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.
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
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.
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?
Result Concept 4.0 was seen as future-facing and was the running-favourite.
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 :)