Most apps reward you by showing you a task completed. A tick. A bar filling up. A streak counter. It works because it borrows the dopamine of getting things done. "Avoid the checkmarks. Avoid the percentage bars. Avoid anything that feels like productivity." A friend I'm building a wellness app with said that during a working session. It changed how I approached the entire reward system. But this product isn't about getting things done. It's about getting someone to pause. The second you put a progress bar on a calm experience, you've made it a chore. You've turned breathing into a to-do list item. So we stripped the productivity signals out entirely. No checkmarks. No percentages. The reward had to feel like acknowledgment, not achievement. You opened the app, that was already enough, and the design needed to say that without making it feel like a level you cleared. The reward you choose tells the user what kind of product they're in. Get it wrong and a calm app starts to feel like homework. Nobody comes back to homework.

The 'turned breathing into a to-do list item' line nails the exact failure mode. Most wellness apps pick up productivity patterns without realizing they're importing the same anxiety the user was trying to escape.

I found an old concept website I designed for BoomBox back in 2021.

At the time, I was working on a Late 2011 MacBook Pro that could barely survive Figma prototyping 😅

Every interaction lagged. Every animation stuttered. Every prototype felt like a small battle between me and my laptop.

Looking back, I can see a hundred things I'd improve today.

But I can also see something else: I was already experimenting with bold typography, motion, and creating an experience rather than just arranging screens.

Sometimes it's fun to revisit old work.

Not to judge how far you still have to go, but to remember how far you've already come.

Curious: What's the oldest project you're still proud of?

woow, cool work!🔥