Kin Task Assist
Anticipating user needs through proactive, in-chat task suggestions.
2024 | Kin Ai
Time frame: 1 week
My roles: Researcher, UX, and UI designer
Disclaimer: The visual language could not be changed completely as we had to stay as much within the company's design system as possible and maintain visual coherence with other platform jobs.
Contextualizing
Design Challange
As a product designer candidate, I received a task to design a proactive, in-chat task and reminder experience for Kin, enabling users to confirm, edit, or decline suggestions without leaving the conversation, and to present my design process.
Issue
Users often express needs or difficulties during conversations with Kin that could benefit from reminders or tasks, but these opportunities are easily missed when task creation requires leaving the chat flow.
How
Design a proactive, in-chat task and reminder experience that allows users to quickly confirm, edit, or decline suggestions without disrupting the conversation.
Nansen
Kin is an AI-powered companion designed to support users with work-related challenges, organization, planning, and personal growth through conversational interactions.
Current Flow Analysis
At this stage, I focused on understanding the existing reminder flow, identifying manual steps, evaluating potential risks, and mapping interruptions caused by context switching between screens.
Key Findings
Conversation flow interruption
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Users are required to leave the conversation to access the reminders section.
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This breaks the natural interaction flow and adds friction to task creation.
Complexity for new users
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It is not immediately clear that users need to navigate to a separate section after Kin suggests a reminder.
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This increases cognitive load, especially for first-time users.
Lack of action validation
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There is no clear confirmation that a reminder has been successfully created.
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This can lead to uncertainty and reduced user confidence.
Risk of human error
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Manual reminder creation increases the likelihood of incorrect details, such as wrong time or date.
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This risk is amplified when users are in a hurry or distracted.
Improved Flow
Based on the challenge’s context and objectives, I designed improved flows focused on reducing friction, preserving conversation continuity, and giving users greater control over tasks and reminders.
Each design decision was guided by the goal of creating intuitive, proactive interactions that respond to user needs at the right moment.
Design Principles
Simplicity & Efficiency
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Minimize steps and reduce cognitive load during task and reminder interactions.
User Autonomy
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Empower users to confirm, edit, or decline suggestions directly within the chat.
Error Mitigation
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Introduce safeguards and validation steps to prevent common mistakes and increase user confidence.
What Needed to Be Designed
Two complementary areas that work together to support the overall experience:
References
I analyze product references to ensure my designs remain user-centered and aligned with market patterns. This helps ground design decisions in proven interactions while identifying opportunities for improvement and innovation.
Explorations
Early explorations helped visualize multiple solutions and validate directions before refining the design.
Next Steps
Due to the nature of this being a design challenge and the limited timeframe, the project was scoped to concept and flow exploration.
Below are the next steps I would take if this were a real product initiative, aligned with business goals, timeline, and roadmap.
Close to Final Screens
These screens represent a more refined visual exploration of the proposed solution. While final adjustments would naturally depend on the Design System and technical constraints, the goal here is to illustrate the interaction patterns, hierarchy, and overall potential of the experience.
Key Considerations
Balancing proactivity and intrusiveness was a key consideration, particularly around timing, frequency, and tone of task and reminder suggestions. Accessibility also played an important role, requiring clear hierarchy, readable components, and thoughtful interaction design within the chat interface. Clear visual differentiation between tasks and reminders was essential to avoid confusion, especially when multiple suggestions appear in sequence. Scalability was another factor, ensuring the experience could support more complex and recurring tasks without increasing cognitive load. Finally, alignment with Kin’s Design System and broader product strategy was necessary to ensure consistency and long-term viability.
Learnings
This project reinforced how different it is to design mobile-first experiences, especially in contexts where space, hierarchy, and timing really matter. Focusing entirely on app design pushed me to be more intentional about every interaction and decision.
Working with a conversational interface for the first time was especially eye-opening. Designing for chat made me realize how much complexity exists behind what seems like a simple interaction — from entry points and system responses to edge cases and sequential actions that quickly add up.
One of the most valuable learnings was designing alongside AI-driven intent detection rather than relying only on explicit user actions. Anticipating needs through AI raised important questions around timing, tone, and user control, and made it clear how easily automation can feel intrusive if not carefully designed.
This project also highlighted the role of the designer in shaping how AI shows up in the experience. Turning AI capabilities into clear, respectful, and useful interactions felt just as important as the technology behind them.
Overall, the challenge strengthened my confidence in applying a structured design process to a problem space I hadn’t worked with before, while staying flexible within tight time and scope constraints.