Design Philosophy
Rooted in Zen, Moment shows that digital tools don't need to imitate cushions or bowls—they can speak a native, browser-first language. The interface disappears, letting breath lead. Subtle touches—three-bell transitions, a gentle heart pulse, rotating Dōgen lines, and language like "arriving" and "settling"—create warmth without ornament. What matters is what's omitted. Moment is a small, faithful container for practice that fits between tasks.
Experience Moment
Available now in the Chrome Web Store
Visual Design
The interface demonstrates that digital mindfulness tools can create their own vernacular by embracing browser constraints and affordances.
Core Design Principles
The interface uses physical metaphors that mirror the breathing experience. The "hold to arrive" interaction creates an intentional pause before practice begins, with depth-based visual feedback providing tactile satisfaction in a digital medium.
The experience follows distinct phases mirroring traditional meditation: arrival phase with gradual deepening, three-bell ceremony marking transitions, synchronized breathing circles, and a 30-second settling period with a pendulum that gradually slows to stillness.
The interface embraces restraint through a limited palette of blues and grays, clean typography, and breathing room between elements. Animations follow natural physics—objects accelerate and decelerate as they would in the physical world. This digital interpretation of wabi-sabi finds beauty in simplicity and the essential.
Practice history becomes a "river" where each day appears as either a ripple (practiced) or still water (no practice). This metaphor makes data emotionally resonant, removes judgment, and creates a living document that flows like water.
Lives quietly in the browser toolbar, uses badges to show remaining minutes without interruption, provides gentle system notifications, and maintains state across sessions—respecting that mindfulness should complement, not compete with, daily tasks.
Technical Implementation
Architecture Highlights
- Built as a Chrome Extension using vanilla JavaScript for optimal performance
- CSS custom properties enable dynamic breathing rhythm adjustments
- Cubic-bezier curves create naturalistic animation timing
- Local storage maintains practice history and user preferences
- Service worker manages background timers and notifications
- No external dependencies to ensure privacy and performance
- Offline-first approach for reliability
- Responsive design adapts to various popup window sizes
- Accessibility features including keyboard navigation and ARIA labels
- Progressive enhancement ensures core functionality always works