Introduction

Radical AI is a collaborative lab with a global mission to advance the field of artificial intelligence for social good, particularly in creating Virtual Agents. Our team worked on developing a feature for agent Kai, an open-source AI Teaching Assistant who helps with educational tasks, making them more efficient and accessible. Our task was to create a reminder feature for Kai, which helps educators better organize their tasks, avoid missing important deadlines, customize and prioritize their responsibilities.

Stakeholders

Savitha Hayavadana(project manager)
Rosemary Paredes(design lab manager)

The team

Ahmad Assabbagh
Advait G
Casey Anno
Eric Khuu
Dylan Dinh
Sindhu Jois

Time line

Jul- Aug 2024

My role

Competitive analysis
Wireframes
visual design
Prototyping

My contribution to the team

Design solution overview

Our primary focus for this feature was to create an intuitive and nonintrusive notification system that allows users to customize notification preferences, Design contextually relevant and personalized notifications, Enhance user retention by providing timely updates, and manage their tasks to reduce information overload.

Problem overview

For the product discovery stages, the stakeholders asked us to design a reminder feature for Kai, the AI assistant, so educators can be notified about their tasks. Based on what they told us, we formulated our problem statement. 

Problem Statement

"How might we design a reminder feature for Kai effectively notify educators about their tasks?"

Deep dive into the process

Paper research

From our understanding of Kai objectives and goals from the stakeholders and what they want for a reminder feature for an AI product ,We looked at peer reviewed papers by researchers from UC Irine ,Microsoft, and Carnegie Melon  that included ai interfaces and intelligent agent in relation to productivity tools .

Screenshot of research papers from UC Irine ,Microsoft, and Carnegie Melon

From those research papers we concluded the major findings :

Finding1

Users held importance in having intelligent agent like Kai having human characteristics or anthropomorphism.

Finding 2

They value the ability to personalize reminder and they needed time based reminder to recall future tasks.

Finding 3

Users prefer an initial system-determined reminder setup and having flexibility to adjust reminders later is important.

Finding 4

Users prefer task assistants with a human touch and emotional intelligence.

Interview

In order to fill any gaps in the existing research , we created an interview script that can help us with lived experiences with reminder systems and any frustration or positive experience they have had. 

key insight 1

Users require the ability to control and customize their reminders to fit their preferences.

key insight 2

Users need urgent notifications that effectively capture their attention.

key insight 3

Users expect a consistent user interface that aligns with the design patterns of other tools they are familiar with.

A sample of the interview script

We aimed to understand how educators manage their tasks, what reminders they use, and how they organize them. The interviews revealed what they seek in a reminder system and we were able to extract the main key insights.

Competitive analysis

We looked at other competitors in term of ai interface for tasks and , notification reminders to have inspiration for our design and understand their strengths and weaknesses , and what we concluded that the majority of the task management apps only be notified through email. 

Analyzing reminder apps & task management tools that use Ai

Persona

From the information that we gathered, we created our persona. We aimed to ensure that our design choices align with what educators want and provide a more equitable design process.

Design Process

Ideation

We conducted a design exploration by creating Lofi wireframes to evaluate some ideas and receive feedback from the project manager. Then, we developed high-fidelity wireframes to build our prototype and assess our designs. Each member of the design team created a version of the reminder feature and presented them to the stakeholders to ensure we are on the right track and to evaluate them.

Low fi wireframes variations of the reminder with the notification

Hifi-wireframes variations of the reminder

A/B testing  

We conducted two rounds of A/B testing to see the user preference for the calendar view and notification if the four versions of the wireframes fulfill the user's needs and which one they prefer. We concluded that 93.75% of users found customization options effective at fulfilling their needs, and 4 out of 5 users found our mid-fidelity designs communicate their purpose effectively.

Four versions of the wireframes six versions of the notification for A/B testing

The chosen version based on A/B testing

Prototypes

After choosing the best version for the wireframes based on AB testing, we prototyped the wireframes to present them to stakeholders and show how the educators would set up reminders and manage their tasks to ensure that the design aligns with business goals, user needs and their expectations in the following :

Task notification reminder

Users will receive a reminder notification in the app, allowing them to snooze, close, or check off a task once it's completed.

Customization for reminders

Users can create reminders, set the date and time, and customize them based on priority.

Rewrite or Suggest with Kai

The users are able to ask Kai if he can rewrite the description for him or he can suggest a solution based on the title reminder to ease information process.

Setting up notification

Users can choose to receive notifications through the desktop version or via email.

After confirming the suitable version of the reminder feature prototype based on  approval of the stakeholders we did a meeting with the UI checker and the design system designer to ensure that UI elements and the components of our design are used consistently throughout the product, and to ensures that the design adheres to accessibility standards, brand guidelines, and other design principles and what sort of components , elements and icons should be added to the design system

Design system & UI checker

Reflection & Nextsteps

always think about how to present my designs to stakeholders, rather than striving for perfection, especially in the discovery stages. My focus is on execution and clearly explaining my design decisions. Have conversations with other design teams to understand how our features will interact with one another.

Next steps for the project?

Ensuring the effectiveness of changes through further testing is key to meeting user needs on YouTube. This includes integrating redesigns with existing tools and exploring new features desired by users. Additionally, enhancing user experience across various YouTube sections remains a priority.