Marley AI
I’m excited to share an impactful and enjoyable project I recently worked on for Costello Medical. The objective was to refresh the visual identity of an internal AI chatbot named Marley, to increase workflow efficiency by implementing new features and enhancing the user experience.
Year
2025
Role
RESEARCH VISUAL DESIGN
WHAT IS MARLEY?
Marley is an AI tool developed in-house and launched in 2023 and improved in 2025. It's a secure, personalised AI tool designed to handle more confidential information.
While the old app delivered basic functionality, its interface felt out of step with the rest of our internal product ecosystem – visually inconsistent, basic, and dated. It also lacked thoughtful, user-centric organisational and tailored features.
The design needed bringing in line with our brand, and to evolve alongside the fast-moving AI industry.
RESEARCH
An in-depth research phase at the start of the project uncovered users' pain points and expectations, while also benchmarking the app against other AI tools to better understand market standards and opportunities.
Competitor analysis and audit
There are many AI chatbots now readily available online, so I deep dived into the most widely-used ones: ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
Alongside this, I also conducted a comprehensive product audit of the existing platform to identify poor UX and opportunities.
Resarching with real users
Usability testing
I conducted tests with 3 employees to understand what they need and expect from the app. Over individual video calls, I asked them to carry out 4 tasks which uncovered new opportunities and which features users at the company actually needed.
Survey
I formulated questions and sent out a company-wide online survey that was answered by 135 employees, giving extensive results.
"I often use ChatGPT over Marley purely because I prefer the design/interface"
“If there was a way to group searches by topic/have a folder system, that would help to find previous searches”
INSIGHT
Many users in the company were still using other, non-secure AI tools
I translated this into a data security and business risk to the company which validated the need to enhance and build trust in Marley to safeguard client information.
ANALYSE
Synthesising user feedback
I ran a group session with people outside of the project team who were seeing the research for the first time, where we grouped common themes.
I evaluated the results and suggested solutions to each theme, enabling me to write up a specification containing features and requirements for the new design.
DESIGN
Reworking the UI
Based on the specification, I reworked the visual style by creating mockups and experimenting with different ways to make the new features easy to use. The main focus was a logical and intuitive design that encourages productivity and a streamlined workflow.
Animations and interactions
During this project, I learned more about how animations and micro-interactions can elevate the design and create a more engaging and enjoyable user experience. I created animations in After Effects and guided the use of CSS animations to engineers.
Organisation
Tests showed that users struggled to find their most useful historical chats, so I added organisational features so you can group chats into folders and pin the the most important ones.
Customisation
Users told me they were tired with always asking for the same types of responses: "Make it more concise" "Give me a more scientific answer".
I therefore designed a new button where you can customise your response styles and lengths.
Manage conversations
Users prompted different response styles depending on what projects they were working on.
I introduced bespoke folder management where each folder can have its own set of instructions and relevant files attached, offering a more personalised experience.
