From 7,000 Lines of Rejection to Research-Based Success: My Chrome Extension Journey

A developer's honest story about failure, learning, and finding the right path

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The Breakdown

A few weeks ago, I literally broke down.

Not the dramatic kind you see in movies. Just me, sitting in front of my laptop at 2 AM, staring at another Chrome Web Store rejection email. The fourth one in as many months.

"Your extension does not comply with our policies..."

I'd spent six months building NEXUS New Tab. 23,000+ lines of code. AI-powered tab prediction. 12 intelligent date insights. Universal search across 5 engines. 9 accent colors. 5 typography themes. Features upon features upon features.

And Chrome kept saying no.

The Monster I Created

Let me paint you a picture of what NEXUS became:

src/pages/newtab/script.js: 7,199 lines
src/modules/quick-shortcuts.js: 4,737 lines
src/modules/tab-memory.js: 1,502 lines
src/modules/notification-system.js: 1,322 lines
src/modules/cache-manager.js: 1,114 lines

A single JavaScript file with over 7,000 lines. I know what you're thinking - and you're right. It was a mess.

But here's the thing - I was proud of it. Look at all these features! Look at this complexity! Surely this would impress everyone, right?

Wrong.

The Permissions Nightmare

NEXUS required these permissions:

• bookmarks (okay, reasonable)
• topSites (getting suspicious)
• sessions (why?)
• storage (fine)
• history (red flag)
• tabs (another red flag)
• host_permissions: ["https://*/*"] (MAJOR red flag)

I was asking users to trust me with their entire browsing history, all their tabs, and access to every website they visit. For a new tab page.

Would you install that? Honestly?

Rock Bottom

The breakdown was worse than I initially let on.

I didn't just feel defeated - I felt like a fraud. In a moment of complete despair, I deleted my GitHub account. My projects, my code, my identity as a developer - gone.

The next day, panic set in. I frantically recreated my account and started rebuilding, but the damage was done. I had destroyed the one thing that proved I was a developer.

The Wake-Up Call

After hitting rock bottom, I did something I should have done months earlier. I started researching.

Not coding. Not adding features. Researching.

I dove into cognitive psychology papers. Human-computer interaction studies. User experience research. I spent the next few days reading about cognitive load theory, progressive disclosure, and attention management.

And then it hit me like a truck.

Everything I built was wrong.

What I Discovered

Here's what I learned:

Cognitive Load Theory says our brains can only process so much information at once. Every feature I added was cognitive overhead.

Hick's Law states that decision time increases with the number of choices. My 9 accent colors and 5 typography themes weren't features - they were decision paralysis.

Progressive Disclosure research shows that hiding complexity until needed reduces mental load. My interface showed everything at once.

Attention Studies prove that single-focus interfaces outperform multi-element designs. My new tab had 12+ competing elements.

I wasn't building a productivity tool. I was building a cognitive nightmare.

The Pivot

So I did something that felt like giving up but was actually growing up.

I archived NEXUS. All 23,000 lines of it.

And I started over.

But this time, I had a foundation: research.

Enter TEMPO

TEMPO (Your rhythm for focus) became everything NEXUS wasn't:

Single primary element: A large, elegant clock. That's it.

Progressive disclosure: Bookmarks hidden until you hover the left edge. No visual clutter.

Minimal permissions: Just bookmarks and storage. Nothing scary.

Clean codebase: ~500 lines total across all files. Every line justified.

Research-based: Every design decision backed by cognitive psychology studies.

The Code Comparison

NEXUS main file:

// 7,199 lines of complexity
class Nexus {
  constructor() {
    this.initializeAI();
    this.setupPredictionEngine();
    this.loadQuotesDatabase(); // 200+ quotes
    this.initializeThemes(); // 5 themes
    this.setupColorSystem(); // 9 colors
    this.createSearchEngines(); // 5 engines
    // ... 7,000 more lines
  }
}

TEMPO main file:

// 60 lines of clarity
class App {
  constructor() {
    this.clock = null;
    this.bookmarkSidebar = null;
    this.init();
  }

  init() {
    this.clock = new Clock();
    this.bookmarkSidebar = new BookmarkSidebar();
  }
}

The difference is night and day.

The Psychology Behind the Design

Every choice in TEMPO is intentional:

70vh clock size: Follows Fitts' Law - larger targets are easier to use and reduce cognitive load.

Hover-activated bookmarks: Implements progressive disclosure - functionality exists but doesn't compete for attention.

Soft color palette: Research shows high-contrast interfaces increase mental fatigue.

No weather widgets: Only 12% of users check weather on new tabs, but it adds 15-20% cognitive load for everyone.

No to-do lists: Task lists on new tabs create "task anxiety" and transform neutral browsing into work stress.

No news feeds: Creates attention fragmentation and "rabbit hole browsing" that destroys focus.

The Irony

The extension that took me 6 months and 23,000 lines to build got rejected four times.

The extension that took me a few focused days and 500 lines to build? It's clean, fast, and actually solves a real problem.

Sometimes less really is more.

What I Learned

1. Research before building
I should have studied cognitive psychology before writing a single line of code. Understanding the problem space is more important than solving it cleverly.

2. Constraints breed creativity
Limiting myself to minimal permissions and simple features forced better design decisions.

3. Code quality > feature quantity
7,000-line files don't impress anyone. They scare people. Clean, readable code is a superpower.

4. User needs > developer ego
I built NEXUS for me - to show off my coding skills. I built TEMPO for users - to solve their actual problems.

5. Failure is data
Those four rejections weren't personal attacks. They were market feedback telling me I was solving the wrong problem.

The Comeback

TEMPO is now live on GitHub. Clean codebase. Research-backed design. Production-ready.

But more importantly, I'm a different developer now.

I think about cognitive load before adding features. I research user psychology before designing interfaces. I write code that humans can read, not just computers.

NEXUS taught me how to code. TEMPO taught me how to think.

For Other Developers

If you're building something complex, ask yourself:

• Does this feature reduce or increase cognitive load?
• Am I solving a real problem or showing off?
• Would I trust an extension that asks for these permissions?
• Can I explain this feature in one sentence?
• Does my code pass the "6-month test" - will I understand it in 6 months?

Sometimes the best feature is the one you don't build.

The Future

I'm not abandoning complex projects. But I'm approaching them differently.

Research first. Build second. Ship third.

TEMPO is just the beginning. I'm working on more research-based tools that respect users' cognitive resources and privacy.

Because at the end of the day, good software isn't about how clever you are. It's about how much you help people.

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TEMPO is open source and available on GitHub. The research document that guided its development is included - maybe it'll help you avoid my mistakes.

Sometimes you have to build the wrong thing to learn how to build the right thing.