Limital

Redesigning Digital Workspaces

This project was created for Design at UCI's Design-a-thon, a hackathon where student teams are tasked to design and create a prototype of a software that adheres to a given theme. In 2025, that theme was “Beyond Our Horizons" which "invites participants to push the boundaries of how we engage with the world—rethinking interfaces, systems, and experiences in unfamiliar, emerging spaces." At first, my team had generated many ideas but none of them sticked because we were unsure how to fit them to the theme. Then, we realized that at that moment, the feeling of being overwhelmed of the many available options was a feeling that clicked.

My role in this project was both UI/UX Designer and Researcher. You can also view our devpost for our submission!

Inspiration

With the era of innovation that we live in, there is a trend of simplisitic user interfaces that supports the new technologies that are being made. While minmalisitic interfaces manages cognitive load and reduces overstimulating users, these interfaces fail to account the transition required to adapt to these interfaces. It requires effort, especially for people who have mental disabilities such as ADHD. The need to keep adjusting and adapting to new interfaces grows as we create more software. Designers and developers have been minimalizing User Interfaces, but not User Experiences.

Research

To understand how overwhelming modern interfaces can be, we decided to survey about 30 people to see what parts of Discord, a popular messaging platform, are overwhelming to users. We also had a focus group of people who have ADHD or other mental disabilities.

Although most of the poeple we surveyed did not identify with a focus impairment or a mental disability, majority of responders rated today's technology visual intensity of 3.5 out of 5. Additionally, responders find large visual sensory elements to be overwhelming. We learned that large amounts of visual elements can create large mental load for users.

A slide deck with a pie chart and bar graphs all indicating users experience overwhelmness from large amounts of visual elements on interfaces.

Abstraction

With the high ratings of visual elements being overwhelming, we believed that abstraction, a method of hiding information, to users can help alleivate the issue. We also took our survey group and have them rate our re-designs of the Discord interfaces to see if reducing the amount of options and tools available, can create a better experience.

Base Discord

When we showed the base version of Discord, we were shocked to see the low rating of overall "overwhelmness" that responders reported with many ratings from 1-3. When examined further, we did not account that most of our responders have a lot of experience of Discord which meant, they have already adapted to this kind of user interface.

There were some notable responder quotes:

"The red numbered icons on each server makes me wanna leave what I'm doing and check it out"
"Some things are grayed out, but in my opinion, not eough is greyed out. There is too much info and not all of it is relevant."

These responses revealed us couple things:

Information density must be managed accordingly
Notifications can create distractions when they are scattered amongst servers and elements
The amount of elements itself can affect focus

1st Level of Abstraction: Removing User List

Our first level of abstraction is to remove the user list on the right hand of the screen that displays the members of a chat. The ratings did not improve dramatically. This showed us that the member list did not play a large part of the experience and can be considered unimportant.

2nd Level of Abstraction: Removing Channel and Server List

In this layer of abstraction we removed the channel and server list, to create a focus on the main aspect of Discord: messaging. In this layer we already see how by removing larger aspects of Discord, users can feel more comfortable in using it and have a more focused experience.

3rd Level of Abstraction: Removing Notifications Tags

In this layer of abstraction we removed all notification tags, elements that signal the user that there is an updated state or change in their current message channel. We stripped almost all of Discord's features and only present the user of messaging. Reducing the function to its prime purpose of messaging others. From the previous responses, the trend continues towards 1, showing that through layers of abstraction, users can customize the amount of information they want to see at once and manage the amount of visual elements.

Our Solution

Our goal is to design a space for all platforms to be concentrated to a workspace with a universal design to cater to all users. Users can then use abstraction to customize their view, revealing only relevant information, removing visual sensory overload, and customizing their experience. Ultimately, it creates an enviornment fit for users to focus their attention on what they want, when they want.

Design Pillars

Accessbility

Simplify functions so that it is clear to visually impaired users that they can use keyboard inputs

Minimalistic Aesthetic

With the trend of minimalistic designs, we will create a similar aesthetic that creates familiarity and clarity

Universal Design

Engineer user experiences that is inclusive to everyone

Features

Abstraction Levels - Plug-Ins have preset levels of focus/detail, and additional preference setting
Limits - Only 4 Plug-Ins, and 7 tabs are allowed to be open at once.
Keyboard navigation - Workspace is fully usable without need for mouse input
Feature Synchronization - Features enabled in one program, if applicable, carry unto others. e.g. Do Not Disturb mode.
Workspace Saving - Multiple workspace layouts can be saved and loaded.

Applied Abstraction in Limital

In Limital, users can toggle their levels of abstraction, based on their application. With Discord, users can toggle 3 levels of abstraction each adding features back to Discord.

Levels of abstraction with level 1 being the most minimal to level 3 showing more features

How it was Built

Through the confines of the event, Limital was built through Figma as a fully working prototype! We took all the knowledge and guidance from our peers and research we conducted and use those information and apply it to our design.

Demo

View the video below to see it in action!

Accomplishments and Feedback

We are so proud to be able to be part of the finalists! While we were presenting to judges, we were able to get some valuable feedback from professionals. Out of all of the feedback we recieved, one stuck out to us the most. They said, "Don't you think this application is utopian?". We believe that while a workspace or even an operating system of this concept is "utopian", we as designers should think about technology and their systems as a whole too not just interfaces of individual software. While in practice Limital is not realisitic, it's a proof of concept that could be realized if we continue to rethink how we design user interfaces for our users.

We are also proud to be able to create a software that was both novel and familiar.

What's Next

We believe that Limital can be improved and expanded on. Thus, if we were to move forward with Limital, we believe that these are our next steps:

Focus mode, restricting the opening of other applications
Timer, used by focus mode, replacing daytime details
Reasonings for suggested settings
Audio Sensory Aid, to provide an additional sense in support to visual.
Workspace sharing, to share layouts

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