Silk was a winner of Apple's 2025 Swift Student Challenge.
Managing eczema is like a science experiment with yourself as the subject. Juggling multiple medicines, enduring seemingly random flare-ups, and the never-ending quest for relief makes it hard to figure out what helps and what doesn't. Existing eczema tracking apps are clunky and complicated, making daily logging feel like a chore rather than a help. The difficulty was in designing something simple, yet powerful enough to reveal patterns in the quality of treatment. And because eczema symptoms and conditions affect everyone, including me, differently, my challenge was to create Silk - a personal, accessible, and meaningful app that helps anyone battling chronic skin conditions understand their personal path to better health.
I designed the core experience around quick daily logs. Every day, users track their feeling on a 1-10 scale and log what medicines they took and how much. Like many eczema patients, I've tried countless remedies in search of relief. That's why Silk lets users build their own personal remedy database, tracking current medicines while planning future ones to try. Although daily logging appears very simple, over time, it turns into powerful data.
The heart of the app is a heatmap to visualize this data. Each colored square represents a day's feeling or medicine score - a beautiful way to see progress over time. This is complemented by Pearson correlation analysis that helps users understand which routines are actually making a difference in users' feeling. I chose Swift Charts for this visualization because it combines good design with high customization, allowing me to create a simple display for somewhat complex data. By adding statistical analysis using Swift Charts' clean visualization, users can easily understand what treatments work, backed by their own data.
Because users' health data is deeply personal, users maintain complete ownership and data privacy – they can export records to share with healthcare providers or delete data entirely.
Accessibility was also a big factor in my user experience. For users with visual impairments, the heatmap is resizable and includes a colorblind-friendly mode to ensure that data visualization remains meaningful for everyone. Since eczema can also make touch interaction difficult, particularly during flare ups, I implemented VoiceOver and voice control support to ensure usability even when users' skin condition affects interaction. The ability to track and understand health shouldn't be limited by accessibility barriers.
Looking ahead, I plan to integrate Swift's wellbeing APIs (WWDC24) to provide even more comprehensive wellness tracking. This integration will allow Silk to contribute to Apple Health as a central source of health and wellbeing data.
Even if eczema feels like a science experiment, I hope Silk helps take some of the mental burden of tracking and understanding remedies off users' plates. By turning simple daily logs into clear trends and correlations, users can understand their personal patterns and what treatments work best for them. Managing eczema will ultimately never be easy, but with Silk, users can focus on what truly matters - their unique path to healing.
