Why Captions Felt Hard

Writing the perfect caption can be tough. Many users struggled to find the right words that matched their tone, personality, or message.

It was also challenging to adapt captions to different styles, like being funny without sounding forced, or staying concise without losing meaning. Striking the right balance between tone, clarity, and length was a constant pain point.

Shaping the Flow

Before diving into visuals, I started by mapping out the user flow for generating a caption, the most important feature in the app. The goal was to give users control without overwhelming them. It helped clarify what was required, like selecting a style, and what could stay optional, such as filters for tone, context, and language. It also made it easier to align early with the developer and identify edge cases around filters.

User Flow: Generate a Caption

From Flow to Function

To shape the product's core experience, I translated the user flow into wireframes that prioritized clarity and speed. The layouts balanced fast actions with room for personalization, guiding users without getting in their way. These screens also helped validate interactions early with the developer and gave me space to refine tricky flows like tone switching and editing.

Wireframe: Generate a Caption Flow

Building the Visual Direction

To bring the tone of the app to life, I started by shaping its visual language. I used AI-generated images to quickly explore mood and personality, which became part of the "Select a Style" feature. From there, I built a design system with consistent typography, color, and spacing to support scalability and ensure everything stayed cohesive across the UI.

The Final Look

I chose a dark theme to give the app a modern, focused feel that aligns with the AI-driven experience. Blue was used as the accent color to guide attention and create a sense of clarity and trust. Psychologically, blue helps users feel calm and confident, which was the tone I wanted to support when writing and sharing content.

Extending Beyond Mobile

While Instascribe was designed for mobile, I explored how the experience could scale to web when the team raised the idea late in the process. This was more of a visual exploration than a fully validated solution, but it helped maintain consistency in the design language and showed how the product could scale beyond mobile if needed.

Final Thoughts

InstaScribe was a fast-moving project that gave me the opportunity to take a product from concept to a fully polished experience. I led the end-to-end design, from early user flows and AI-driven UX decisions to branding, UI, and marketing assets. Despite its short lifespan, the project pushed me to move quickly, collaborate closely with the developer, and make fast but thoughtful decisions.

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