Ember: A Ritual-Inspired Digital Decluttering Experience
(Independent Passion Project) UX concept exploring how ritual, reflection, and intentional interaction design can support digital organization, reduce cognitive load, and help users release digital clutter with confidence.
Role: UX Designer
Timeline: Concept project
Focus: Problem framing, secondary research, interaction design, lo-fi concepting
At a Glance
Digital clutter creates both cognitive and emotional friction
Existing tools prioritize speed and storage, not decision confidence
Ember reframes decluttering as a guided, intentional experience
Focused on clarity, closure, and trust in one’s digital system
The Problem
Digital clutter is not just a storage issue - it’s an emotional and cognitive one.
Many users delay organizing or deleting files because of uncertainty, attachment, or fear of losing something important. Over time, this avoidance leads to overwhelming digital environments across phones and laptops, making it harder to find information, focus, or trust one’s own systems.
While numerous tools exist to clean up files quickly, few address the human experience of letting go - the moment where users must decide what is complete, what still has value, and what is ready to be released.
Audience
Ember is designed for users who:
Feel overwhelmed by digital clutter across devices
Struggle to maintain organization despite good intentions
Value reflection, mindfulness, or intentional practices
Want structure without harsh productivity pressure
While the experience is especially resonant for spiritually-inclined or ritual-oriented users, the core problem is shared broadly by busy knowledge workers and creatives navigating large volumes of digital content.
Jobs to Be Done
When my phone or laptop feels cluttered and overwhelming, I want a gentle and trustworthy way to review and release digital files so I can feel calm, focused, and confident that I won’t lose something important.
Secondary Research & Insights
Public research highlights several factors contributing to digital clutter challenges:
Digital hoarding and avoidance behaviors are linked to emotional attachment and fear of loss, not just disorganization
Cognitive overload increases when users are presented with too many decisions at once
Mindfulness and reflective practices can support follow-through in emotionally charged tasks
These insights suggest that users don’t simply need faster deletion tools—they need decision support, reassurance, and closure.
Key Insights
1. Speed alone does not reduce overwhelm.
Fast cleanup tools often increase anxiety by forcing rapid decisions without context or reassurance.
2. Deleting files is emotionally harder than organizing them.
Users often keep unnecessary files because deletion feels irreversible and risky.
3. Reflection builds confidence.
Short moments of intention or framing can help users commit to decisions and reduce second-guessing.
4. Closure matters.
Without a clear “end” to the decluttering process, users are more likely to avoid returning to it.
Design Opportunity
The opportunity was to design an experience that:
Reduces cognitive load during decluttering
Supports emotional safety around deletion
Encourages intentional decision-making
Creates a sense of completion and renewal
Rather than treating files as disposable data, Ember treats them as chapters - some to keep, some to archive, and some to consciously release.
Concept
Ember is a ritual-inspired digital decluttering experience that guides users through a short, focused session to review, release, and close out digital clutter.
The experience is structured around a simple metaphor:
review → release → create space.
Ritual elements are subtle and optional, designed to support - not distract from - the task at hand.
Core Experience Flow
Scan
Ember identifies common clutter categories (duplicates, screenshots, downloads, large files).Reflect
Users are gently prompted to consider what they want more space for - mentally and digitally.Decide
Files are reviewed one at a time with clear, low-pressure actions:Keep
Archive
Release
Close
Each session ends with a moment of closure - summarizing space created and offering reassurance before returning to the device.
Lo-Fi Concept Design
Early concept designs explore:
Calm, minimal layouts to reduce decision fatigue
Gentle language that emphasizes choice over urgency
Safety mechanisms such as undo windows and archive options
Time-bounded sessions to prevent overwhelm
your files
Identifying common clutter categories
if it were gone?"
Released items can be restored
within 30 days.
Lo-Fi Concept Design Early concept screens explore how ritual framing and intentional language can reduce the emotional friction of digital decluttering.
Key design decisions visible in these screens:
Scan uses a circular progress indicator and explicit reassurance ("Nothing will be deleted without your review") to reduce anxiety before the session begins.
Reflect opens with a grounding prompt before presenting categories, anchoring the session in intention rather than efficiency. The "Quick win" tag on Duplicates gives overwhelmed users an easy entry point.
Decide shows one file at a time with three options (Keep / Archive / Release) — the middle path of Archive dramatically lowers the stakes of each decision. A persistent "Not ready to decide" link respects users who need to pause.
Close ends with a concrete summary (space created, items released) and a 30-day restore window, providing the closure and safety net that makes users willing to return.
How Ember Differs from Existing Tools
Most digital cleanup tools focus on:
Maximizing storage reclaimed
Automating deletion decisions
Speed and efficiency
Ember focuses on:
Decision confidence
Emotional closure
Trust in one’s system
By blending practical organization with reflective interaction design, Ember fills a gap between productivity tools and wellbeing experiences.
Testing & Validation Plan
If developed further, Ember would be validated through:
Concept testing with users who self-identify as overwhelmed by digital clutter
Usability testing focused on decision confidence, not speed
Measuring follow-through and return usage after initial sessions
Evaluating whether users feel more trust in their file systems post-use
What Testing Revealed
I ran informal think-aloud sessions with 3 participants who self-identified as digitally overwhelmed, walking them through all four screens and asking them to rate their confidence in releasing a file from 1–5.
3 participants tested · Avg. confidence score: 4.5 / 5 ·
clutter on
your phone
Nothing will be deleted without your review.
if it were gone?"
Keep: stays as-is · Save for Later: moves to folder
Trash: deleted after 30 days — reversible
You can undo any decision later.
Items in Trash can be restored within 30 days — no regrets needed.
Review the clickable prototype to move through the user workflow
Scan: identifies clutter categories with reassuring scanning progress
Reflect: gentle category selection with “Quick win” tags
Decide: one file at a time with Keep, Archive, Release options
Close: session summary with space created and restore guarantee
Findings and Changes
Review updated clickable prototype
Review (renamed from Scan)
"It's still loading, so I don't know if we can move forward yet."
"Scan" felt clinical to two participants. The Continue button being active during scanning also felt premature. Renamed to Review, subtitle updated to "Reviewing clutter on your phone," and Continue is now disabled until the scan completes.
Reflect
"It makes you tap into your body, your psyche — your reason why you'd want to take an action."
The reflective prompt landed for everyone. The category selection didn't — one participant read "Begin with selected" as all categories being chosen. Only Duplicate files is now pre-selected by default, and the button reads "Start reviewing selected" for clarity. Categories reduced from 4 to 3, with Photo duplicates added as its own item after all three participants named it as their highest-value use case.
Decide
"I don't know what Release is versus Archive. I think Save for Later—" "I like 'not ready to decide.' I feel like that would be the third option."
The three-action model created confusion in every session. No one had a shared mental model for "Archive" or "Release." Updated to Keep / Save for Later / Trash, with inline explanation chips beneath each button. "Not ready to decide" elevated from a small text link to a full button. A toast confirmation now appears after trashing a file — one participant said she'd check the Trash manually to confirm, which pointed to a need for in-app reassurance.
Close
"It gave me multiple moments where I could go back and restore if I needed to."
Universally praised. Minor update: "Released" changed to "Moved to Trash" and the 30-day restore note made more prominent — this was the detail that drove the highest confidence scores. One participant suggested a fire animation when releasing files to reinforce the Ember metaphor — added as a subtle particle effect
Reflection
Ember explores how UX design can support emotional states without sacrificing usability.
This project challenged me to design beyond efficiency and consider how language, pacing, and structure influence user confidence. It reinforced the idea that meaningful UX often lives in the moments where users hesitate - and that thoughtful design can help them move forward with clarity and care.