Capsule
Capsule takes the traditionally cumbersome process of diary keeping and the impersonal experience of digital journaling into a hunter-gatherer process. It's a journal that not only takes the memories you capture throughout your day, but uses gentle AI to give back.
Company
Rice Design-a-thon
Role
Designer
Timeline
Feb 2025
CONTEXT
Prompt: How do we stay human with AI?
I worked in a team of three other designers, where I owned the visual design and user research. Our answer to this year's prompt? The ability to create and cherish emotions and memories.
PROBLEM
Journaling feels like homework
Journaling can often feel like a chore, making the habit hard to maintain. It feels like another task waiting to be checked off a list.
RESEARCH
Let's validate our problem
We created a survey targeting college students across different schools (UCLA, Columbia, UPenn), so our target audience were young adults ranging from 18-25 years old.
mentioned being too lazy to journal.
said they would journal if it were easier & quicker.
Some students also mentioned incorporating video, photo, text, and voice memos, but has limitations with traditional pen & paper.
DESIGN GOALS
DESIGN SYSTEM
Playful, colorful, & youthful
We wanted to create a brand identity that resonated with young adults with a strong mascot. We took inspiration from other playful leaning apps like Headspace, pulled images from online, and asked our fellow classmates what color-ways and elements connected with them.
SOLUTION
The journal that sits in your back pocket
The main user flow of Capsule, starting with an educational onboarding, easy to navigate landing page.
GENTLE AI INCORPORATION
Recaps as rewards
Gentle AI works in the background to analyze user patterns to create recaps to reward users for their journaling habits and consistent use.
REFLECTION
We placed first!
LEVERAGING THE SKIILLS OF OTHER DESIGNERS
A perk of working with a team of designers is that everyone brings a different skill set, and it's important to leverage that.
PRIORITIZING RUTHLESSLY
Working on a product over the weekend meant that we needed to prioritize ruthlessly to discern primary versus secondary features.
