MemLock

Welcome Screen
Meet Dot the Dust Bunny!
Home Page
Add a note from your day!
See previous month's locker collection!

Inspiration

In the chaotic experience called life, people often lose themselves to stressful activities and large commitments. As such, our team was inspired to focus more on the mundane aspects of life, and capture that for our audience. The physical school locker became our metaphor: a personal, messy, decorated space that holds pieces of your life and gets opened like a time capsule. We pulled from the emotional payoff of Spotify Wrapped and BeReal's whole philosophy of catching the unfiltered moment, and built MemLock around that feeling.

What it does

MemLock lets you create a digital locker at the start each month, and seal it with a one-week grace period to decorate the inside. Throughout the month, you receive surprise daily notifications from your companion, Dot the dust bunny, prompting you to log a fleeting entry. Entries can be written, drawn, or photographed, and fall into categories like wellness, dreams, or senses. They 'disappear' after 24 hours, keeping things low-pressure, but remain safe inside of your monthly locker. Dot accompanies you throughout your streak, offering affirmations and gentle check-ins. At the end of each month, you unlock your locker for a decorated interior made out of what you uploaded, as well as an immersive personal recap with your entries, mood patterns, and memories preserved forever inside of the locker

How we built it

We made this completely using just Figma, including our mascot design and other relevant graphics. We also used Notability and Google Gemini to help structure our research and ideation process.

Challenges we ran into

The most challenging part was fleshing out and scoping our idea. We brainstormed a multitude of features, but needed to ensure that our vision fit the scope of this event. As such, we had to identify and prioritize core features, while leaving the other 'nice-to-haves' aside for future implementation. Additionally, figuring out a cohesive theme remained challenging for a large portion of the initial part of the event.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of shipping a fully functional locker creation flow, mascot generation pipeline, and daily notification system within the Designathon timeframe. Designing with a user-centered approach was a big part of our goals, which we believe we achieved. We're also proud of how cohesive the aesthetic feels: cozy, clean, and nostalgic without feeling juvenile.

What we learned

We learned how much product philosophy shapes technical decisions. Designing around "no punishment" meant rearchitecting our streak system twice. We also learned that creating a cohesive theme is HARD. And we learned that the emotional core of an app, the "year-end unlock moment", needs to be prototyped first, not last, because it informed every other design decision.

What's next for MemLock

We're exploring a social layer starting with friends where you can see that a friend "locked something today" without seeing the contents, adding a social heartbeat without compromising privacy. Longer term, we would like to refine various features, such adding pre-sets to locker decor, and so on.