Memotar

After completing the initial discovery and research, I moved onto creating user-flows. I created multiple flow charts for smaller journeys, however I focused on the most important flows: creating memotars and creating chats with memotars.

Note: while “memotar” became the official name for the AI memory avatars, the original term we used to refer to them was “avatars” which is what you will see in these planning images.

I went over the user-flows with Jeff and after a couple discussions and some edits we were ready to move onto wireframing. I created simple greyscale frames for each section of the app, detailing out the flows and preparing everything for the first design review. I made versions for desktop, tablet, and mobile breakpoints as having the app be fully responsive was a non-negotiable.

While Jeff was reviewing my wireframes and leaving feedback, I started the process of building out the visual identity for the brand.

I created a brief questionnaire to understand Jeff’s vision for the Memotar brand. Some common themes arose from his answers: he wanted the personality to be friendly, uplifting, and bold. Because the app is collecting data of deceased loved ones, we wanted to make the brand feel as human and trustworthy as possible. Users need to feel confident that their memories are receiving the sensitivity, and security, that they deserve.

For the fonts we went through a few different options, ultimately landing on Roca for the logo and main headings and Montserrat for smaller headings and body text. Having the blend of serif and sans-serif fonts created enough contrast to keep things interesting, while the fonts had a similar shape and x-height to ensure harmony.

Logo design

I brainstormed roughly 30 different ideas for what the logo could be. I wanted something that was modern looking and highly scalable, while communicating the idea of digital twins and capturing what makes us uniquely ourselves.

When I was brainstorming different logo ideas, some common imagery that came up for me was related to space: stars, planets, the sheer vastness of the universe. The wonder of outer space brings up ideas of unearthly beings and spirituality, themes that are reminiscent of what happens after we pass from this life to whatever is next.

I wanted to utilize this imagery while still bringing in elements like bold colours, playfulness, and simplicity. Here’s what I came up with:

First time user experience: guiding the users

We wanted to create a first time experience that was simple, encouraged exploration, and informative without overwhelming the user. To achieve this, I focused on 3 parts of this initial experience:

1) A sample memotar that the users are encouraged to interact with to get a feel for the chatting experience

2) A guided tour to provide the user with an introduction to the app and how memotars work

3) A step-by-step memotar creation process that introduces the user to the Biographer, our AI interviewer

The sample memotar

Tom Memotar was born from the suggestion of Jeff who wanted to provide the users with a way to familiarize themselves with the app before starting the more time consuming process of uploading their data. I loved the idea and added it to the high-fi’s right away!

The guided tour

On the first step of the tour the user is immediately directed to Tom, encouraging them to chat with him.

Memotar creation

In order to create an accurate memotar you need to take the time to upload documents, images, and memory data. Because of this, we wanted the memotar creation flow to be a very simple step-by-step process that holds the user’s hand the whole way while educating them.

Throughout the steps I had hint texts, tooltips, and progress trackers so that the user was being properly educated and informed of their progress through the entire process (without being bogged down with information all at once).

Adding memories

The flow for adding memories was crucial as memories are the main source of data for memotars. By adding more memories it trains the AI and it’s able to create a memotar that is more accurate to the original person!

We wanted to give users two different routes for adding memories: a conversational route where they can chat with the Biographer - an AI character that interviews the user to gather information - or a more typical route where the user inputs information and uploads files manually.

Chats

Users can chat with memotars via text messages, video calls, and phone calls accompanied with editable transcripts. We wanted the experience to feel as casual as possible, making the users feel comfortable and at ease while connecting with those they love.