By default I am skeptical of pages that hijack scroll, but at this moment in our first SlabLab report I felt there was enough storytelling value in synchronizing the visuals with the copy. To keep the user in control I animate a vertical progress bar so they always get feedback as they scroll.
While not groundbreaking UX in and of itself, to me this is an example of the engineering and craft it takes to make a small app feel polished. In SlabLab's direct messages, text and image messages are animated into the conversation immediately. Once that text or image is stored on the server, care is taken to update those rows with no flash as React Native re-renders.
Skiing is seasonal and we respect that rather than maximize engagement when it's not in our users' interest. Summer mode sets sensible notification defaults. The toggle is always there but it actually moves in the UI to be more discoverable when you're likely to want it. Other details in the app and emails also adjust themselves. Here, the notification settings use subtle animation and intentional copy to add some fun while reinforcing the changes.
A huge advantage of AI coding is having the time to create powerful tools around your core work product. When I was using GSAP to animate these charts for a data storytelling report on the care economy, I created a playground that let me quickly prototype dozens of animations and interactions side by side. This let me communicate and iterate with my team much more rapidly before we locked in our favorites.
Float was a savings account where the deposits were leveraged to fund WaterCredit loans instead of making the bank money. To convey this new concept in a way that felt delightful, we worked with Water.org on an equation that translated your balance x time in the account into concrete benefits like gallons of clean drinking water. We created this green "aura" to symbolize the potential energy of your money and gave it more prominence than your balance.
Unlike really any app I know, the entire navigation of the Float app was on a timeline that went left to right. On launch you saw the present state of your balance and the impact of your money. To the left were the impact "milestones" your money had achieved in the past, and to the right was a future projection of what your money would achieve if you kept saving. This reinforced the central concept that your money is always working and more time is more impact.
Your AI may have ideas on how we can best work together.
Paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM that can browse:
https://danielbutdigital.com/llms-full.txt
Claude Code — one command to add me as a connector:
claude mcp add --transport http daniel https://danielbutdigital.com/mcp
Claude Desktop — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, paste:
https://danielbutdigital.com/mcp
Other MCP clients — drop this into mcpServers: