where, what if… I could stop spiraling so much? What if I didn’t owe my joy to productivity? What if I could live boldly, not just responsibly?
Non-negotiables of my world:
Where I don’t have to shrink to fit a system.
Where I trust myself to not know, and still move.
02 Structuring the Narrative
I explored how storytelling and symbolic meaning can help us make sense of our emotional journeys.
For example, I used the Mirror Locket as a symbol of self-reflection, a moment to pause and face one’s current emotional state. It is the doorway to Auroria. It’s never forced. The locket knows when I need to step back, to reflect, to remember. It’s my way in, and my way back.
The Memory Ring became a tool to navigate through memories, acknowledging both pain and joy. The Memory Ring is a reminder that while I can't control everything, I still have the power to choose what I carry forward.
Along the path, I find soft, glowing flowers which help me remember what matters, each one holding a voice from my past. A forgotten truth, a friend’s laugh, a moment of strength. They remind me I’m not just made of struggle, but of joy, love, and quiet victories. Auroria doesn’t let me escape, it helps me understand. These echoes aren’t magic. They’re me, gently guiding me home.
Each zone in Auroria (Courage, Joy, Confidence, Resilience) represents a different emotional arc, inspired by the way stories evolve beginning, conflict, reflection, and resolution.
These symbols weren’t random. They were chosen based on patterns in my own journaling, recurring imagery in dreams, and emotional turning points from my past.
03 Moodboards & Visual Exploration
I gathered images and visuals that felt calm, dreamy, and natural to shape the look and feel of Auroria.
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04 World Building
To bring the world to life, I translated my emotional maps into form. Each zone began as a hand-drawn idea, later modeled in Fusion 360, from the spiral pathways of the Resilience Zone to the gentle curvature of the Mirror Locket.
I used organic surface modeling to reflect fluid transitions between emotions, and parameter-based controls to represent user interaction (like rotating the Memory Ring to shift zones). The zones weren’t just designed, they were felt into existence.
Learnings
Emotions are nonlinear. Designing for them means embracing softness, not structure.
Symbols matter. Objects like the Memory Ring or Floral Echoes helped translate abstract feelings into tangible touchpoints.
Vulnerability invites depth. Starting with my own story made the experience more meaningful and honest.
Prototyping isn’t just for screens. Modeling emotion-led spaces in Fusion 360 pushed me to think about interaction in new, spatial ways.
If I had more time...
I’d build a VR prototype of Auroria in Unity to simulate the whole experience and how someone scrolls through the Memory Ring and enters each zone.
I’d love to explore how Auroria could exist in physical spaces as an installation, a retreat, or even a guided journaling app.
I’d invite more people to test the reflection prompts and refine the rituals through real feedback.
