Software and Products

DarkBadge

Scores apps and games for addictive design on five dimensions: Agency, Bottomlessness, Speed, Teasing and Social Pressure.

AI-driven app and game addictiveness scoring, grown into a resource site for parents, kids, app reviewers, and influencers.

Highlights

Five-dimension scoring rubric (Agency, Bottomlessness, Speed, Teasing, Social Pressure) grounded in Natasha Dow Schüll's slot-machine research and B.J. Fogg's persuasive-technology work
AI evidence pipeline collects app-store metadata, Reddit discussions, and screenshots, then runs a separate critique pass before scoring
Browsable badge directory with per-app scorecards (TikTok, Instagram, Netflix, Duolingo, Toca Boca World, and more) plus search
Alternative-activity suggestions pair each app with an offline activity that provides a similar reward, with the rationale for the swap
Curated educational library (People, Strategies, Theories & Brain) connecting outside research to DarkBadge's own scoring
Organizational licensing path for publishers (e.g. Common Sense Media) to use the underlying data
Tests written before implementation across three layers, because AI writes most of the code: 75 pytest functions over the API, worker and infrastructure, 215 Vitest cases over the frontend components, and 53 Gherkin scenarios in 9 feature files driven through Playwright
One `make test` target fans out to all four suites (frontend unit, API, worker, end-to-end), so the whole thing is one command rather than four conventions