re-designing twinmind's ai interface

making the second brain feel more alive

I’ve put together this short write-up to walk you through my process. I hope it's simple enough to read through. Please read till the end :)

overview

TwinMind stands out as one of the few AI companies that’s ethical and transparent about how it handles user data. For this assignment, I focused more on my strengths - creating clean design and writing meaningful UX copy. This mini-case study is around two main improvements:

A new visual direction for the app that feels friendly and communicates high trust. An improved "Capture Notes" flow to make it lightweight and distraction-free. Controls and information are shown only when relevant. The goal was to help users focus fully on their thoughts. I also refined the microcopy to reduce ambiguity and make the flow feel natural.

choosing a user flow to work on

To get a real feel for the product, I recorded a quick note about this TwinMind design challenge itself. When I clicked "Tap to get answer" it actually read my mind, guessing what I might need next. I got a detailed plan on what I needed to do and it blew my mind.

At the same time, I noticed a few small points of friction. Some interactions, like when or when/why suggestions appeared or what “tap to get answer” really meant, felt a bit ambiguous until I tried them myself.

why this problem matters?

Improving the "Capture Notes" flow brings immediate value for the user. It sits right at the center of real time human-AI interaction with live suggestions/questions and reads your mind to give you answers. User trust the AI for getting pro-active suggestions and an accurate summary/transcript of their note.

a new twinmind

I designed a new visual direction with softer edges and warm tones that feel friendly and build trust. The top navigation has more flexibility now for what appears on the bento grid. I also introduced a single timeline that lets users filter between chats and audio recordings.

I added a simple bottom sheet for recording notes and renamed the “Notes” tab to “Summary” for clarity. Summary appears once the recording is complete, so I removed that tab while recording is in progress. Users can now swipe down to close the bottom sheet and “Ask TwinMind” while recording continues in the background.

some finer details

slide to delete note/chat interaction

updated contextual menu inside recorded notes

updated account screen

approach

My design choices were mostly based on intuition, standard UX patterns, feedback from friends and some assumptions.

Since I had no real user data/feedback of real user, I asked a few friends to record a short note on my phone talking through their day and share their first impressions. It wasn’t a formal study, but it helped me spot where they got confused or hesitated, highlighting small points of friction and ambiguity.

In reality, I'd gather more context on how TwinMind works in the backend and understand technical constraints before jumping into design. However, since the assignment was open-ended I gave myself some creative freedom and built a fresh new visual direction for the app.

reflection

Due to other commitments, I was only able to spend two days on this assignment. Though it's not an excuse for any gaps in my design, I would have just worked on more edge cases and finer interaction details that aren't in this version.

For example, what if no audio is detected during capture or how empty states for summaries, suggestions, and transcripts would look like. I would also consider what happens when when a user swipes down to close the recording overlay mid-capture. How to indicate that recording is still in progress and how could they easily bring that overlay back?

In future, I would consider adding a short 3-2-1 countdown before recording starts. This helps users do a quick “undo” for accidental taps. Animations during recording, live suggestions with actionable reccomendations and much more. These details can make TwinMind feel more alive - like a real second brain that thinks and responds like you.