Ping
Julia K
Ping app. Reclaiming time from infinite feeds
Behavioural intervention iOS app that turns mindless scrolling into a moment of choice. End-to-end product design.
ProjectOverview
“I just need it not to be endless.”
That’s what one user told me during an interview.In user interviews, people didn't ask for blockers or strict limits, but for the chance to break the meaningless cycle. They described a reflex — picking up the phone without knowing why, and surfacing back 40 minutes later. Survey respondents cited 2 main frustrations their experienced with existing tools: overly aggressive restrictions and how easy it is to ignore.Ping intercepts the moment both miss — the split second before the scroll begins. And for users who put the phone down but don't know what to do next, Ping gives them a better option.
Process
My starting assumption was simple: interrupt the scroll before it starts. So I mapped existing tools — Opal, Screen Time, Forest — and found the same gap in all of them. They either block too hard, or they're too easy to dismiss. Neither addresses the moment before the habit kicks in. That gap became the design constraint: how do you create friction without creating resistance?I ran a survey and 4 in-depth interviews to pressure-test this. The survey confirmed the triggers. The interviews broke my assumptions about what happens next.
Ping's design principles:
reduce cognitive load during impulse
add friction, not prohibition
offer a concrete alternative
provide immediate positive feedback
respect user resistance
Hypotheses
To guide early prototypes, I mapped several behavioural hypotheses about why scrolling is hard to stop.
Assumptions:
the best moment to interrupt scrolling is when the app opens
people often don’t know what to do instead of scrolling
hard app blocking creates frustration and gets bypassed
social accountability could make breaks easier to sustain
What held up:The best interruption point is app open — confirmed.Every interviewee described opening the app as the moment they "weren't thinking yet." Blocking after the fact never worked.Hard blocking creates workarounds — confirmed. Both interviewees had disabled Screen Time within a week of setting it up. One said: "It felt like punishment for something I hadn't done yet."
What didn't:Social accountability as a motivator — partially wrong. I assumed accountability meant reminders or check-ins. Interviews showed something different: seeing a friend actively on a break was more motivating than any nudge. Passive visibility, not active pressure. That reframed the entire Community feature.People don't know what to do instead — too broad. They do know. They just don't remember in the moment. The real problem is recall under impulse, not lack of ideas. That's why WTD pulls from the user's own calendar instead of suggesting generic activities.
Behavioral Map
Behavioural intervention point (pre-interviews). Before conducting interviews, I mapped the assumed cycle behind mindless scrolling based on early survey responses and research.
86% of survey respondents cited fatigue, boredom, or autopilot as their main trigger.
69% of respondents said they use short-feed apps longer than intended.
73% reported feeling regret after 30+ minutes.
Ping's core flow (pre-interviews):
What changed after interviews:
User interviews reshaped the core flow in ways the survey didn’t capture, revealing how decisions are made in the moment.
Main changes:
closing the app right after the pause counts as a win — no reset needed
the overlay gained a note reminding users what they planned to do today
auto-start replaced manual timer — impulse moments leave no room for extra decisions
1st flow: No plans in calendar or app, so Ping suggests a 2-minute reset.
2nd flow: Plans from calendar or saved in the app appear as a reminder before scrolling.
Product experience
The product went through multiple iterations before reaching the final flow. Early versions explored different structures, features, and levels of complexity.However, interviews and user testing revealed a gap between design logic and real behavior — many of these ideas were simply ignored.
Final app workflow I've got after interviews, user tests, and affinity mapping.No, you’re not supposed to read this :)It’s here to show the complexity behind something that eventually became simple.
Design decisions were directly shaped by user behavior observed during interviews and testing.Many initial features were removed or altered when they didn’t hold up to real use.
Decision making:
Removed Notes — users already have Apple Notes or a similar app they prefer.
Moved Planner into What to Do (WTD) — added Apple Calendar sync so break purpose can pull directly from the user's real plans.
Expanded social layer — interviews showed seeing a friend using Ping was more motivating than any blocker. Added "on a break now" status, challenges, and community feed.
Added WTD filters — allowing the user to choose what they wish to do more precisely.
UX copywriting — making the names and texts more user-friendly by simplifying and aligning with common standards.
What's next
The current version solves the interruption problem. The next question is: what makes it stick? A few directions I'd explore in the next iteration:
Onboarding that earns trust. Right now the app asks for calendar access and notification permissions on first open — high friction before the user has seen any value. I'd flip it: show the pause screen first, let users feel the product, ask for permissions only when they become relevant.
Apple Watch haptic pause. The most effective version of Ping's intervention isn't visual — it's physical. A subtle wrist tap the moment a scroll-heavy app opens would reach users before their eyes even focus on the screen. That's the actual impulse moment.
Swap logic as a first-class metric. Closing the app counts as a win, but it's invisible. I'd surface it explicitly — "You closed TikTok 3 times today" — because users don't register their own resistance unless it's reflected back at them.
Community features closer to offline. The strongest detox pattern interviews surfaced wasn't digital accountability — it was making plans with a real person. A future Community layer could support that: not just challenges, but "want to meet up?" prompts tied to a shared break.
Reducing cold-start on WTD. New users open What to Do and see an empty state. The first session should feel immediately personal — which means pulling from Calendar on day one, not waiting for the user to manually add activities.
SIBrowser. website redesign
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Posted Aug 6, 2026
Behavioural-intervention iOS app that interrupts mindless scrolling; end-to-end product design guided by interviews and testing.
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