A meditation experience for the human and plant species. Project done for Eco-Centric Design with Professor Jiabao Li for Interspecies Co-Creation.
Turn findings from studying the umwelt ((in ethology) the world as it is experienced by a particular organism) of a non-human co-inhabitant of your environment and turn it into a creative work that you co-create / co-design with the non-human species.
Design a meditative interface that fosters empathy, communication, and mindfulness between human and plant users.
• How can plants communicate with us through data and interaction?
• What does empathy look like across species?
• How can we co-design systems that nurture both human and non-human wellbeing?
• User-Centered Design: Creating interactions that respond to both human and plant inputs.
• Biofeedback: Integrating real-time plant responses to guide the meditation experience.
• Mindfulness: Building a calming, sensory-driven environment that supports shared growth.
Previous iterations included using the plant as an instrument like vessel for music creation and translating the sounds into visualizers with Apple Music.
Wrote my own code for the meditation software in VS code using p5.js, html, css, and javascript.
• Conducted meditation sessions with 10+ participants.
• Participants expressed curiosity about tracking both human and plant “growth.”
• Feedback suggested enhancing camera integration, display clarity, and human UI interactions.
• Expand the meditation data visualization to show shared human-plant states.
• Refine UX flows to accommodate diverse user types.
• Continue exploring how digital empathy can translate into ecological awareness.
Zen was featured in The University of Texas Senior Design Capstone Exhibition (2025).
You can view my full process and prototype documentation on my Notion page!
Zen challenges traditional user-centered design by asking:
| What happens when the user isn’t only human?
By designing with, not just for, nature — Zen opens a conversation about empathy, coexistence, and the potential of technology to reconnect us to our living world.
