Companion
A personalised voice OS by your side to help you grow.
Context
Companion is a revolutionised OS that works to make you a better you. As you get to know your new device, it also gets to know you, your interests and your goals from the first “Hello.” During the time spent with their Companions, users can customise, track and view their progress for various goals, in a non-intrusive and encouraging environment. Visual and vocal cues are provided by none other than the user’s personalised, friendly avatar. This is all via the device and operating system’s organic design and highly interactive interface. Users can change the settings to alter any of these features, and choose to use Companion in a more traditional sense, or to its fullest extent. Regardless, we know you’ll have more trust than ever in the new clean, transparent device and its accompanying OS to help reach both your technology-driven and personal goals.
I worked with my client create the visual experience for this voice OS. Together, we found a way to improve this relationship and bridge the gap between person and personal device: Companion
Ideation + Research
How we narrowed our vision:
As the lead designer, I sought to define a design language for our voice OS.
What is a design language?
Style guides and UI patterns are recurring solutions that solve common design problems, ensuring consistency in language composition, visual composition, orthography, and typography. Brainstorming along the ideas of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, user customisation, delightful rewards, concept of avatar designs (stickers and badges) on the backside of phone, we gathered a word cloud of key buzzwords to characterise Companion.
Technology-based self-improvement aids are a HUGE market. Today’s smartphone users entrust much of their development to their mobile devices. Daniel Sieberg terms it “outsourcing self-control” in his book, The Digital Diet. In the New Year’s spirit, the iOS app store is featuring a bevy of apps for users hoping to improve themselves in virtually any aspect of their lives—organization, personal finance, health, and even dating. There is definitely a demand for these apps. The user research consultancy, Field Agent, surveyed 300 adults and found that 86% of them had at least one self-improvement New Year's Resolution, and spent an average of $226.12 per MONTH funding these resolutions. However, there is a major flaw with these experiences. Each of these apps are self-contained. Yes, they can send notifications to the user (that will end up being ignored eventually)—but this outsourced willpower falls flat if the user lacks the requisite dedication to stick with the improvement plan set out through their app. Often times, the initial goals are just a bit too lofty to accomplish all at once, there isn’t gradual guidance from the initial state to the end goal.
We set out to change that with our solution, Companion OS. By making self-improvement a core part of the experience, we believe that we can help users achieve their goals. By integrating machine-learning technology, leading research in psychology, and a conscientious and delightful design language, we hope to empower users to learn and grow with their Companions.
User Scenarios
In order to showcase how the product will be used and different problems Companion will help solve, we presented some use cases.
Designs
Follow the process for the concept visual designs and UI documentation for the voice OS, Companion.
