In 2017 I was approached by the Boston-based biotech startup BioBright, to join their team as the first dedicated UX/UI Design intern.
Throughout my entire internship, I was responsible for developing the look and feel of the Darwin software platform through a number of different prototypes and use cases.
Brief:
After joining the BioBright team in March 2017, I was introduced to my first major task: redesigning the Darwin voice assistant to be more visually appealing and user friendly.
Darwin is a web-based voice assistant for laboratory science. Built with natural language processing power, Darwin understands the experimental workflow and vocabulary of scientists and can interact with data points across a number of file types and devices.
This allows for acompletely hands-free data reference, documentation, visualization, and manipulation experience, which can exponentially increase productivity for an entire laboratory.
Research:
I referenced existing voice assistants from Apple, Google, and Microsoft to start. All three had implemented an informational chatbox-style interface for their assistants and utilized subtle animation to convey states such as idle, actively listening, and transcribing queries and commands.
Is Siri telling us something?
Solutions:
EmberBioBright Revamp / “Darwin 1”
Darwin’s first update was in the form of a revamp of the website on which it currently existed. It was first tucked away into the lower right hand corner of the screen and signified as a clickable pill button.
Inactive states would be indicated by a white button with five orange dots, while upon keyword “Darwin…” would fill with orange and animate as a voice wave. A mouse hover would produce an outline.
A chat bubble was used to contain a user’s transcription, and hot words were colored orange to indicate indexed metadata and related content the user could further explore and customize.
These chat bubbles were strung together along a chronological timeline. It could always be accessed by clicking on the Darwin button and provided quick reference to previous commands.
These ideas prompted a re-evaluation of Darwin’s role as a mere voice assistant. CEO Charles Fracchia described his ultimate vision of Darwin as the “Bloomberg terminal for the science lab.”
Darwin “2”
The next major iteration of Darwin introduced an application dashboard that featured collapsable data windows that would populate as new devices and files were connected.
Darwin “3”
Darwin 3 brought the voice assistant and the data dashboard together. This was the first iteration of Darwin to be prototyped on the Adobe XD beta release.
The main feature of this prototype was a microtiter well plate visualizer, where scientists could be able to quickly assess a plate’s imager reading and toggle assay overlays. The user can also ask Darwin to present specific wells for more detailed comparisons.
Darwin “6”
Darwin 6 found a maturing HUD-inspired interface applied only to the microtiter visualizer.
This allowed for greater consideration of interface elements and hierarchy of information.
BioBright Rebrand
I put the Darwin project on hold for a few months as I moved onto designing the new logo and brand identity of BioBright.
During this time, Darwin’s visual identity were reassessed as we moved onto using Sketch as our main design tool. It was also forked into two separate product families: Darwin Speech and Darwin Sync.
Darwin “7”
Darwin 7 was the last version of Darwin I worked with BioBright to design, before handing assets and designs off to our new Interaction Designer Mandi Cai.
