All case studies

Digital transformation · Mental fitness · iOS & web

FreeStyle+: improv workshops, in every employee’s pocket.

FreeStyle+, from the team behind Freestyle Love Supreme, runs improv-based workshops that help teams at companies like Google, Adobe and SAP communicate better and feel more connected. We helped take those workshop games and techniques digital: an iOS app called FlowZone, where every employee can practise improv for their mental well-being, and a dashboard for the people leading them.

Client
FreeStyle+
Product
FlowZone app & admin dashboard
Our role
UX discovery · Product design · Game design
Platforms
iOS · Web dashboard
Based in
San Francisco, USA
Visit freestyleplus.com See the games
Five FlowZone game screens in phone frames: Rhyme Lib, What comes to your mind?, Convergence, I Love My Spot and an illustrated skills waterfall.
200+
screens designed across the iOS app and the admin dashboard
3
arcade games turned from live workshop exercises into mobile play
2
audiences: employees who play, and the leaders who support them
83%
of people felt “more connected to their work and colleagues” after FreeStyle+ experiences*

*Figure published by FreeStyle+ for its workshops and performances.

The challenge

A workshop lasts an afternoon. The skills need practice.

FreeStyle+ workshops use improv-inspired, neuroscience-backed exercises to build comfort with uncertainty, confident self-expression, active listening, collaboration and resilience. In the room, they work: people leave more present, more creative and more connected to each other.

But a workshop reaches the people who are in it, for a few hours. FreeStyle+ wanted the same games and techniques to reach every employee at the enterprises they work with, remote or in the office, as something they could come back to every day for their mental well-being, how they communicate and how they connect with their teammates.

The digital product had to:

01

Keep the play

Games that feel like the workshop: musical, spontaneous and fun, not another training module.

02

Fit into a workday

Short sessions, streaks and rewards that make practising a habit.

03

Build real skills

Every game tied to a skill, like presence, gratitude, focus or storytelling.

04

Show the impact

A dashboard for HR and L&D leaders to see engagement and how teams are doing.

Built for teams at

  • Google
  • Adobe
  • Salesforce
  • SAP
  • Zoom
  • Nike
  • ESPN
  • Qualtrics
  • Stanford

What we did

From workshop floor to app store.

Workshop & analysis

  • UX discovery workshop
  • User interviews
  • User data analysis
  • Information architecture and flows

Product design

  • iOS app redesign
  • Wireframes, flows and IA
  • Admin dashboard design
  • Interactive prototypes

Game design

  • Arcade games from workshop exercises
  • Demo games for the customer advisory board
  • Concept explorations
  • Lottie animations in Figma

The games

Workshop exercises, rebuilt as play.

Each game takes an exercise FreeStyle+ runs live and turns it into a few minutes of solo play, with levels, scores and a reason to come back tomorrow.

Rhyme Lib

Freestyle rap, made playable. Players fill the gaps in a verse with rhyming words until the song is complete, building comfort with thinking on their feet.

Rhyme Lib intro on a yellow screen covered in music notes: Match the rhymes in the verses and complete the song, with a Yes, I am up for the challenge button.
The challengeMatch the rhymes and complete the song.
Black screen with a glowing sunburst and the instruction Place the rhyming words in the verse to make it make sense, and rhyme.
How to playOne instruction, then straight into the verse.
A verse reading I said a hip hop the hippie to the hippie, with a level progress bar at 34 of 50 and a grid of word pills below.
Fill the verseA level bar keeps progress in sight.
The same verse in dark mode with rhyming word pills like hop, stop, scoobie-doo, roll and soul to choose from.
Pick the rhymeWord pills to drag into place.
A full verse of the song with gaps to fill and a tray of rhyming words underneath.
Finish the songThe whole song comes together line by line.

Convergence

“Muscle up your memory.” Players pick five words out of ten in five seconds, take a breath, then write down the words they chose, training focus for long-term resilience. Designed in Figma with Lottie animations.

Convergence intro with a photo of a workshop group: Muscle up your memory. Let’s sharpen your focus to build long-term resilience.
Muscle up your memoryA photo from a real workshop sets the scene.
How to play sheet with an hourglass: Pick any 5 words out of 10. You will have 5 seconds for this.
Five words, five secondsThe rules fit on one card.
Dark screen of rounded word tiles such as elephant, goat, cat, bird and mule, with five selected and a timer bar along the bottom.
Pick fastTiles light up as they’re chosen, against the clock.
A calm white screen with a pulsing blue dot: Now, take a moment and breath.
Take a breathA pause before recall, straight from the workshop.
Write down the 3 words out of the 5 you just chose, with Bird and Mule marked correct in green and Elephant marked wrong in red.
RecallRight and wrong answers shown instantly.

Word Pills

“What comes to your mind?” Players answer a prompt spontaneously, then see how their answers compare with everyone else’s, practising confident self-expression without overthinking. Also designed with Lottie animations.

What comes to your mind? intro with a performer holding a microphone: Answer a question, be spontaneous about it, and see if it matches what people think.
Be spontaneousThe game explained in one line.
An illustrated character with hands on head above What comes to your mind? and a Let’s play button.
Ready, setA playful character before the first prompt.
5 words that come to your mind when I say CARIBBEAN, with Beaches typed in and earlier answers shown as pills above the keyboard.
Answer the promptFive words, typed as fast as they come.
Response Popularity screen with a gauge reading Slightly Popular and percentage circles for each answer.
See what others saidA popularity gauge compares answers with everyone’s.
Your reward: 90 points, with a longest streak of 60 days and a current streak of 3 days, and a Next game button.
Collect the rewardPoints and streaks to bring people back.

Demo games

Short flows for real moments in the day.

For FreeStyle+’s customer advisory board, we designed demo games grouped into themed flows. In “I Love My Spot”, part of the In the Air flow, someone stuck waiting at an airport learns to love where they are by noticing three delightful things around them, spoken or typed, and finishes having practised presence and gratitude.

In the Air flow: 12 flows and 36 beats, the line Make your sky high connections easier and more valuable, and A Slight Delay with audio, video and text beats such as I love my spot and I don’t have a toothache.
Themed flowsBeats of audio, video and text grouped by situation.
I Love My Spot: You’re ready to board! Buuuut it’s gonna be a while… So learn to love where you’re at, with a play button, Why to play, and Presence and Gratitude tags.
Why it mattersEach beat says why to play and what it builds.
I Love My Spot with a large microphone and a Done button for recording an answer out loud.
Say it out loudAnswer by voice, like in the workshop.
Type out 3 delightful things in your environment, with I love the smell of a sweater, a wine and the laughter of a baby typed in.
Or type itA text option for quiet places.
You did it! Connecting to your location helps you connect to yourself, with Presence and Gratitude listed under What you became better at, and a Next beat button.
You did itSkills practised, and the next beat ready.

Concept explorations

Learning as a journey, not a list.

We explored ways to make progress feel like travel: a subway-style map where each skill is a line with stops to reach, and illustrated worlds where players choose the skill they want to improve.

A map with a green route and stops, a card reading In the Air, 15 stops to next destination, and FlowZone Public Radio, 20 stops to next destination.
Skills as routesStops to the next destination, like a transit app.
Track – Confidence: a dark subway-style map with FlowZone Public Radio stations, and a player card showing workouts, games played, streak and rewards.
Track: ConfidenceEach skill is its own line on the map.
FlowZone Public Radio journey page with a description, five instructors and a list of flows to unlock.
A journey up closeInstructors, flows and progress for one route.
Choose a path you want to improve upon, with Story-telling as a node in a cluster of blue circles.
Choose a pathPick the skill to work on.
An illustrated waterfall with bubbles for collaboration, storytelling, confidence, communication and connection.
Skills worldEach skill a place to explore.

Admin dashboard

Mental fitness, visible to the people who care.

HR and learning teams needed to see whether play was catching on and how their people were feeling. The dashboard brings together engagement, mood check-ins and skills practised, for the whole organisation and for each person.

Admin overview: Welcome, Elysa, with 11,547 active users, mood counts for stoked, happy, meh and sad, a category breakdown donut, top 3 games, recent activity and a department performance bar chart. Get detailed insights: top 3 players with streaks, badges and Send kudos buttons, a Happiness Index line chart over twelve months, monthly active users and top games by category. Get insights about Hamza: category breakdown, most played games, a Happiness Index chart and a profile card with a 100-day streak and a Send kudos button.

Why it matters

I left buzzed. You feel more present, more spontaneous, more creative. Making mental fitness skills accessible to our org in ways that spark action is hugely beneficial to our organization.

Rana ChakrabartiHead of Learning Experiences, SAP Engineering Academy, on FreeStyle+

Taking a live experience digital?

Let’s design something people come back to.

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