KAGI

Privacy-forward widgets for search

18 Weeks | Lead Product Designer & Design Director

Overview

Design Strategy · UX Architecture · Creative Direction · Prototyping

I led design strategy, system architecture, and the interaction language for Kagi’s in-search widgets. We started with Weather, then added Sports, Stocks, and Currency.

At first it was a developer-heavy prototype, more of a technical proof of concept. It only began to feel human once design joined the process. We ran a few quick rounds, reframed expectations, and it turned into something more intentional: design-led, lightweight, and quietly opinionated.

Timeline: Aug–Oct 2025
Team: Design · Dev · Research (Nimbl × Kagi)
Scope: Weather MVP + cross-widget system

The Ask

Kagi came to us with a developer’s brief: build a system to source and display data inside search results.
Design was meant to be a finishing touch, something to add once the logic was solved.

It quickly became clear that design was not decoration, it was definition.
How the widgets looked, felt, and appeared would shape trust and identity within a privacy-first search experience. We began exploring how to make data feel alive without feeling loud.

Constraints

Must load instantly and respect privacy
Minimal UI, calm motion, mobile + desktop
Trigger only when user intent is clear

The Realization

After the first design round, Kagi saw what design could unlock.
We paused, regrouped, and reframed the project around Premium Minimalism — a shared visual and behavioral language defined with Kagi’s internal design team.

It was about restraint and polish.
Clarity over clutter.
Design that whispers rather than shouts — invisible until it’s needed most.

What we did next

I convened a joint workshop with Kagi’s internal design team to mood-board and define a shared language we called Premium Minimalism: quiet, precise, human. That north star realigned scope, staffing, and decision-making around a design-forward outcome.

Image placeholder (moodboard): “Type, spacing, restrained color, weather states, soft micro-motion.”

Alt text: “Premium Minimalism moodboard: calm palette, generous spacing, legible graphs.”

The System

A shared model structured each widget into three tiers:

Core — essentials only (current temp, live score, price)
Interactive — expansion, toggles, graphs
Context — added depth (AQI, fundamentals, alerts)

That modular framework became a repeatable pattern for Weather, then Sports, Stocks, and Currency — faster to build, easier to scale, and consistent by design.

Trigger Logic

We built intent-aware rules to decide when widgets should appear.
Entity + keyword combinations (“Paris weather,” “AAPL stock”) triggered results only when user intent was certain.

Because in privacy-first design, a good widget knows when not to show up.

Rules of thumb

Entity + keyword (e.g., “Paris weather today,” “AAPL stock price”)
Confidence thresholds and disambiguation (Giants team ≠ giant squid)
Fail-safe defaults (no widget beats a wrong widget)

Caption idea: “A good widget is the one that knows when not to show up.”

Weather MVP

Version 1 shipped with:

Current, hourly, and 7–10-day forecasts
Feels Like, Wind, Humidity, Precipitation
Unit toggles (°F/°C; in/mm/cm)
Interactive graphs and local alerts
Graceful error handling and state persistence

Every element — from motion to typography — was guided by the same design principle: quiet intelligence.

Design Principles

Quiet intelligence

Information is present, never pushy.

Human rhythm

Micro-animations echo natural transitions (sunrise, wind, momentum).

Tactile minimalism

Structure, spacing, and typography carry the weight; color and motion support meaning.

Continuity

One interaction language across widgets — fewer patterns, better muscle memory.

Outcome

What began as a data-rendering engagement became a design language for Kagi’s product ecosystem.
The widgets didn’t just display information — they defined how Kagi informs, speaks, and feels.

Privacy and polish weren’t trade-offs; they were symbiotic.
The result set a new standard for how information could appear: private, precise, and beautifully understated.

What we delivered

Design strategy, moodboards, and Premium Minimalism spec
Weather MVP with responsive prototype and REST integration pattern
Cross-widget feature matrices (MVP → Future)
Triggering decision matrix + test cases
Developer-ready documentation and design library

What changed

The program shifted from data-rendering to experience-building. Design became the organizing principle for how Kagi informs — not just what it shows.

My Role

I led the product vision and design strategy, reframed the brief around experience quality, and defined the modular widget architecture.

I directed the visual and interaction language of Premium Minimalism and built interactive prototypes, logic matrices, and developer documentation to ensure the system scaled with coherence and grace.

How I led

Design Strategy: Set the product vision and success criteria; reframed the brief around experience quality.
System Thinking: Defined a modular widget architecture to scale across Weather, Sports, Stocks, Currency.
Creative Direction: Established the Premium Minimalism tone — typography, motion, color, density.
Cross-Discipline Leadership: Bridged design, development, business analysis, and research to keep velocity and coherence.
Hands-on Craft: Prototyped interactions, graphs, and states; specified triggers, units, and error cases.

Impact

Why this mattered

Elevated Kagi’s design maturity and in-search experience standard
Established a scalable design system spanning four data domains
Proved that privacy and delight can coexist
Reframed an engineering roadmap into a design-led product vision

KPIs _______

From data to dignity.

Great search isn’t louder — it’s clearer.
If you’re designing systems that need to speak softly and carry real insight, let’s talk.

Lets Talk : )

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