Accessibility was our top priority, and by going with an animal instead of humanoid we saved ourselves from problems of gender, race and other representation issues that limits adoption. In the end, we selected Mina the penguin, Toby the panda and B the bear as our prototypes.

Our bot family

We refined character features, starting with the face and did several other tests i.e. what if Toby was a bunny instead of a panda? What if Mina was a cat instead of penguin? We also did name-testing across all levels of English speakers. Mina was too difficult to pronounce, especially for non-English speakers. ‘B’ had bad connotations in Mandarin and Japanese. Toby was a good name, but was considered too old fashioned.

We decided to focus on and refine the penguin design, it was the best choice for us. The blue-white-black color scheme conveyed ‘technology’ and penguins were well received by users of all ages and genders. We added some touches like a tuft of hair, upturned beak and a hairclip to give a sense of individuality:

We chose the name ‘Kip’ and reflected it back in our company. ‘Kip’ was an old term for bindle, and British slang for ‘room’ or ‘carry-on’. It was simple to pronounce, punchy and light. Kip was going to be the virtual friend that users would always carry with them, ready to help.

I’m helping you find shopping shortcuts

In the next post, we’ll talk about our design process of creating a shopping interface on chat messaging platforms. Stay tuned!

Try Kip on Slack by tapping the button below or try the demo at kipthis.com/chat

Push this button

Check out Part I: Designing AI Persona: Don’t let Hollywood dictate UX design.

If you enjoyed reading, please hit recommend. 💚