UI Design Mobile Dev Personal project

Sidekick

A productivity and self-care app for people with ADHD — that organizes, reminds, motivates and even acts on behalf of the user, so they can think less about structure and more about execution.

Type
Personal project
Year
2025 — present
Role
Product · UI · Dev
Platform
iOS · Android
Goals+120 XP
In progress
Learn React Native
Online portfolio
Progress · Learn React Native
62% · 8/13 tasks
Hey, Yasmin 👋⚡ 340 XP
✨ You have 2 overdue tasks and 4 for today. Want me to prioritize the most urgent ones?
🔴 Overdue
Send client proposal
+15xp
📅 Today
Meeting at 3pm
+10xp
Take medication
✓
💭 Today's mood
😐
morning
🙂
afternoon
—
evening
🔥 Current streak 7 days
🏠 🎯 📅 💊 👤
Sidekick — UI Preview
"I received my ADHD diagnosis and realized that every productivity app I had tried was made for a brain that isn't mine. So I decided to build my own."
— Yasmin Oliveira, creator of Sidekick

01 — Context

The problem with
neurotypical productivity

Productivity apps assume the user can remember to open the app, decide what to do, resist distraction, maintain a routine and feel satisfaction from completing tasks — all capabilities that ADHD directly undermines.

The result: people with ADHD download the app, use it for 3 days, forget about it, feel guilty for forgetting, and give up. The problem isn't lack of effort — it's lack of real support.

Sidekick was born from a personal experience: receiving an ADHD diagnosis as an adult and realizing that no existing tool was designed for how that brain actually works.

🌀
Cognitive overload
Deciding what to do first drains energy before anything has even started.
→ Tasks grouped by urgency automatically
🧊
Analysis paralysis
Large tasks feel insurmountable and cause complete freeze.
→ AI breaks any task into smaller subtasks
⏰
Memory lapses
Medications, appointments and habits are frequently forgotten.
→ Smart notifications + stock control
📉
Low engagement
The satisfaction of "completing a list" isn't enough motivation.
→ XP, coins, streak and unlockable achievements
🌊
Emotional fluctuation
Mood and performance are connected, but have never been tracked together.
→ Mood log with cross-referenced history
🤖
Setup friction
Configuring tasks, habits and medications is too much work to get started.
→ AI creates everything from natural language

02 — Product

Every feature,
a UX decision

It's not a collection of tools — it's a cohesive system where each module was designed to compensate for a specific ADHD characteristic.

📋
Tasks
Visible urgency, easy decisions
Tasks with deadline, time, reminder and configurable weekly recurrence. The Home automatically groups by urgency — Overdue, Today, Upcoming — eliminating the "what do I do first?" decision. Each completion generates XP and coins, creating an immediate reward loop.
Auto groupingWeekly recurrenceNotificationsXP + coins
🎯
Goals
From big to small in one swipe
Short, medium and long-term goals with linked tasks and a visual progress bar. AI suggests 5 tasks based on the goal title — and any task can be broken into smaller subtasks via a swipe on the card, directly combating analysis paralysis.
AI suggests tasksSwipe to break downVisual progressAccumulated XP
💊
Care
Health with real structure
Two tabs — Habits and Medications. Habits in simple mode (done/not done) or counter mode (goal, unit, progress). Medications with stock control, refill alerts, dose logging by time and support for multiple daily schedules — essential for those taking medication for ADHD itself.
Stock controlMultiple schedulesRefill alertHabits with goal
💭
Mood
Emotional data for real decisions
Mood logging across three periods of the day with emojis and optional notes. History with a visual calendar showing the dominant emoji for each day — allowing users to identify patterns between emotional state and productivity, and generating useful data for healthcare professionals.
3 logs per dayVisual calendarOptional notesMood patterns
✨
Sidekick AI
Acts, not just answers
A chat integrated into the Home that understands natural language and executes real actions in the app. Saying "add ibuprofen at 8am for 10 days" creates the medication. "Create a goal to learn Figma" suggests tasks and builds the goal. The AI receives the app's full context with each message — it knows how many tasks are overdue, what mood was logged, the current streak.
Groq + Llama 3.3Full contextReal actionsNatural language
⚡
Gamification
Immediate rewards for the ADHD brain
An XP, level, coins and streak system that runs across all features — tasks, habits, medications and goals all generate rewards. The profile displays unlockable achievements based on real progress. The ADHD brain responds much better to immediate rewards than to delayed gratification.
XP per actionDaily streakAchievementsCoins

App screens

Home
Care
Profile & XP

03 — Process

Building for
myself and for others

Being the product's primary user meant the process was different — every UX decision was tested in practice, day by day, before being considered done.

01
Diagnosis and research
The starting point was the ADHD diagnosis itself. Research into the characteristics of the condition — attention deficit, impulsivity, executive dysfunction — and how each one impacts the use of productivity apps. Benchmarking of existing apps and mapping their failure points for the ADHD audience.
ResearchBenchmarkingADHD
02
Architecture and flows
Defining the 6 core features and how they connect. The navigation structure was designed to minimize taps — nothing should be more than 2 touches away. The Home was conceived as a control panel: everything that matters right now, visible without scrolling.
IAUser flowsFigma
03
Design system
Building a custom design system with reusable global components — ensuring visual consistency across all screens and making it easier to evolve the app without rework. Typography, palette, spacing, interaction states and component variants, all documented.
Design SystemComponentsFigma
04
Development — React Native
Implementation with React Native + Expo for simultaneous iOS and Android coverage. Zustand for global state management, AsyncStorage for offline-first persistence, Expo Notifications for reminders, React Navigation for the navigation structure, and Groq API with Llama 3.3 for the AI module.
React NativeExpoZustandGroq
05
Real usage + continuous iteration
The app is used daily as a real tool — which generates an immediate, honest feedback loop. Every friction identified in use becomes a code fix. Every feature that doesn't hold up in daily life is rethought before being considered complete.
IterationReal usageOngoing

04 — Stack

Technologies and
technical decisions

React Native + Expo
iOS and Android from a single codebase
Zustand
Lightweight global state — without Redux's verbosity
AsyncStorage
Local persistence — offline first by design
Groq + Llama 3.3
AI with low latency for real-time responses
Expo Notifications
Local reminders without a server — works offline
React Navigation
Stack + tab navigation with native transitions

05 — Differentials

Why Sidekick
is different

— 01
AI that acts, not just answers
While traditional assistants only inform, Sidekick AI executes real actions — it creates tasks, goals, habits and medications directly from chat, in natural language.
— 02
Built for ADHD, from the inside out
Every UX decision accounts for real characteristics of the condition. It's not a generic app with a "focus" feature — it's a system designed from scratch for this brain.
— 03
Mood + productivity connected
Few apps track both. Sidekick lets users identify real patterns — low-mood days that coincide with fewer completions — and share concrete data with healthcare professionals.
— 04
Offline first
All data persists locally. The app works fully without internet — except for AI. For someone who already forgets to open the app, depending on a connection would be one more obstacle.
Actively in development. Sidekick is a personal project in continuous evolution — being built, used and refined at the same time. The app's final visual is still being defined.

06 — Deliverables

What has already
been built

Custom design system with reusable global components
Functional app in React Native (iOS + Android) via Expo
Tasks module with urgency grouping and weekly recurrence
Goals module with AI for task suggestion and breakdown
Care module — habits and medications with stock control
Mood module with daily logging and visual calendar
Schedule with custom calendar and quick event creation
AI chat with full app context and real action execution
Gamification system — XP, level, coins, streak and achievements
Offline-first persistence with AsyncStorage

07 — Learnings

What this project
revealed to me

Being the user is the best research there is. No usability test replaces using the product every day with a real problem to solve. The friction I feel at 8am becomes a code fix that same day.

UX for ADHD is radical UX. You can't rely on goodwill, memory or intrinsic motivation. Every design decision needs to eliminate active friction — the app must do the work for the user, not the other way around.

Useful AI is AI that acts. Building the Groq integration showed me that the difference between an annoying assistant and a valuable one is simple: one informs, the other does. The user with ADHD needs the second.

Personal products have a different kind of honesty. There's no client to approve, no brief to follow. There's only the commitment to something you genuinely need — and that changes the quality of every decision.

Next project → Monitora.ai →