Maya — AC-01

Persona family: The Recurrent Sufferer Tier: Plus (upgraded from Free) Platform: Web — iPhone Safari (mobile) Experience stage: Established

Who She Is

Maya has lived with panic attacks for years. She is organized and therapy-savvy, and she treats her episode log the way other people treat a health record: something you keep current because future-you will need it. She has learned to be gentle with herself, and it shows in how she narrates her own history — calmly, precisely, without drama.

Her attacks come at inconvenient hours. The 3 a.m. attack, in the dark, one-handed on her phone, is not a hypothetical for her; it is the recurring scenario her entire setup has to survive.

What She Wants

• Get through attacks faster. Relief first, always. She has no patience for anything that stands between her and a running flow.
• See what actually helped last time. Her log is the memory she can't trust herself to have mid-attack.
• Trust one place for her plan. Her safety plan used to be scattered across notes she could never find. Now it has one address.

How She Uses the App

Maya logs everything, usually from the couch within the hour — phone in hand, episode fresh. She has fourteen episodes logged over about three months, and the trend is the point: most recent intensity 6, down from the 8–9 range when she started.

Her safety plan is complete — warning signs ("tight chest, hands tingling"), three contacts including her sister Nisha, and her medication. She opens Plan mid-episode about half the time and reads the contacts section first.

Her breathing pattern is 4-7-8, and she completes eleven of her last twelve flows. The anchoring flow is her 3 a.m. tool: short statements, one at a time, in the dark, with zero fine motor demands.

What She Needs from the App

• No signup mid-attack. Apps that demand account creation during an attack are the reason she stopped trusting wellness apps. Relief must never require a login.
• A log that takes seconds. Thirty seconds, explicit intensity, quick picks — logging has to fit inside the exhausted aftermath, not compete with it.
• A plan that's readable mid-attack. Large type, contacts visible without scrolling, readable aloud by her sister if needed.
• Data that survives devices. Sign-outs, new phones, cleared browsers — her history lives server-side and comes back intact.

Design Implications

Maya is the app's core account-holding user and the full loop in miniature: relief → log → plan. Every friction she hits between those three steps is a design failure. Her 3 a.m. context — dark room, one hand, impaired working memory — is the honest test environment for the whole product.