Creative Juice Bot

Intention

Sometimes when designers experience creativity block, thinking outside of the box may help them get creative juice flowing again. That is why I wanted to create a bot that can inspire designers by giving them creativity exercises or sharing with them inspirational quotes from other fellow designers. 

Context

I pulled inspiration from a Google action called Creative Coach. It can give users an exercise in photography, drawing, writing or design to support users when they want to get creative. I found this to be simple yet effective. It solves one problem but solves it quite well. 

At the same time, I looked into books and online resources that talk about overcoming creativity block. "Conceptual blockbusting" is a book I referred to heavily for my project. One of the chapters introduces "perceptual blocks" and how they "prevent the problem-solver from clearly perceiving either the problem itself or the information needed to solve the problem." I used some exercises from the book for my bot. 

I also pulled inspiration from an article on UX Planet. The article collects answers from 20 designers for the question: how to get over being creatively blocked.

Process

I started by making a function matrix, a conversation flow and a paragraph of my bot's personality to help me visualize what my bot will be doing. 

Function matrix

Conversation flow

Drawing out a conversation flow allowed me to examine the logic and check if there was any feature missing from the scope. It was also a great reference for me throughout the time when I was writing the code.