LIFELINESAR

OVERVIEW

LifelinesAR is a collaborative AR therapy tool that won the Wellness Category at MIT Reality Hack 2022, competing against 400+ participants from 30+ countries. Built in just 3 days, the application allows therapists and clients to co-create 3D visualizations of life stories—mapping relationships, experiences, and emotional patterns in shared augmented space. Instead of traditional talk therapy or 2D diagrams, LifelinesAR makes the abstract tangible: clients can literally walk around their life narrative, reposition elements, and gain new perspectives on their experiences.

WHAT MADE IT HARD

Building for mental health requires extreme design sensitivity. The interface had to feel safe and non-clinical while maintaining therapeutic utility. Technical challenges included real-time multi-user AR synchronization (therapist and client seeing the same 3D space), intuitive spatial interaction for non-technical users, and creating visual metaphors that translate emotional concepts into 3D forms. We had 48 hours to prototype something that clinicians would actually trust to use with vulnerable patients.

WHAT I DISCUSS PUBLICLY

• —Designing XR for mental health: safety, ethics, and clinical utility
• —Why spatial computing changes therapeutic relationships—not just visualizations
• —The hackathon-to-product journey: what we learned winning MIT Reality Hack
• —Multi-user AR synchronization and shared spatial experiences

WHAT I CONSULT ON

• —XR applications in healthcare and mental wellness—from concept to clinical validation
• —Designing for vulnerable populations: safety-first XR development
• —Collaborative AR/VR systems with real-time multi-user synchronization
• —Rapid prototyping for health tech—validating concepts before heavy investment