CAPSULE - FIRST PLACE OVERALL @ RICE DESIGNATHON 2025
Redesigning Digital Journaling in the age of AI
ROLE
Product Designer
Interaction Designer
DURATION
SKILLS
UI/UX
User Research
Designathon
Collaboration
PROJECT OVERVIEW
For Rice Designathon 2025, I teamed up with 3 other college students from UCLA and UPenn to create a mobile app that addresses the prompt "How do we stay human in the age of AI?". We carried out research, interviews, designs, and user testing in an iterative process within 36 hours. We then presented as one of 8 finalist groups, and was able to get First Place Overall out of 110 competing teams!
TL;DR: WHAT IS CAPSULE?
Most people want to journal, but few actually do - not because they lack interest, but because the process feels like work. Capsule reimagines journaling as effortless collection, turning it into something closer to scrapbooking than homework. In 36 hours, our team built a multimedia journaling app where users can capture moments through one-tap photos, voice notes, or quick texts. Instead of overwhelming users with structure, Capsule lets people gather fragments of life, while AI gently surfaces playful, Spotify-Wrapped-style recaps over time.
By grounding our design in research (“journaling feels too effortful”), focusing on key principles (frictionless capture, delightful feedback, trust in AI), and building a polished prototype under tight constraints, we won First Place Overall out of 110 teams. More importantly, we demonstrated that human-centered design thrives when you strip away friction and make reflection feel fun.
TEAM MEMBERS & ROLES
Bao To (Columbia)
UI/UX Design
Sahithi Lingampalli (UCLA)
UI & Visual Design
Mandy Lai (UCLA)
UX Design & Research
Mary Liu (UPenn)
Graphic Design
Despite our roles, we were flexible and often switch responsibilities and collaborate with each other throughout the hackathon event.
DEFINING OUR DIRECTION
Why journaling?
In a hyper-digital world, we identified that the act of journaling is the heartbeat of genuine self-expression. It’s not just about capturing memories - it’s about celebrating the raw, spontaneous beauty of every lived moment. Therefore, from the start, we focused our design ethos and direction towards leveraging the fine line between embracing the technologies and rejecting the addictive usage patterns of mobile apps, while also making sure to center our research and design around the specific human need for authenticity and mindful reflection.
RESEARCH
Survey
We collected insights from 35 respondents to learn about their journaling habits and the challenges they face.
Insight
Many respondents noted that a major advantage of digital journals is their ability to combine photos, audio, and text in one place. One response to the prompt What’s a feature missing from conventional journals? stated, “To visualize both text and visual elements in an easily navigable manner.”
From the survey (link), we found that the overwhelming majority of respondents viewed journaling as “too much work” and described themselves as “too lazy” to journal consistently. Most saw it as requiring significant active effort—whether curating materials like photos, tickets, and receipts for physical scrapbooks or putting in mental effort to write. Another key insight was that users value multimedia entries.
For those who do not currently journal, it is not a priority in their daily lives. However, most expressed interest in journaling if it were easier and acknowledged its value for self-reflection and memory-keeping. In short, most people want to journal—but the process feels too effortful.
Interviews
Building on these findings, we conducted five in-person interviews using pre-written scripts (link) and asked follow-up questions based on participants’ responses. These interviews provided deeper insights into user behaviors and preferences for a reimagined journaling app. We discovered several elements that are crucial for user satisfaction:
Ease of Use
A major recurring theme was the need for ease of use. One interviewee noted, “It'd be nice to have a transcription feature; talking is faster than typing, which is faster than writing.” The app should minimize friction, allowing users to effortlessly capture thoughts and moments.
Engaging & Fun
Many expressed interest in aesthetically pleasing layouts and interactive features such as stickers to enhance the experience.
Organization & Navigation
Additionally, users emphasized the importance of being able to retrieve past entries easily, highlighting the need for a strong search function to help them revisit memories without hassle.
Consolidating our research, we have defined a central product vision for our app:
Capsule is a multimedia journaling experience designed to minimize user friction, allowing users to effortlessly capture thoughts through photos, voice notes, or short texts. Capsule will feature intuitive search and interactive elements to enhance usability and engagement.
Scenarios
Capsule is designed to resonate with a wide spectrum of users by capturing the essence of daily life in a fluid, multimedia format. To ensure our design is both intuitive and universally appealing, we developed personas that represent key user archetypes—each with unique needs and motivations.
Creative Work
Needs: Quick, intuitive capture of spontaneous creative moments.
Capsule Benefit: One-tap multimedia entries and playful AI recaps that transform fleeting ideas into vibrant narratives.
Reflection
Needs: A fast, streamlined way to record reflections during brief breaks.
Capsule Benefit: Effortless one-tap entries and intuitive search, enabling quick self-reflection without distraction.
Digital Nomad
Needs: An efficient tool for capturing diverse travel experiences on the go.
Capsule Benefit: Seamless multimedia capture and unified travel diaries that compile moments into a coherent narrative.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
How might we create an intuitive solution that makes journaling a voluntary, enjoyable, and easy task, while also promoting authenticity and self-reflection?
Another consideration: If we are to leverage the latest AI technologies, how would we design a user flow and app structure that allows for responsible use of AI that does not invade the personal voice of the users?
DIVING DEEPER
Competitive Analysis
To quickly assess Capsule’s market positioning, we conducted a comparative analysis against leading competitors—BeReal, Day One, and Journey. This evaluation focuses on key dimensions such as capture methods, multimedia integration, AI-driven content curation, user experience, social sharing capabilities, search functionality, and design aesthetics.
This analysis reveals that Capsule is positioning itself as a unique blend of effortless entry creation and engaging, AI-driven insights. It has the potential to capture users who find traditional journaling too cumbersome (addressing a gap left by Day One) and those who want more depth than BeReal offers. The success of its AI features in delivering genuinely useful and motivating insights will be crucial to its differentiation in the market.
THE SOLUTION
Capsule is a multimedia journaling app that effortlessly transforms your everyday moments into dynamic, shareable narratives through one-tap capture and playful AI-driven recaps.
Key features:
One-Tap Entries: Instantly jot notes, record audio, or snap photos wherever, whenever you want.
Gentle AI: Subtle, fun insights replace cold stats - think Spotify Wrapped, not spreadsheets.
Capsule Recaps: Playful, shareable summaries keep users motivated to journal more.
Playful Graphics: Bright, quirky characters add delight to every interaction.
LO-FI DESIGNS
User Flows
We started off with designing the user flows in Miro. This is then refined and modified as we move through the next steps in the process, ensuring that we stick to our predefined goals and address the users needs and pain points effectively.
Wireflows & Structure
With a more structured idea of how the app should work, we then start drawing out the basic frames and layout of how the navigation works and how the app interface should look. We did both the static wireframes and the interaction flows at the same times due to designathon time restrictions.
Working on this as a whole group allowed us to clear out any confusions and make sure everyone is at the same place.
Example: Onboarding Wireflow
Branding & Visuals
At the same time, we split responsibilities, and some of us also simultaneously work on the graphics and how the app should look. Our idea stems from the name "Capsule" - which connotes the time capsules, but also the pills. We want the users to play the "curator" role, combining all the collected media together into one solidified, easily transmissible storage.
Moodboards & Idea Formation
HI-FI DESIGNS
Collaborative Design
Our structured approach paid off as we move on to creating all the hi-fidelity mock-ups and prototypes for the app. We separate our duties to work on each core feature simultaneously, while leveraging the strengths of each person in the team to work together, give feedbacks, leave comments, and iterate on each parts of the project.
We combined a mixture of asynchronous work, team meetings, and one-on-one design sessions within the fews hours we have left in the designathon to create a final project.
Prototyping
We are also able to do prototyping to ensure all the flows work correctly and the app navigation and structure is intuitive yet also innovative. With some time left, I also componentised the small elements like buttons and cards to make the prototype as close as possible to an actual implemented project and ensure a structured design project.
Demos & Recording
In the end, we finished the app two hours before the designathon deadline, and recorded a video to showcase our design philosophy, approach, and demos.
I used Jitter.video to create some smooth transitions and micro-interactions, which can be seen in the demo below!
Prototype in Figma - Click below to access!
RESULTS
Judging
We were judged by Senior Designers and Product Designers at various companies like NYT, Indeed, Adobe, Dropbox, Atlassian, Expedia, and made it to the Finalist round, where we presented live in front of the judge and other participants online.
We were judged on several criteria:
Result
We fortunately received First Place Overall out of 110 competing teams!
Feedback
We asked for feedback from the judges after the designathon. Here are what they said:
Judge #1:
This is a fantastic concept with excellent visual execution. The design strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and user exploration, making the experience feel intuitive yet engaging. The clean and well-structured interface allows users to navigate effortlessly while still encouraging curiosity and discovery. The thoughtful layout and interactions create a seamless flow, ensuring that users feel both guided and empowered as they engage with the experience.
That said, I would love to see the team explore ways to enhance idea generation by incorporating suggestions and prompts. Offering subtle guidance or intelligent recommendations could help users feel more inspired and supported in their journey. Whether through AI-driven insights, contextual prompts, or interactive cues, providing gentle nudges in the right direction could make the experience even more dynamic and engaging. By refining this aspect, the app could further encourage creativity and exploration while maintaining its simple yet immersive design.
Judge #2:
Your project brilliantly reimagines journaling, making it effortless, engaging, and visually delightful with a seamless one-tap entry system and fun AI-generated recaps. The playful, personality-filled design makes the app feel motivating rather than like a chore, and the visual execution is exceptionally strong. A great opportunity to strengthen the theme could be connecting the app’s name, Capsule, to user features, such as allowing users to tag their entries with pill-shaped labels for better organization and discovery. The combination of fun recaps, interactive elements, and an inviting aesthetic makes Capsule stand out as a highly engaging and rewarding experience. Refining usability details and ensuring long-term engagement strategies will further enhance the impact of this thoughtfully designed app.
Judge #3:
-Love that you conducted surveys and interviews. You boiled down your findings into clear insights and incorporated those into the final product
-The use of illustrations were fun and felt like a professional app.
-You made it easy to create a new entry in multiple ways, to match the mood or preferences of your users.
-There is slight learning curve over what is a capsule vs an individual entry. It is quick enough to figure out, but a little more introduction to the concept would make your app stronger.
We took notes of these feedback, and are keeping them in mind while iterating on the design and building the actual working app.
Takeaways
Deep User Empathy: We learned that understanding user behaviors and motivations is essential; even under tight deadlines, focusing on what people genuinely need leads to impactful design decisions.
Simplicity Wins: I discovered that streamlining interactions, like our one-tap entry, can drastically reduce friction and encourage habitual use.
Balanced AI Integration: We realized that when AI is integrated in a subtle, playful way, it can enhance the experience without overwhelming users.
Team Collaboration & Resilience: The designathon further reinforced my appreciation for the collaborative spirit and a willingness to adapt are as important as technical skills in achieving breakthrough results.
Reflection
What I learned: simplicity wins (one-tap capture lowered friction), balanced AI integration builds trust, and clear communication under pressure is as valuable as strong visuals. These principles continue to guide how I approach design challenges beyond hackathons.
So… What's Next?
With the app fully designed, why waste this opportunity? I took initiative to program the project into a fully working app. I am using React Native so that it can be published on both IOS and Android devices!
Follow the coding journey:
https://github.com/tothienbao6a0/CapsuleReactNative
