SYNAPP
SYNAPP
SYNAPP
SYNAPP turns your body’s signals into a living brain map, showing the difference between scroll dopamine and real reward, and guiding you back to what actually makes you feel something.
SYNAPP turns your body’s signals into a living brain map, showing the difference between scroll dopamine and real reward, and guiding you back to what actually makes you feel something.
Product Design + PM
Role
Status
Shipped · 2026
Type
Wellness App
Product Manager & Designer
Problem
Problem
Gen Z scrolls 7+ hours a day and quits hobbies before real reward kicks in — not from laziness, but from reward blunting: a nervous system trained on rapid, high-stimulation content.
Solution
Solution
A speculative app that reads biometric signals to measure genuine reward in real time, visualized as a personal universe that grows brighter the more users return to what truly resonates.
Results
Results
Shipped a fully interactive Figma Make prototype with 8 core screens in a 3-day hackathon cycle, judged by Figma.
Project Overview
My Role: Product Manager & Product Designer (Concept Direction, User Flows, Prototyping)
Timeline: FigBuild 2026, Figma’s collegiate design hackathon
Team: 4 people; Product Design, Product Management, UX Research x2
SYNAPP is a speculative wellness app for Gen Z that uses future iPhone biometric sensing to visualize genuine reward in real time. Instead of tracking mood or steps, it reads the body's signals to show the gap between the shallow stimulation of scrolling and the deeper reward of real engagement, translating that gap into a living brain map that grows as users return to what actually resonates with them. We built it in one hackathon cycle at FigBuild 2026, moving from research to a fully interactive Figma Make prototype.
01. The Problem: Reward Blunting Is Real
We kept seeing the same pattern: someone tries a hobby expecting it to feel rewarding, quits when the reward never arrives, and blames a lack of discipline. Research pointed to something deeper: a reward system trained by rapid, high-stimulation content that struggles to register slower, more meaningful signals.
Variable reward schedules in social media push the brain's baseline below normal over time, a pattern called reward blunting. It isn't a willpower problem. Hedonic interoception, the body's ability to distinguish genuine reward from hollow stimulation, is measurable, degraded by modern digital habits, and trainable: improvable 40 to 60% with deliberate practice.
02. The Solution
We reframed the brain as a personal universe. Regions of the brain became planets, activities became constellations, and every return to something genuinely rewarding made those constellations brighter. The Home dashboard surfaces a single Hedonic Baseline Score and exactly one recommended activity, never a feed. SYNAPP reads the body's signals (HRV, skin conductance, breathing pattern, micro-expressions) to measure genuine reward without any logging or self-report. Planet Detail screens surface hobby suggestions tied to a specific reward zone rather than a generic list.
Each hobby a user commits to becomes its own constellation, tracking sessions, streaks, and reward trend over time.
03. What I Learned
Restraint turned out to be the actual design problem. We had more biometric data than we could responsibly surface, so most of our best decisions were about what to leave out: one suggestion a day, no moment-to-moment noise, no feed. Every cut made the app calmer and easier to trust.
I also learned how much a single reframe can change a product. Moving from a literal anatomical brain to a personal universe wasn't just a visual fix for a rendering limitation, it changed how the whole app felt to use. That's the version of this project I'd want to keep building on.
Project Overview
My Role: Product Manager & Product Designer (Concept Direction, User Flows, Prototyping)
Timeline: FigBuild 2026, Figma’s collegiate design hackathon
Team: 4 people; Product Design, Product Management, UX Research x2
SYNAPP is a speculative wellness app for Gen Z that uses future iPhone biometric sensing to visualize genuine reward in real time. Instead of tracking mood or steps, it reads the body's signals to show the gap between the shallow stimulation of scrolling and the deeper reward of real engagement, translating that gap into a living brain map that grows as users return to what actually resonates with them. We built it in one hackathon cycle at FigBuild 2026, moving from research to a fully interactive Figma Make prototype.
01. The Problem: Reward Blunting Is Real
We kept seeing the same pattern: someone tries a hobby expecting it to feel rewarding, quits when the reward never arrives, and blames a lack of discipline. Research pointed to something deeper: a reward system trained by rapid, high-stimulation content that struggles to register slower, more meaningful signals.
Variable reward schedules in social media push the brain's baseline below normal over time, a pattern called reward blunting. It isn't a willpower problem. Hedonic interoception, the body's ability to distinguish genuine reward from hollow stimulation, is measurable, degraded by modern digital habits, and trainable: improvable 40 to 60% with deliberate practice.
02. The Solution
We reframed the brain as a personal universe. Regions of the brain became planets, activities became constellations, and every return to something genuinely rewarding made those constellations brighter. The Home dashboard surfaces a single Hedonic Baseline Score and exactly one recommended activity, never a feed. SYNAPP reads the body's signals (HRV, skin conductance, breathing pattern, micro-expressions) to measure genuine reward without any logging or self-report. Planet Detail screens surface hobby suggestions tied to a specific reward zone rather than a generic list.
Each hobby a user commits to becomes its own constellation, tracking sessions, streaks, and reward trend over time.
03. What I Learned
Restraint turned out to be the actual design problem. We had more biometric data than we could responsibly surface, so most of our best decisions were about what to leave out: one suggestion a day, no moment-to-moment noise, no feed. Every cut made the app calmer and easier to trust.
I also learned how much a single reframe can change a product. Moving from a literal anatomical brain to a personal universe wasn't just a visual fix for a rendering limitation, it changed how the whole app felt to use. That's the version of this project I'd want to keep building on.
Project Overview
My Role: Product Manager & Product Designer (Concept Direction, User Flows, Prototyping)
Timeline: FigBuild 2026, Figma’s collegiate design hackathon
Team: 4 people; Product Design, Product Management, UX Research x2
SYNAPP is a speculative wellness app for Gen Z that uses future iPhone biometric sensing to visualize genuine reward in real time. Instead of tracking mood or steps, it reads the body's signals to show the gap between the shallow stimulation of scrolling and the deeper reward of real engagement, translating that gap into a living brain map that grows as users return to what actually resonates with them. We built it in one hackathon cycle at FigBuild 2026, moving from research to a fully interactive Figma Make prototype.
01. The Problem: Reward Blunting Is Real
We kept seeing the same pattern: someone tries a hobby expecting it to feel rewarding, quits when the reward never arrives, and blames a lack of discipline. Research pointed to something deeper: a reward system trained by rapid, high-stimulation content that struggles to register slower, more meaningful signals.
Variable reward schedules in social media push the brain's baseline below normal over time, a pattern called reward blunting. It isn't a willpower problem. Hedonic interoception, the body's ability to distinguish genuine reward from hollow stimulation, is measurable, degraded by modern digital habits, and trainable: improvable 40 to 60% with deliberate practice.
02. The Solution
We reframed the brain as a personal universe. Regions of the brain became planets, activities became constellations, and every return to something genuinely rewarding made those constellations brighter. The Home dashboard surfaces a single Hedonic Baseline Score and exactly one recommended activity, never a feed. SYNAPP reads the body's signals (HRV, skin conductance, breathing pattern, micro-expressions) to measure genuine reward without any logging or self-report. Planet Detail screens surface hobby suggestions tied to a specific reward zone rather than a generic list.
Each hobby a user commits to becomes its own constellation, tracking sessions, streaks, and reward trend over time.
03. What I Learned
Restraint turned out to be the actual design problem. We had more biometric data than we could responsibly surface, so most of our best decisions were about what to leave out: one suggestion a day, no moment-to-moment noise, no feed. Every cut made the app calmer and easier to trust.
I also learned how much a single reframe can change a product. Moving from a literal anatomical brain to a personal universe wasn't just a visual fix for a rendering limitation, it changed how the whole app felt to use. That's the version of this project I'd want to keep building on.