AI-assisted inspiration archive that helps creatives rediscover the thinking behind what they save
Role:
UX Researcher
Product Designer
Timeline:
Sep - Dec 2025
Tools:
Figma
CSS/HTML
React
Adobe CC
Team:
Amy Choi
Bilge Kosem Ilhan
Emma Deng
Jodie Yang
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR
We collect inspiration faster than we can make sense of it.
Creative practitioners save references, ideas, and inspiration across many places. Over time as collections accumulate, the reason something felt worth saving becomes difficult to recall.
Our research found that participants were consistently collecting across 3–5+ platforms, often with the intention of organizing things later.
“Everything’s everywhere. I keep hoping I’ll go back and sort it all someday.”
PROBLEM SPACE
Through interviews and Wizard-of-Oz studies with creative practitioners, we explored how people collect, describe, and reorganize inspiration.
Materials become scattered across many platforms
Collections grow rapidly and become hard to revisit and recall
The meaning behind why something was saved often fades over time.
Current tools support storage but not sensemaking
Many AI tools shortcut creativity with instant outputs
KEY INSIGHTS
What we learned from user testings:
Reflection helps to externalize intuition, but can also create friction that discourages.
Participants found that putting to words why something caught their attention encouraged them to examine their own creative decisions. But choosing the “right” words felt restrictive, effortful, and can quickly turn inspiration gathering into work.
“It’s easier to just talk in sentences.” "This is too much work."
Natural language gave people more room to articulate subjective impressions without turning reflection into cataloguing.
AI can reveal new perspectives, but too much automation interferes with the user's own logic.
AI-generated groupings helped participants see possible relationships they had not considered, but became frustrating when they conflicted with their own logic.
This leads to the central design tension:
How can AI be used to help creatives articulate thoughts and explore their personal archives without defining it for them?
OUR APPROACH
Rather than using AI to generate more creative material, we explored a quieter role for AI to help people notice patterns in what already has their attention.
The system captures a person's own language alongside their references, then uses those traces over time to surface possible connections.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Final Design
Capture and reflect
Save things where you find them.
A browser extension captures references and prompts a brief reflection without interrupting the flow.
Rediscover
See connections you might have missed.
The Home page where AI looks across user's references and notes to surface patterns worth exploring.
Follow the thought
Turn a connection into something meaningful.
Each thread opens into a free-form space to:
Rearrange
Inspect
Add & Annotate