REFLECTION / DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
Moods
Moving from a list of past feelings to a space that feels ready to listen.
Designing for a feeling
I started Moods because I wanted a private way to journal by talking. It was also a chance to learn Apple’s Foundation Models and explore the design language of iOS 26 in a project of my own.
At first, the app revolved around a list of journal entries. That made functional sense. Then a conversation with a friend reminded me to ask a question I often bring to other people’s projects: how should this make someone feel?
My answer was “as if someone is ready to listen to them”. A list of previous states of mind was taking up the space where someone could connect with how they felt now.
I moved the list out of sight but kept it within reach. Dictation became the main action, with a large microphone control and gentle colour making the invitation clear.
When I shared this direction, I didn’t know whether it would feel right to early beta testers. It felt right to me, and gave me something concrete to keep refining.
A palette of feelings
Colour became another way into the journal. Each entry has a mood and a colour; together, the circles make a palette of recent feelings.
The rolling grid of 30 days raised more questions: was the limit clear, what happened to older colours, and did the empty circles make it feel like a streak to maintain?
That last question mattered to me. I expected people to miss days. Dates were less important in this view than the overall picture, and I wanted the journal to leave room for that. The intent was a way to reflect, with no guilt about a gap.
Moo, the chameleon, gave those changing colours a character. The name changed too: I originally called the app Mood, but that name was taken. It became Moods.
A gentle voice, with limits
The words needed as much care as the screens. I wrote a tone guide around gentle, nonjudgmental language, personal agency and honest limits. The app could offer companionship and prompts; it should leave people in charge of what their own feelings meant.
That shaped how I thought about the AI reflections. They were suggestions to consider, rather than conclusions someone had to accept. The aim was to make space for a person’s thoughts, with Moo adding a little warmth along the way.
Designing the Watch handoff
The Watch companion brought capture closer to the moment, but introduced a more involved journey behind the small screen. A recording could need to wait for the phone before processing could happen there.
I mapped that journey as a flow before translating it into requirements for AI-assisted implementation. The diagram covered recording, cancellation, queues, phone availability, processing and failures. It made the states and handoffs explicit before they became code.
Moods shipped for iPhone with a Watch companion and iCloud sync. The phone handles speech and AI processing, turning thoughts into highlights and reflection prompts. Entries stay on the device and in personal iCloud storage; the Watch offers another place to capture a thought.
The product includes the price
Moods launched with monthly and yearly subscriptions. That made commercial sense, but it didn’t sit comfortably with why I’d made it. I’m reluctant to subscribe to an app myself unless it keeps offering something worth paying for.
I changed it to a one-time purchase. When I wrote about the change, I described the relief I felt: this was closer to an art project than a business, a place to experiment with full creative direction and carry what I learned into client work.
The pricing decision belonged to the design as much as the opening screen did. Both came back to what I wanted it to feel like to have this app in someone’s life.