Sift Chrome Extension
Introducing intentional friction to the online checkout experience
ROLE
Product Designer
TEAM
Just me!
CONTEXT
It started with a closet I couldn't stand to look at.
Four years ago, mid-lockdown, I stared at a closet full of clothes I no longer liked. I upcycled what I could, donated the rest, and felt immense relief.
92 million tonnes of textile waste are produced globally every year. 85% of it ends up in landfills.
The scale is enormous. The root of it is personal. That's where I started.
PROBLEM
Why do we keep buying things we don't need?
I reviewed existing research on purchase habits and the behvioral patterns associated with it. Then I ran a netnography: probes on online forums, responses collected, and a few participants interviewed↓
(Click to zoom in on artifacts)
🔍 Key findings from initial research:
Online shoppers already pause before their purchase.
People aren't unaware, they're outwilled: the urge beats the regret in the moment.
Impulse buying is designed, not a personal flaw, people are up against good design.
It's a loop, and regret is part of it, not a way out.
The cost isn't just money, it's space: closets overflow and half goes unworn.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Who is Sift for anyway?
CURRENT LANDSCAPE
Two tools had taken on the same problem, each solving part of it.
I spent time looking at existing tools that help people buy less:
→ The Impulse Judge makes you type out a roast before checkout. I tested it with past interviewees, the humor wore thin fast, and it read as a novelty more than a habit.
→ Think Twice, Buy Once is a mobile app that asks you to wait before buying and tracks the money you save. With contextual pop-up, you have to manually enter every item you're considering.
Neither covered: the moment (checkout, in context) and the experience (warm, non-judgmental, designed with care).
CONCEPT TESTING
To test my hunches, I went analog.
"What would a good friend say to someone about to impulse buy? One who cares enough to ask, but never guilts you about the answer."
I turned the idea above, into three lenses: money · space · need
I printed them as card packets and gave them to about 70 people, to pull out whenever they shopped. I wanted real stakes: an actual moment of shopping, not a simulated prototype.
22 people wrote back. About 45% still bought the thing, but all of them paused, and all said they'd cherish the item more for it. Those responses sharpened the copy, tuned the tone, and gave me the confidence to start building.
THE PRODUCT
So, what is Sift?
Sift is a Chrome extension that intercepts the checkout button and fans out a deck of playing-card prompts before you buy.
^ Design note: The card metaphor and visuals came straight from the physical kit!
DESIGNS
How Sift works, and what makes Sift, Sift.
APPROACH
Making a pause feel grounded and integrated.
I designed everything in figma first, and kept things simple with warm colours and soft accents to reflecting the grounding experience of stopping and reflecting.
Then I moved to Claude code to prototype the designs.
POTENTIAL IMPACT
What one pause can add up to.
A pause becomes a deliberate choice. Choices become a habit. The habit becomes a wardrobe you actually wear, and enough of those, across enough people, chip at the cycle that fills landfills.
REFLECTIONS
On the problem
People know they overshop, and that they'll probably regret it. But willpower depletes, and it's up against platforms that are very good at what they do. Adding friction instead of removing it was a new kind of problem to design for, and I'm glad I took it on.
On building with AI
It changed what I could put in front of people. I could direct an interaction into existence and feel whether the motion carried the calm I wanted. It pushed my role toward decisions, and let the building keep up with my thinking.