Designing a thought companion
2024 – 2025
Pocket is a tiny device that captures your mind when it's on the move. Record conversations, calls, or passing thoughts, and turn them into summaries, action items, and more.
When people hear this, they usually ask: Why can't this just be an app? That's exactly the problem Pocket solves. When it's another app on your phone, there's friction. You take out your phone, unlock it, find the app, and by then the moment's gone. Pocket cuts down on all of that. No screens. Nothing competing for your attention.
So when designing the companion app, my goal was to carry over the simplicity of the device and make every action feel intuitive.
Pocket - A new interface for your thoughts
Making first contact
Onboarding was one of the most important parts of the whole experience. A new user needed to create an account, pair their device, and learn how Pocket works - all in one go.
So I wanted to make the digital experience feel connected to the physical device. Once paired, the app picked up the device color and reflected it throughout the interface. From there, users experienced how the device worked by actually interacting with it. And as they did, the app responded in real time to reflect what was happening.
Onboarding sequence for Pocket
Once they landed on the home screen, I wanted to carry over those same patterns, everything immediately findable, and starting a new recording never more than one tap away.
Pocket home screen
Turning conversations into insight
For recording from within the app, I designed an interaction where the home screen shrinks away and focus shifts entirely to the recording. A gradient breathes at the base of the screen, unique to each recording, and when you stop, those colors pull together to form the thumbnail. Every conversation gets its own identity.
Once recorded, the app surfaces action items, answers questions about the conversation, and lets you search back through everything you've captured.
Recording & summary view of a memory in Pocket
Keeping things simple
The calendar view breaks down a day, meeting by meeting. When a meeting time approaches, the app prompts you to record. Once you do, the conversation automatically maps to that meeting, no manual sorting or searching.
Calendar view of a user's day
We also wanted to add some more delightful moments, like when a user records consistently over multiple days, a streak animation plays the next time they open the app, a small moment to celebrate the fact that they've been on a roll.
The same attention to detail extends to the widget. It matches the color of whatever Pocket device the user has, so even outside the app, things feel considered.
Streaks animation and iOS widgets in Pocket
Designing Pocket was largely about restraint. The device captures your thoughts, and the app simply helps you revisit them. Building something that quietly fits into the flow of your day, but still feels delightful at every turn.
Thanks to Akshay Narisetti, Mihir Penugonda, Bharat Soni, and Avkash Shah for helping shape this.