Viv Labs at Samsung

Case Study

Conversations that save time

Bixby is Samsung’s voice assistant technology incorporated in phones, televisions, smartwatches, and home appliances. Partnering with companies like Weather.com, Uber, Ticketmaster, and Yelp, users interact through conversation rather than “command-based” utterances. The underlying AI-technology learns the user’s preferences over time, adapts to their lifestyle, and provides more relevant results faster over all connected devices.

Many voice assistants in the market don’t provide a human-centric, conversational experience. Bixby's AI learns from habits and tailors itself to a user’s needs. It recognizes voices and adapts to different users.

The Bixby platform

I worked with partners such as Yelp, Spotify, and Uber, to integrate voice-enabled functionality into their products and services. Utilizing the Bixby Developer Kit with their APIs enables them to tap into Bixby's artificial intelligence commands and have seamless parity across Samsung devices.

The Weather Channel, Spotify, and Yelp service implementations on Bixby

Cross-functional collaboration

It is essential to show design intention within the context of the user’s journey. I designed flows and collaborated with engineering and product teams to maintain design consistency and communication. This enabled the team to move quickly after receiving approval from the VP of Product.

The Design System

I led the development of the design system, including templates, components, colors, materials, and type styles for designing Bixby apps on core Samsung hardware and systems. In addition, I worked on the UI design and managed updates to Bixby’s source libraries.

Speaking the same language

Designers and engineers could share information and ideas effectively and work together to solve problems that arose during the development process. This involved aligning the visual design language with the Bixby developer software. Together, we accelerated deployment by naming the library components the same as in the command-line code.

Component Library

Design

The Sketch library is what designers download and reference when creating Samsung voice-assistant products. We made sure to be intentional in naming and organizing symbols and components. The overarching design principles included balancing creativity with consistency. There are design libraries for TV, mobile, watches, and appliances.

Developer Kit

Component names in the Bixby design library match the syntax used in the developer environment. This ensures that designers and engineers “speak the same language, " enabling them to create and deploy products faster. The need for new or updated components is discussed and researched before any changes to the system are made. We worked together to solve problems that arose during the development process.

Being flexible

Bixby has undergone three significant UI changes and updates to the design system library. The current design is consistent with Samsung’s One UI interface. This involved designing modular and reusable design elements, clear documentation and guidelines, and a process for soliciting and incorporating feedback from stakeholders and users.

Different design, same results

The evolving design meant designing systems or products that could adapt and improve over time through incorporating feedback and learning. This approach to design was used to create systems that are more responsive to changing needs, more efficient, and more effective.