LATER TALES

A gamified platform where communities imagine technology's social futures through micro-storytelling.

Role: Product Designer (Solo) Timeline: 5 Weeks Outcome: 0→1 Functional Prototype
Claude MidJourney ChatGPT NotebookLM Replit
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Society Lacks Structured Tools for Collective Future Thinking

Traditional forecasting stays locked in corporate strategy rooms, while social media reacts to current events but provides no structured way to imagine "what if" scenarios collaboratively.

We need tools that democratize future-thinking and harness collective human imagination before technologies arrive, not after.

Design Goal: Create a low barrier platform that makes speculative thinking as engaging as Wordle, while generating actionable foresight like prediction markets.

Mind to Machine Concept
Research & Insights

Building on Behavioral Patterns

Cognitive design principles, 15+ competitive analyses, and trends in short form fiction writing informed the product strategy.

🧠

The Cognitive Itch

Combining familiar elements (café setting) with unfamiliar technology (neural interfaces) creates a 'cognitive itch', the sweet spot between comfort and curiosity that drives sustained engagement.

💡

Constraint Drives Creativity

Research suggests abundance breeds indecision, and constraints force focus and drive innovation.

Harvard Business Review: Why Constraints are Good for Innovation

Ritual Over Binge

Apps built around regular rituals (Duolingo, Wordle) create different engagement patterns than always-available content. Twice-weekly cadence aims to balance anticipation with sustainability.

The Solution

Micro-Stories × Voting × AI Theme Analysis

Users encounter a tech-grounded scenario each week, write 150 character endings, and vote on likelihood, transforming individual creativity into collective intelligence.

Tale voting interface - Back
Feature 01

Weekly Tale System

Every tale pairs one emerging technology (neural interfaces, genetic editing, AR overlays) with one grounded scenario (café meetup, job interview, first date).

Familiar enough to relate to, speculative enough to spark imagination.

Twice Weekly

Monday & Thursday 10AM

3-Day Window

Submit & vote before close

Feature 02

Constrained Story Creation

150 characters maximum, just enough to end a complete micro-story and distill ideas to their essence. The "Generate Idea" function offers a random starting point for writers who are stuck or beginners, for optional guidance that doesn't control.

An AI-powered Originality Score provides instant feedback on uniqueness versus crowd patterns.

Higher Originality = Higher Visibility

Unique stories surface more in voting, creating incentive for creative risk-taking.

Story creation interface
Feature 03

Voting & Theme Analysis

Binary voting (Likely/Unlikely) keeps decisions fast while randomized story exposure prevents groupthink.

Randomized Exposure

Stories appear in randomized order for each voter, ensuring diverse narratives get equal visibility regardless of submission time or early vote counts.

AI Theme Clustering

After voting closes, AI analyzes all submissions to surface recurring themes, concerns, and narrative patterns—revealing collective anxieties and hopes.

Theme analysis dashboard

Example Theme Clusters:

Authentic Connection Technology Dependence Social Isolation

Full Workflow

Browse tales, read scenarios, vote, submit endings, and explore themed results.

Get Users Creating in 30 Seconds

Frictionless introduction to concept, mechanics, and first contribution.

End-to-End Product Development

Leveraging AI tools strategically at each stage from research synthesis to prototype.

Discovery & Ideation
NotebookLM · Claude · ChatGPT · MidJourney
  • Synthesized research into 15-minute podcast
  • Generated mind maps of core platform values
  • Generated brand concept "storytelling" artwork
  • Simulated expert opinions for assessment
Strategic Planning
Claude · ChatGPT · Notebook LLM
  • Refined core concept balancing fiction and forecasting
  • Defined clear human-AI role division
  • Identified three priority user personas
  • Conducted competitive positioning analysis
Experience Design
Claude · FigmaMake · Midjourney
  • Rough wireframe concepts built in Claude
  • Defined priority feature sets and workflows
  • Designed brand and media assets
  • Designed responsive framework and components in code.
Technical Development
Claude · Replit
  • Created fully responsive mobile-first interface
  • Implemented voting mechanism and originality scoring
  • Built model to generate "starter" Later Tales
  • Applied neuroscience insights to model design for categorization
  • Implemented voting mechanism and originality scoring
Documentation & Presentation
Claude · Midjourney
  • Built React component style guide
  • Generated product requirement documentation (prd.md) for continued context for AI tools.
  • Developed complete case study materials

Next Steps

Validation first approach: proving demand before building at scale

CURRENT PHASE
Test Demand

Run MVP experiments to validate organic engagement and content quality before building infrastructure. Manual scenario distribution across communities to prove the concept resonates.

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