What if your favorite apps
were calm?

Same features, same utility—minus the guilt, the badges, and the engagement tricks. Here's what that looks like.

What if Duolingo was calm?

Same language learning. No weaponized owl. Progress without streaks.

Duolingo today
🐦
142
day streak!
Use a streak freeze? You have 2 left.
Duo is getting lonely. Practice now!
Duolingo, calm
Your Spanish
Pick up where you left off, whenever.
Restaurant Vocabulary
Intermediate
Past Tense
Learning
Travel Phrases
Almost fluent
Calm principle: Make deviation cheap

The calm version replaces streaks with state: here's what you know, here's what's next. Missing a day doesn't erase anything. There's no "not now (streak at risk!)" button because not practicing today is a normal outcome, not a failure state. Duolingo's learning engine is genuinely excellent—it doesn't need guilt to function.

What if LinkedIn was calm?

Same professional network. No vanity metrics. State instead of feed.

LinkedIn today
Notifications 23
My Network 99+
Jobs
47 people viewed your profile this week
Congratulate Sarah on 3 years at Acme
You appeared in 12 searches this week
Your post got 2 reactions. Boost it?
Mike, James, and 4 others reacted to your comment
You have 5 pending connection requests
LinkedIn, calm
Your Network
Here's what matters right now.
Messages
3 conversations waiting for your reply
Jobs
1 new match for "Senior Engineer"
Connections
2 pending requests
Nothing else needs your attention.
Calm principle: State, not feed

"47 people viewed your profile" is vanity metrics designed to create curiosity anxiety. The calm version shows state: messages that need replies, jobs that match your criteria, pending requests. No "congratulate Sarah" prompts manufacturing social obligation. No engagement bait. LinkedIn's professional network is genuinely valuable—the feed degrades it.

What if Slack was calm?

Same team messaging. Mentions instead of unread counts. A summary instead of 104 badges.

Slack today
Acme Corp
# general24
# engineering18
# design7
# random43
# announcements
# watercooler12
# standups8
# deployments
112 unread messages across 6 channels
Slack, calm
Acme Corp
Mentions & DMs
# engineering@you
# design@you
Channels
# general
# random
# watercooler
2 channels mention you. Everything else can wait.
Calm principle: Notifications are a last resort

Slack already has notification controls—they're just not the defaults. The calm version ships with channels muted by default, only surfacing @mentions and DMs. No red badge counts creating a to-do list you never asked for. "112 unread messages" becomes "2 channels mention you. Everything else can wait." Slack's threading and search mean you never actually miss anything important—so why pretend every message is urgent?

The manifesto

Software should do work so users don't have to.
The best interface is absence; the second best is a summary.
Defaults are kindness.
Corrections should be easier than configuration.
Interruptions should be rare and proportional.
Ignoring the app should be a valid usage mode.