Bucket of thoughts

Design Process

01 Define

02Ideate

03 Prototype

04 Testing

05 Iterate

01 Define

02 Validate

03 Prototype

04 Testing

05 Iterate

Define

The idea for this app came from my ongoing frustration with having scattered ideas stored all over the place, across multiple different apps and notebooks. Out of this frustration, I thought I could make something that would work better for me.

Yes, there are many apps you can use for this, but none of them really worked for me. I often have spuratic ideas and thoughts in random places and at random times and often just want a centralized place I can go to, upload the thought or idea and worry about it later.

And with the rise of AI tools, I decided why not give it a shot to see what I can really do.

Key values

Speed

Simplicity

Clarity

Innovative

Ideate

The ideation phase for this project was intentionally lean. Focused on taking the shortest path to solve my problems. Once the MVP features were identified and requirements for the MVP were clear, we began building in VSCode (eventually Anti-gravity).

My goal was to design something I could use immediately, learn from quickly, and iterate based on real-world experiences.
Some questions I asked myself as I considered the MVP requirements:
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• What slows me down when capturing thoughts?
• What makes ideas hard to find later?
• If I stripped everything down, what functions are absolutely essential?

Prototyping

The prototyping was simple, starting with a clear and concise prompt working with Codex in the VSCode IDE to generate the first version in VanillaJS.

I started by sharing my idea with ChatGPT and asked it to help me to create the MVP code base. With this code, I migrated over to the VSCode editor, and installed Codex for the project. The results weren't anything special styling-wise, but it was exactly what I needed to start using.
After some more prompting and ensuring that the core features were functional, next I worked on hosting it so that the app could actually save my data which is what I needed if I wanted to use it everyday.

Getting it hosted and linked on Firebase new to me, but it seemed to work out without too much hassle, due to the available resources and the help of AI.

Feature of MVP

This is the primary interaction—the part that must feel effortless.

The goal: provide the quickest and most straightforward input experience.

Requirements:

Input field for the idea
Save button
Input field to create a new category
A Category Select dropdown
Access to review page

How it works: You had an idea! > Open the app > Type in your idea > Assign a category > Save

Screenshots shown are of the earliest MVP render.

Once an idea is captured, the next challenge is finding it again when needed. The review page was initially the page for clarity, filtering, and recalling ideas, designed to support:
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• Quick scanning of all past ideas
• Filtering by category through a simple dropdown
• A lightweight structure that doesn’t require pre-planning
• Instant visibility of recently logged thoughts

With these simple features, the app did what I wanted. But next was a journey of molding the app into something that worked the way I worked.

Testing + Refining

The most surprising and fun learning experience.

With the app now on my phone, I was able to use it to capture my ideas throughout my day; and every moment of friction became an insight for potential improvements, every “I wish I could…” became a new feature idea.

For two weeks, I used the app continuously wherever I was; if I had an idea, I would log it in the app.

This daily process turned my real behaviours into design requirements. The app evolved because I was using it constantly, and I started to notice patterns in how I recorded ideas, what slowed me down, and what made the experience feel delightful.

Through this process, I let my lived experience guide the development of the app, with the goal of making the experience feel natural.
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Below are some notable changes since the MVP (roughly v2).

1. Redesigned Note Feed

Originally, the main page only had the capture function. When an idea was saved, it would go straight to the review page. I then noticed all of the valuable space I was wasting. Naturally, I decided to fill the main page with an idea feed.

The chat-style feed displays all previous entries in chonological order. This made scanning past entries significantly easier and gave notes a more conversational feel and allowed me to see thoughts I had throughout the day.

2. Multiple Feeds for Better Organization

Next, I found myself needing a better way to access specific groups of ideas, instead of going to the review page and filtering each time. So I added new feeds on the main page.
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Category Feed - This feed allows the user to select one category to focus. This was useful to use when I just need to focus on one list. I would create a category for a project like this one, log all the ideas, and when the time comes to work on the project, I use this feed to see all of the ideas I had for the specific project.
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Hidden Feed - Everyone likes to have their own privacy, right? I found a need for this feature when I would take more personal or sensitive notes, and thought this would be useful to have.

3. Category Studio Page

To make the app more customizable, I built the Category Studio. Sometimes I didn't like the colour of the category and wanted to change it so I created this page where you can view, rename, and recolour categories to your liking. I also added the ability to toggle visibility for each category, to give users control over what shows on the main feed.

4. Micro-interactions for Everyday Efficiency

Small UX enhancements made a huge difference in day-to-day use:

Pin notes (main page)
Archive posts (check off, main page)
Edit / Delete entries (review page)
Auto apply active category on category page. (category feed)
Attach multiple categories to an entry.
Option to hide entire categories from the main feed (useful if the category is not timely, on the categories page)
Threads / Comment (coming soon)

These interactions made the experience more seamless, functional and flexible.

Iteration

This build started in late Dec 2025. I spend the first 1-1.5 month regularly updating and tweaking it. Before taking a break for a couple of weeks. However, since Jan 2026, I have since made major improvements and changes as I came back to the app with fresh eyes and new ideas after having immersed myself even further in AI tools and development, which led to fresh ideas. Watch a demo of the latest version below!