Gauge is an iOS app for posting hot takes, voting on them with a swipe, and seeing how your opinion compares with everyone else's. Our team took the app from concept to a working iOS experience in one semester.
The main feed kept people voting once they opened the app. We needed a reason to come back every day and something that would get people talking about Gauge outside of it.
Take Time, a once-a-day feature that gives everyone on Gauge the same five takes, pulled from what's trending, so the whole community weighs in on the same conversation.
As a UI/UX Designer, I was one of three junior designers working with our senior designer. I designed Take Time end to end, through the prototype, and gave feedback on the rest of the app.
At the start of the project, we compared Twitter, Reddit, and Wishbone, three apps where people share and react to opinions.
| App | How it works | What we learned | Opportunity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time posts and trending topics | Topics spread quickly, but lack a cohesive focal point. | Create a shared moment around the same topics. | |
| Topic-based communities and discussions | Discussions can be rich, but hard to discover outside their communities. | Make conversations easier to discover and join. | |
| Wishbone | Quick, binary-choice polls | Repetitive either-or voting can lose its appeal. | Add variety and nuance to keep voting engaging. |
I wanted Gauge users to have a reason to come back and participate in a shared conversation every day, rather than just scroll through an endless feed.
I pitched Take Time, a game built around trending topics, and our senior designer suggested making it a once-a-day experience inspired by BeReal.
Take Time reuses the voting card designed for Gauge's main feed, which keeps the core swipe interaction consistent across the app.
I added a 5-step progress indicator at the top and removed the navigation bar to keep focus on the unique content experience.
We needed to maintain visual consistency across Gauge while making Take Time feel special, so it needed to start with a bang!
I chose the flowing orange gradient over the softer multicolor option for its higher energy and contrast against Gauge's black-and-white interface.
The hourglass imagery acts as a focal point to reinforce the once-a-day limit of Take Time, with the side-entry text animation heightening the sense of anticipation.
The Done screen strips away distractions and uses Gauge's playful, slightly provocative voice to make finishing the daily set feel like a small but satisfying accomplishment. Its simplicity gives users a moment to appreciate their participation.
Take Time was a working feature in the app we showed at Demo Day, with the day's takes generated from what was trending in the community. We demoed everything live, with members of our team posting takes, voting, and commenting from the audience. Our amazing teamwork from start to the very end was recognized and rewarded!
Gauge taught me the power of minimalism. We initially explored bold colors to match the app's provocative personality, but realized that a mostly black-and-white interface made the burst of color when users picked a side stand out even more. I carried that thinking into Take Time, reducing the daily set from 10 takes to 5. By demanding less attention from the user, we could make each take feel more meaningful.
Our team wanted to build a fun, fresh mini-game, but making it work within our experience and tight timeline proved harder than expected. Despite constant communication between designers and developers, we reached a point where neither side was making much progress. Instead of forcing the original idea, we explored alternatives, which led me to pitch Take Time. What started as a backup became something even stronger than our original concept, reminding me that being open to change can lead to better ideas.
Best Overall · Best Design