The Design of SanHang
The design of SanHang is the heart of the product. It was born from a personal need and a deep appreciation for the traditions of Chinese writing, and every design decision was made to serve that singular vision.
The Spark: An Idea from the Past
The idea for SanHang came from a personal frustration that grew into an obsession. I was practicing calligraphy from copybooks and reading ancient Chinese texts, and I felt a growing disconnect. The classical way of writing—vertically, from top to bottom, right to left—felt mindful and deliberate. The modern digital world, however, was exclusively horizontal.
I wanted a way to practice and immerse myself in this traditional format in my daily life, but no such tool existed. I searched for an app or platform that would let me read and write vertically, but found nothing.
As a last resort, I made a decision: I would build it myself. I wanted to create a tool that I would genuinely use, believing that if it was useful to me, it would be useful to others who shared my passion.
My Guiding Principles: The Five Goals
From the very beginning, I wasn't trying to reinvent social media. I was trying to create a specific, focused experience. To stay on track, I set five non-negotiable goals for the product:
A True Vertical Interface: The app must be interacted with vertically. Text must flow from top to bottom, and new columns must appear from right to left.
Focus on Traditional Chinese: It must exclusively display Traditional Chinese to create a fully immersive experience.
Cultural Authenticity: It should use the traditional Chinese calendar (heavenly stems and earthly branches), not just the Gregorian calendar.
Simplicity First: It should only have the most basic interactions: post, like, and comment. No complex, distracting features.
Words Must Have Weight: It must not allow deletion.
This last point was the most important. In the ancient world, writing on bamboo slips with ink was permanent. A mistake couldn't be easily erased. I felt that modern digital culture had lost this sense of permanence, leading to thoughtless expression. I wanted to bring back that intentionality.
Bringing the Vision to Life: The Design Process
As the product owner and sole designer, I was in charge of translating these principles into a living app. This was a unique challenge, as in 2015, there were no other products to reference for a fully vertical, right-to-left interface.
My design was built on three pillars:
1. Style & Atmosphere
I wanted the app to feel less like a modern "feed" and more like opening an ancient book.
Layout: The layout is clean, minimalist, and draws inspiration from the balance and whitespace of Chinese ink paintings.
Fonts: The choice of font was critical. I selected two classical fonts with rich histories: Slender Gold (瘦金體), created by Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty, and Wei Bei (魏碑體) from the Northern Wei dynasty.
2. A New Interaction Model
The core of the experience is its unique interaction.
Vertical Flow: Unlike any other app, users swipe right to read new content, not up. To read a single post, their eyes travel naturally from top to bottom, column by column.
Thoughtful Expression: To achieve the "No Deletion" goal, we implemented a strikethrough. Just as one would in an ink-written manuscript, mistakes are crossed out but remain visible. This creates an honest, visible record of the thought process, rather than letting it vanish.
3. Seamless Immersion
To ensure the experience was never broken, I designed two key components that would work automatically in the background:
Character Conversion: A component that automatically converts any Simplified Chinese input into the correct Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Calendar: A component that displays the date and time using the traditional heavenly stems and earthly branches, reinforcing the app's classical feel.