Ephemeral Social, Built for Trust
Just 10 is a small, private space to share with people you actually trust.
Just10 was a Vancouver-built social platform designed around two ideas: your posts disappear after 10 days, and you can only connect with up to 10 friends. No ads, no data tracking, no algorithmic feed.
I joined the project mid-stream, working alongside a product manager, UX designers, and cross-platform developers. My contributions covered UI design, illustrations, and responsive design across iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone.
The Problem
Most social platforms are built around permanence and scale — everything you post lives indefinitely and reaches as wide an audience as possible. That model creates real friction for users: posts resurface out of context, data gets sold to advertisers, and people end up self-censoring rather than sharing authentically.
Just10 was built on the opposite premise. The design challenge was making that premise feel trustworthy and intuitive — giving users genuine confidence that their content was private and temporary, without making the experience feel restrictive.
Designing for trust
Privacy can feel abstract. The design had to make it tangible — clear indicators of post lifespan, visible countdowns, and an interface that consistently reinforced the 10-day deletion cycle. Every interaction needed to feel intentional and contained.
Cross-platform responsive design
The product needed to work across iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone — platforms with different conventions and screen sizes. The challenge was maintaining a consistent experience across all of them without designing everything from scratch four times.
Outcome
Just10 launched publicly in 2017 across iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone, and was covered by Daily Hive as a notable Vancouver-built app. The platform offered something genuinely different — ad-free, with no data sold to third parties, and content that actually disappeared. The app is no longer active today.
Reflection
This project was an interesting exercise in designing around a concept rather than a feature set. The 10-friend cap and 10-day deletion weren't limitations to work around — they were the product. Making those constraints feel like a benefit rather than a restriction was the core design challenge, and it shaped how I think about communicating product value through UI.