Visualising Aimee
Position
Explore what BT’s chatbot, Aimee, might look like
Problems
None
Possibilities
This was a ‘clean-slate’ project. Consequently, I took the opportunity to examine current best practise, some theory, psychology and try to establish a series of logical parameters to work within
Starting point…
I began by collating examples of existing chatbots. I put them into two groups, ‘something familiar’ and
‘not seen before’ and began to build out my concepts from there.
Concept 1.0. CGI Human
Result Concept 1.0 was considered forward-thinking, distinctive and fun. Ideal for a ‘day-two’ release.
Concept 2.0. Digital lifeform
In this version, I tried something far less organic looking. I combined an animated reactive ‘graphical brain’ with a ’bot body’, based on EE’s logo
Result Concept 2.0 was seen as future-facing and was preferred over a human-like representation.
Result Concept 3.0 was liked but, it was felt that its graphical approach might cause users to feel Aimee would not be expressive enough, preventing a human from empathising with it.
Result Concept 4.0 was seen as future-facing and was the running-favourite.
Concept 3.0. Graphical
In this version, I tried something far less organic looking. I combined an animated reactive ‘graphical brain’ with a ’graphical bot body’, based on EE’s logo
Concept 4.0. Digital lifeform + Graphical
If Aimee was represented graphically, could a friendly/cute version and persona convey; AI action, comprehension and reaction effectively?
Conclusion + Results
I had great fun working on this project over a four day period!
The work was really well received by the Aimee team. In the end though, the Brand team requested a simple outline icon of a cartoon-like robot head, wearing headphones.
Oh well :)