Mara.
An AI voice assistant that promotes a healthy work life balance for remote workers
My Role
UX Researcher, UX / UI Designer,Storyboard artist, After Effects Prototyper
Team Members
David Robles, Leela Aji, Neeti Agrawal
The Problem
Currently remote workers struggle maintaining their environment and schedule, leading to inefficient time management
How Might We
How might we design a system to help remote workers manage their schedules and environment, enhancing time management and work-life balance?
My Contribution
I led the research process and was the main UI/UX designer to create the design language for Mara and animations
Our team equally contributed on the UX of Mara such as the main user flows and key voice interactions.
Research Findings
Insights were found from interviews with remote workers and photo studies of their desk environments
Prioritizing self care is a challenge
Remote workers struggle with stress as they work and some struggle keeping their living space tidy
Boundaries can be broken
It’s hard to communicate to others about how much work can be taken on day to day and being self aware of that work capacity
Current Products lack Intention
It’s easy to become distracted by other digital products such as apps and desktop widgets
Our Approach
By exploring different remote work narratives our team decided to create a physical AI product that brings intention, self care, and boundaries back into the work environment
We wanted to value centralizing our solution into a minimal physical product that would not have all of the distractions of an app or desktop. By going with this approach, we were able to explore the relationship a remote worker may have with AI and benefit from its tactility
Low Fi Physical Form Ideations
I sketched out some different low fi ideas of the form that had a tablet and speaker interface forthe user to interact with
The storyline
I storyboarded the general flow of our product and the interactions that would go along with these flows
Introducing Mara, a desk assistant
powered by AI to improve the remote
work experience
I prototyped the screen flows in Adobe After Effects to create realistic
user flows. The physical product was rendered by Neeti Agrawal
Keep up to date with
your itinerary to finish
work on time
Time can be managed efficiently
and stress is mitigated by showing
and organizing itinerary using AI
Take guided breaks to
promote wellness
Be prompted to take a five minute
break every hour to relieve stress
Communicate your work intake
Create sustainable boundaries on how much work you can
take on by moving a tactile slider that represents work intake.
This status will be sent to whomever it may concern
Individual Screens
I designed the hi fidelity screens to be sleek and action
oriented by adding accents of deep orange on a black
and white interface and playing with hierarchy
A Live Demo
Made in Protopie and connected to Open AI, Mara can
actively partake and answer questions in real time
Design Language
I designed a cohesive system that compliments the idea of Wabi Sabi, a Japanese ideaology that beauty is centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection
Moving Forward
Conduct Usability Testing
By creating a physical prototype it would
be great to witness the results of this product
and how this concept may improve work
Offer Interface options
It would be helpful to explore how this
product might sync to other devices and
design these cross device communications
