Sandbox for Ethical Dilemmas
Project Scope
Role & Team
Technical Details
Key Metrics
The internet made advice abundant but lost what makes advice valuable: trust, context, and accountability.
These challenges lead to:
Crisis of Trust
Behind every username is an unknown voice offering life-changing advice with no credentials or track record.
Missing Context
Real life is messy and nuanced - but online advice pretends everything is black and white.
Zero Accountability
Advice floats in a vacuum - no one tracks if it helped or hurt, so the community never learns or improves.
The Opportunity
How do we transform internet advice from a random free-for-all into a structured learning system?
By building a platform where:
Core Game Loop
The initial path a user takes when first starting out
Home Screen Evolution
The home screen serves as users' daily entry point into ethical decision-making. Through countless iterations, I refined how scenarios are presented, focusing on reducing friction and increasing engagement while maintaining the delicate balance between gamification and meaningful reflection.
Enhanced user experience with a clean, nuanced aesthetic - creating sophistication through subtle design elements
'Coming Soon' indicators streamlined development focus while setting clear user expectations
Optimized navigation for both web and mobile platforms, keeping focus on essential features
Position testing revealed Daily Challenge performs best at top, while secondary features need clear visual differentiation
Visible User Progress
The visible user progress feature helps users monitor their progress on each scenario, ensuring they know where they stand and how close they are to completing the goal.
Redesigned the XP visualization to show proportional progress toward next level, creating clearer achievement pathways
Social comparison through ranking increases competitive engagement while validating effort
Users are more likely to engage with, remember, and respond positively to content that relates to themselves personally.
Implemented 1-10 rating scales for each answer to create personalized thinking style analysis across multiple dimensions
Beyond the Choice
What happens after a decision is just as important as the choice itself. We iteratively refined these crucial screens to strike the perfect balance - delivering valuable insights and encouraging deeper ethical reflection without overwhelming users with information.
Added topic tags to create structure and enable personalized experiences
Enhanced visibility of how others responded with clear percentage indicators
Introduced exchangeable points as tangible rewards for thoughtful contributions
Added the ability to see alternative approaches to the same dilemma, assigned per answer
What's Next: Insights & Opportunities
Reflecting on our journey and looking ahead to future challenges and possibilities.
What I Learned
Structure Beats Chaos
Building an XP system with AI felt like teaching math to a goldfish - every interaction needed clear rules and double validation to maintain integrity
Focus Beats Features
Product development is like a RPG - side quests are tempting, but you'll never finish the main story if you chase every shiny new feature
Layers Drive Engagement
Like a good game, meaningful engagement requires multiple reward systems - immediate feedback, mid-term goals, and long-term progression
