MATTER

Inspiration

We often live our lives in a state of "Passive Drift." We make hundreds of choices every day, but we lack the sensory hardware to see how they aggregate into a life. We were inspired by the concept of “Existential Proprioception,” the idea that if we could "feel" the gravity of our decisions the same way we feel our limbs in space, we would live with more intention. We wanted to move away from cold, clinical data dashboards and create a living, breathing mirror of the human soul.

What it does

MATTER is a speculative sensory interface that turns your life into a generative solar system.

The Sun represents your core values; its brightness is your alignment.
Planets represent life domains (Career, Creativity, Health).
Decisions are the literal "Matter" that shapes the galaxy. As you log decisions, particles of light physically move planets closer to your sun or drift them further into the dark. It gives users a "sixth sense": to perceive fulfillment as a visible, physical structure rather than an abstract feeling.

How we built it

We designed an immersive, interactive website in Figma, leveraging Figma Make to generate complex, generative space textures and planetary assets. We used Smart Animate and Variable Glows to simulate the "gravity" of the UI, creating a fluid, organic movement that feels less like a website and more like a telescope. The logic model is built on a weighted scoring system that maps textual decision inputs to physical orbital decay and planetary mass.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest hurdle was translating abstract philosophy into intuitive UI. We struggled with "Visual Overload": too many stars made the data unreadable, but we still wanted to represent all the core values in our lives. We solved this by implementing a surface layer that acts as a cockpit, allowing the user to filter their focus between the "Big Picture" (the whole galaxy) and the "Micro" (individual decision planets).

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are incredibly proud of Future Mode. Designing a "Speculative Sandbox" where users can simulate their own life trajectory felt like building a time machine for the mind. We also successfully created a non-prescriptive system; MATTER doesn't tell you what a "good" life is: it simply reflects your own gravity back at you, making the user the true author of their galaxy.

What we learned

Through this project, we discovered that sensory design can be more powerful than traditional data design. Numbers and charts rarely change how people feel about their lives, but sensory representations can make abstract patterns immediately perceptible. Instead of showing a “10% increase in happiness,” it is far more meaningful to see your world literally grow and evolve in real time. We also learned that alignment requires understanding a user’s values first. For the system to meaningfully reflect whether life decisions are moving toward fulfillment, users must initially define what matters to them. Those values anchor the system: they determine when planets move closer to the Sun (greater alignment) or drift farther away (misalignment). Finally, we explored the idea of hidden human senses, particularly how our perception of time influences how we understand growth and change. The ability to revisit the past and preview possible futures revealed how strongly chronoception, our sense of time passing, shapes our perception of personal development.

What's next for MATTER

Our vision for MATTER extends beyond a screen-based interface. We imagine expanding the Galaxy Self into spatial computing environments such as VR, where users could physically walk through the solar system of their life, exploring different areas of identity and observing how decisions reshape their world over time.We also see potential in integrating biometric signals, such as heart-rate variability or stress indicators, allowing the Sun at the center of the system to pulse in real time with the user’s physiological state. This would create a feedback loop between the body, the mind, and the visualized life system—deepening the sensory experience of self-awareness.Ultimately, MATTER is not designed to tell users what decisions to make. Instead, it aims to create a new form of perception: the ability to see the life you are building while you are still living it.