Year
2025
Client
Personal Project
Category
Dashboard
Product Duration
3 - 4 Weeks
The Spark
I got that passive-aggressive “Are you still watching?” prompt—right when I’d promised myself I’d finish a coding tutorial. I laughed, then cringed: what if my streaming hours were reframed as “hours I could’ve spent mastering Python”? That moment sparked Zen’s mission: friends who roast you and push you to your goals.
The Problem
People binge-watch with a mix of guilt and delight, but existing screen-time tools feel like stern teachers.
Raw metrics (“You watched 20 hrs”) trigger defensiveness or get ignored.
Users crave awareness but only if it’s non-judgmental, contextualized, and fun.
Opportunity: create a dashboard that uses self-directed humor and concrete alternative-activity framing to drive real behavior change.
Our Users
Survey & Interviews (n = 120)
Ambivalence (87%): Enjoyed binges but felt “lost productivity”
Humour as Defense (91%): Self-deprecating jokes diffuse guilt (“I’m trash—I watched an entire season in one day.”)
Confession Cycle (68%): Regularly confess binges to friends
Time-Distortion (74%): Underestimated watch time by ~30%
False-Starts (82%): Tried built-in limits but found them demotivating
Key Insight
Self-directed humor creates psychological safety. Users will engage with feedback if it’s framed as a friendly roast rather than a lecture.
To read more on research;
1. A Case Study Series On How Friendly Roasts Turn Streaming Shame Into Self-Awareness (Part 1)
2. A Case Study Series On How Friendly Roasts Turn Streaming Shame Into Self-Awareness (Part 2)
3. A Case Study Series On How Friendly Roasts Turn Streaming Shame Into Self-Awareness (Part 3)
4. A Case Study Series On How Friendly Roasts Turn Streaming Shame Into Self-Awareness (Part 4)
Mood & Style
Dark base with neon-lime accents for that playful “nudge” feeling.
Rounded cards, clean typography (Inter), micro-illustrations to humanize data.
Information Hierarchy
Hero Reality Check: Big chart + one-line roast (“With 9.2 hrs of streaming you could’ve built a mechanical keyboard.”)
Balance Mode Widget: Shows “Netflix credits” vs. activities like “Learn Python / 4h credit.”
Touch-Grass Meter: A streak tracker to let you know how bad your binge watching habits are that you are holding a streak
Daily Focus Tracker: Productivity vs. streaming impact graph.
Onboarding Flows:
Triggers (Work Stress, Procrastination…)
Feedback-style slider (Gentle Nudge ⇆ Brutal Honesty)
key challenges
Balancing humor & empathy: Avoid jokes that feel cruel when someone really is over-streaming.
Concrete alternative framing: Mapping hours to plausible, motivating activities.
Data without clutter: Showing multi-metric dashboards that feel fun, not overwhelming.
Onboarding friction: Gathering triggers (“Work Stress? Procrastination?”) and feedback style (Gentle ⇆ Brutal) in just a few steps.
what I shipped
Full Figma prototype of the Zen dashboard:
Reality Check bar chart
What If Machine cards (language, fitness, creative skills)
Balance Mode widget with editable “Netflix credits” vs. goal credits
Touch Grass Meter streak tracker
Daily Focus Tracker graph
3-step onboarding flow (triggers selector, goal setup, feedback slider)
Brand identity: Logo, color palette, iconography, tone guidelines
Next steps
Build a clickable demo with local-storage persistence for preferences
Integrate real watch-time data via a browser-extension prototype
Expand “Balance Mode” to support custom activity libraries
Add social sharing so users can caption their favorite roasts and spark community
Explore cross-platform: streaming on YouTube, Spotify, TikTok
Humor Wins: A friendly roast fosters openness more than any stern notification.
Concrete Comparisons: “Hours could’ve been coding” beats raw watch-time stats.
Autonomy Matters: Users abandon tools that feel controlling; offer choice, not commands.
Emotional Journey: Guide users from recognition → awareness → possibility, and you’ll avoid defensiveness.
This project taught me how powerful self-directed humor and choice architecture can be in turning raw data into lasting behavior change.
