How we designed the desktop app from ground up.

After a total of 25,000 users used the Frost web app to unleash their creativity, it was a no-brainer that we had to develop a desktop app. After all, creativity shouldn't be limited to browsers.

We started developing the desktop app by designing a very personalized dashboard for our users. We knew we wanted to let users create accounts so they can save their documents on Frost while being able to access them from anywhere so we created a whole backend framework. This allowed for seamless synchronization across devices.

Next, we knew that inspiration can strike anywhere, so we wanted to add a section that let you jot down ideas and later add them into your writing draft without worrying about starting a whole new document. We started with designing a simple note-taking system that lets you jot down your ideas and then reveal them as a sidebar while you're writing inside a theme.

This started making more sense once we started working on the iOS app. Most of the time when you get an idea where you might or might not have your computer around you. So we added a very simple ideas journal in the iOS app that would sync seamlessly with your desktop app.

Most of the time you'd wanna read that one story written in some theme on the desktop app on your iPhone so the Frost iPhone app gave you an edge-to-edge reading experience with the same background and soundtrack as the desktop app. In order to edit a note, you just hit edit and hit save. We also made sure we added the capability to switch themes within the same family, following the same design consistency as the desktop app. Not to mention you can check word count and share the text directly.

Next, we were very much aware that several users loved Frost for the music that it provided and used it to focus on tasks outside of Frost. So we ended up designing a whole new 'Focus' section with personalized sounds that let you focus on the task at hand and block out distractions. We didn't limit the focus section on the iOS app and made sure it had just as functional and elegant of a design on the desktop app as the iOS build.

Finally, we made sure to add some more themes. There was a high demand for some 'sci-fi, futuristic, utopian' themes so we added a whole new family called 'Odyssey'. We also added another theme family called 'Urbs' which takes you to some of the prominent relaxing views across the world. We will keep adding more to this catalog of themes.