Pith
Product design + development
A private place to think out loud before the thought disappears.
Pith is an on-device iOS experience that turns raw voice into structured insight without sending a personal journal, a meeting, or a private conversation to the cloud.
Why it exists
Most thinking tools ask people to become organized before they are allowed to be honest.
Voice notes are fast, intimate, and almost frictionless, but they often become an unsearchable pile of audio. Cloud transcription solves retrieval, but asks people to trade away context that may be deeply personal.
Pith reframes the problem: record without performance, then return a useful shape. The product had to feel as private as a journal while being more helpful than a transcript.
The thinking behind it
I used the tensions in voice notes to decide what Pith should and should not do.
- 01
Start with voice, not a form. Thoughts usually arrive before structure. Pith can receive a thought before asking someone to name, sort, or edit it.
- 02
Make local-first behavior visible. Privacy needs to be felt, not just promised. On-device language and airplane-mode use make the boundary clear without turning it into a settings page.
- 03
Let a person ask about a session in context. Recall should not feel like searching an archive. The product returns to a thought through conversation instead of forcing someone to replay every note.
Three modes
The same recording action can mean very different things.
- 01
Journal For a walk, a late-night thought, or a feeling that needs space before it needs a label. Pith finds the thread and returns a warm, structured summary with a Core Vision.
- 02
Briefing For meetings, lectures, and consultations where recall matters. Pith organizes a longer session into chapters, anchor facts, and takeaways.
- 03
Conversation For a shared discussion. Pith distinguishes voices and maps the exchange into a navigable record of interests, ideas, and decisions.
Designed around trust
“True clarity should not cost you your privacy.”
That sentence became a product test. If a state, interaction, or piece of language made the experience feel like surveillance, it did not belong in Pith. Privacy had to be designed into the rhythm of the product, not appended as a policy.
- 01
Works in airplane mode Record anywhere, even when a connection is not part of the moment.
- 02
No cloud uploads Personal context stays on the device instead of becoming another account to manage.
- 03
Context stays close Ask about a session without having to explain the thought all over again.
My role
The work moved between product design and development without losing its point of view.
- 01
Experience framing, interaction flows, and the visual system.
- 02
A connected recording-to-recall journey, rather than isolated screens.
- 03
Design decisions translated into a coherent, native product experience.
