The Experiment

In early October 2016, I had built a bot that accepted a bus stop code and service number, and told you how long you had to wait in minutes. A typical conversation went like

Bot: Where are you? Me: 60121 Bot: Which bus? Me: 65 Bot: 3 mins

Ok cool. I had a working prototype of exactly what I wanted. Now it was time to give my bot a name. Some names I considered were Bus Bot and Singapore Chat Bus, but as a creative who loves music and animation, I cringed at both these names.

After several conversations with my bot, it dawned on me that I was talking to someone else on Facebook Messenger. I pondered on the idea of giving this bot a human personality. How fun! Which human being would like to tell me my bus arrival time in Singapore? I scavenged my past experiences with buses, and was instantly reminded of grumpy and kiasu bus captains. Singaporeans call them bus uncles and bus aunties. I snickered and told my girlfriend I will call this bot Bus Uncle.

Bus Uncle in my mind was a born and bred Singaporean, so it was natural for me to opt for Singlish as his mother-tongue. My girlfriend, who is Singaporean, and I brainstormed and came up with some real proper Singlish replies for the bot. I thought to myself that if anyone was going to speak to the bot daily for their bus arrival times, the bot better be really interesting. This triggered the decision to make snarky humour and wisecracks a core aspect of the Bus Uncle’s personality. He just had to tell you jokes.

I now needed a face for Bus Uncle. I asked my friend Kyle, my designer colleague, for help. Her genius came up with this:

Bus Uncle

It was beautiful. Her illustration captures the idea of a Singapore bus bot really well: he looks very digital, and his colours remind you of SBS Transit. His simple geometry makes him easy to remember as well. Kyle even helped me spruce up the cover photo of the Bus Uncle page, and I have since been eternally grateful to her for creating the Bus Uncle brand.

After a few runs of trial and error, with feedback from friends and colleagues, I had brought Bus Uncle to life. He was launched on my Facebook timeline in late October 2016.