Friction Labs

Mission

You are building a mobile app called ClearDay — a daily life operating system designed specifically for adults with ADHD. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE CORE INSIGHT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Every productivity app fails people with ADHD because they were built for neurotypical brains. They require too many steps to start a task, have no concept of time blindness, and offer zero dopamine reward for completion. ClearDay is built around how ADHD brains actually work: friction must be near-zero, tasks must feel small and winnable, and the app must meet the user where they are — not demand they come to it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TARGET USER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Adults aged 18–45 diagnosed with ADHD (or self-identifying) who have tried and abandoned Notion, Todoist, Google Calendar, and every other productivity app because none of them stick. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SCREENS TO BUILD ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SCREEN 1 — NOW VIEW (Home) The only screen the user needs most days. - Shows ONE task at the top in huge bold text: "Your one thing right now" - Below it: a large START button (bright, satisfying) - A visible countdown timer that activates on START — shows time in a chunked visual format (25 min blocks, not a clock) - A "Too hard" button that instantly breaks the task into 3 smaller sub-steps - A "Not now" button that snoozes the task and surfaces the next one - At the bottom: a simple energy check-in strip (3 states: Running on Empty / Steady / Locked In) SCREEN 2 — BRAIN DUMP A fast, frictionless capture screen. - Opens instantly to a large text field — no categories, no labels, no decisions - Voice input button (tap to speak, text appears) - After entry: one simple AI sort button that organises all dumped items into Today / This Week / Someday / Just Feelings (not a task) - Items in "Just Feelings" go to a private journal, not a to-do list SCREEN 3 — TODAY MAP A visual time-block layout for the day. - Shows the day as a horizontal scrollable timeline of coloured blocks - Each block is a task with an estimated time bubble - Time blindness helper: blocks labelled "before lunch / after lunch / evening" not clock times by default - Tap any block to expand it: shows sub-steps and a Start button - An "Overwhelmed" button at the top that instantly removes 60% of tasks and asks: "What are the 2 things that actually matter today?" SCREEN 4 — WINS WALL A dopamine reward screen. - Every completed task adds a coloured tile to a growing mosaic wall - Shows a streak counter (but resets gently — no shame spiral, just "new streak starts now") - Weekly summary: "You did X things this week. Your brain worked hard." - Option to share a win card to social media SCREEN 5 — BODY DOUBLE A focus companion screen. - A soft ambient background (rain, cafe noise, lo-fi) that plays while working - A virtual "someone else is working too" presence indicator (shows anonymised count: "1,847 people are focusing right now") - A 25-minute focus session with visual progress ring - End-of-session: celebration animation + prompt to log what was completed ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DATA MODEL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Task: id, title, energyRequired(low/med/high), estimatedMinutes, status, timeframe(today/week/someday), subSteps[], completedAt DayLog: date, energyLevel, completedTaskIds[], brainDumpEntries[], focusMinutes Win: date, taskTitle, streakDay, tileColor FocusSession: startTime, duration, userId, taskId, completed ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CORE USER FLOW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Open app → energy check-in (3 taps) → ONE task shown → hit Start → timer runs → task done → tile added to Wins Wall → next task surfaces automatically Brain Dump flow: Stray thought → open Brain Dump → speak or type → AI sorts it → user confirms → moves on ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DESIGN RULES (CRITICAL) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - Maximum 2 decisions per screen. Every extra option is a barrier. - Bold, high-contrast typography. No small text. No grey on grey. - Warm, dopamine-friendly color palette: deep purple, electric coral, soft gold on dark backgrounds. - Zero onboarding friction — user lands directly on NOW VIEW with a sample task ready to go. - Every interaction must feel satisfying: bouncy button press, confetti on task complete, smooth transitions — not clinical. - NO SHAME design: no red overdue indicators, no "you missed X days", no guilt-inducing streaks. - Dark mode by default. - Large tap targets — minimum 56px height for all buttons. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TONE OF THE APP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Feel like a kind, hyped-up friend who actually gets it — not a corporate productivity tool. Microcopy should be warm and real: "Let's go 🔥" not "Task initiated". "Nicely done" not "Task completed".