Daze
Productivity Design System
It’s an extroverted, confident person’s world. Daze is for people who quietly put in the work - every single day. A whole new world to track and share your contributions. This is a self-initiated web app project releasing later this year. Stayed tuned to this site for more updates!
gamification, design systems
Role
Collaborators
Solo Designer
NA
duration
tools
2025
Figma, Cursor
Design
The initial concept
School doesn’t end when you graduate. In an AI-driven world racing to build faster, creatives face an impossible ask: Upskill into a generalist overnight. And while any craft takes years, how do we make each day of it count?
Engineers thrive by sharing raw, iterative work on GitHub as social proof of their daily efforts — but for any other creative, from designers, artists, or even athletes, there are virtually no systems in place to facilitate the building blocks of their craft at this time scale - documenting, practising and publicly sharing daily
When anyone can build and ship, Daze acts as a gamified companion for solo builders, and documents daily effort as a reward system and social proof without perfectionism or performative pressure. To track the daily reps, the Figma files, sketch layers, or the training logs, because you should count what counts.
The flow starts with focus
A friendly bubble accompanies you on your task, reminding you to stay on task as needed and helping you track progress.
Just-in-time Documentation
After completing a focus session, the app seamlessly invites the user to begin the next flow - documenting the wins of the session while still fresh in the mind. This makes tedious documentation feel light-hearted and approachable, and helps people track the "rule of thirds" that feels invisible unless documented daily
Tracking years in days
Focus sessions are aggregated to publicly sharable weekly and yearly logs to show progress across time-scales.
Discovery
There are more productivity apps than hours in the day. While they seem promising before downloading, they end up tedious to use long-term - leading to low retention rate.
Problem #1 Tedious workflows
Documenting progress requires manual date-tracking, setup, and context-switching, leading to burnout.
Example: Preparing files for sharing on sharing often require workflows as intensive as the their initial task, in part due to the competitiveness and algorithm of existing sharing platforms
Problem #2 Isolation
Existing Productivity tools are disjointed from existing workflow
Example: (Notion, Todoist) lack integration with the users on creative tools (Figma, Procreate) and sharing platforms (Linkedln, Instagram)
Problem #3 Context Switching
Habit trackers are disconnected from actual creation — logging ≠ building
Example: Different workflow and skillset is required for creating pixel-perfect, publish ready work
Problem #4 Social Pressure
Sharing on traditional platforms prioritize polished outcomes, discouraging iterative sharing
Example: Platforms like Dribbble and Behance host hiring platforms, raising the stakes for only the best work to represent creative work for fear of affecting career hirabilty.
So how can we reenforce the build→share process for creators?
Creators that share online have so much to gain: their work is automatically documented, they gain feedback from others that helps them improve exponentially and develop an online persona that adds leverage in work and as an independent. But for many this feels separate and a performative distraction to their existing daily practice.
Meeting People Where They’re At
Compared "social-first" (Dribble, Behance, Linkedln, read.cv, insta) vs. "build-first" (GitHub) platforms by browsing reddit around 3 major use cases:
Builders: Creatives needing habit-forming workflows (e.g. notion+calender, Atom, Todoist)
Mentors: Experts seeking to share process-driven insights.
Learners: Newcomers intimidated by polished social platforms.
The quality and frequency of documentation improves on build-first platforms (e.g. Github, Strava, Figma) as opposed to “social-first” platforms requiring users to engage in a third workflow to create publish-ready materials e.g. Behance, Dribble, Linkedln. In other words, a tool that facilitates the creative process itself then extends towards sharing online is more readily adoptable long-term than a separate flow simply for sharing.
Process
Before designing, there were clear goals in mind that then indirectly informed a PRD
Product Goal #1 Facilitate builds
Focus sessions facilitates users with virtual companion
Product Goal #2 Seamless Documentation
Focus sessions automatically documented as activity (no third-app friction or supplementary documentation needed)
User Goal #1 Gamify Habit
Help people navigate and stay motivated during failure with timely reward mechanism
User Goal #2 Visualize progress
Calendar view shows total activity over time
Reinforcing the build→ship→track transition
“Contribution tables” weren’t enough to enforce a habit. Users wanted integrations between building and shipping, not another app that tries to do either subpar. We can spark a build session flow, then prompt documentation to follow, just like in Github, where contributions are an invisible step to coding.
Build: How May We become an essential touchpoint in their building process?
Assist people in guided focus sessions
gamification keeps users engaged throughout a flow state: including sound, world building
Develop a remote work companion → individual sessions are naturally documented with optional entry field for further reflection
From James Clear atomic habits, using motion graphics to track and visualize effort (time spent, tasks attempted) instead of finished projects over time
Ship: How May We foster a casual, process-oriented culture for builders to learn and grow?
Automatic documentation (no extra work)
24 hour time-limit to post after logged activity
Journal style reflection
Visuals
The Work Companion that grows with you
I was heavily inspired by game apps and wondered if this kind of immersive quality could help users stay productive and immersed in their tasks. This is what led to the bubble concept, that upon tapping to signal a mini task completed, expands and fades into immersive worlds.
Calendars as effort heat maps
Another important piece to visualize was progress across time scales. I wanted time to almost feel like a map that you could roam across, that the time you spent towards your goals was material weight that accumulates.
Embedding love into the UI
I wanted to reduce visual clutter and allow the app to feel simple and intuitive. For example, instead of dark/light mode, I developed a grey mode, where the app grows lighter as you create in the present, and darker as you reflect on the past. These are some various inspiration on how to display galleries and user insights.
Dev
Next steps are
Rebuild the Figma prototype in framer, and connect to Supabase.
3D animations in blender
Launch
I’m building live, if anything above feels interesting, please feel free to message me
Last update Jan 31, 2025.
