Austin Gregory

Mimi is a speculative multimodal AI assistant designed to simplify access to resources at the Koreatown Senior and Community Center. By addressing challenges like long wait times, mobility barriers, and digital literacy gaps, Mimi enables seniors to register for classes, check lunch availability, and plan their visits with ease. Blending conversational AI with accessible design, Mimi reimagines how technology can empower seniors and foster community connections.

Accessing services at the Koreatown Senior and Community Center requires seniors to wake at 2 a.m. and endure an 8 hour wait in line. Attempts to transition to online registration have failed due to low digital literacy among seniors.

‍The center’s reliance on physical presence as a proxy for access leads to exhaustion, mobility challenges and inefficiencies. By introducing an AI assistant like Mimi, seniors could make informed decisions about class registration and lunch services from their homes.

‍Mimi is a multimodal AI assistant that simplifies processes, eliminates unnecessary travel and supports seniors through voice, visual and offline options.

"Lived is a mobile app concept designed to help early-career adults live more intentionally through real-world experiences. The app helps users discover personalized experience ideas, plan and commit to them, reflect afterward, and build a private archive of meaningful moments over time. The project began as a capstone thesis about the gap between the life people imagine for themselves and the life they actually live day to day. Through research, competitive analysis, behavioral science research, user testing, and public exhibition feedback, Lived evolved from a broad idea about meaningful experiences into a full product system built around discovery, commitment, action, reflection, and memory. The final project included a high-fidelity mobile prototype, a concept website, testing documentation, a presentation deck, and a physical graduation exhibition where visitors could try the prototype, respond to reflection prompts, and take home real experience cards."

"Many people want to live fuller, more memorable, and more intentional lives, but their actual weeks often fall into routine, convenience, passive entertainment, and “someday” thinking. The problem is not always a lack of desire. People often already know they want more travel, creativity, connection, adventure, or meaningful experiences. The harder part is turning that desire into real action. Lived addresses the gap between intention and follow-through. It asks how design can help people move from vague ideas about the life they want into specific experiences they can actually choose, plan, do, and remember."

"Research and testing showed that users did not need another inspiration feed or generic list of things to do. They needed support at the moment where behavior usually breaks: after they find something interesting, but before they actually do it. The strongest insights were: People often have real desires, but not enough bandwidth to turn them into action. Recommendations need to feel personal, specific, and believable to build trust. Planning details like cost, time, location, effort, what to bring, and first steps make experiences feel more achievable. Reflection is valuable, but only if it stays lightweight and easy to sustain. A private archive can help users see their life building over time, not just remember isolated moments. Testing shifted Lived from an inspiration tool into a more complete system for choosing, planning, doing, and remembering meaningful experiences."

"Lived is built around a core loop: Discover, Commit, Do, and Reflect. Users begin with onboarding that helps the app understand what they want more of in life, including their interests, energy, budget, comfort zone, social preferences, and the kinds of experiences that feel meaningful to them. From there, Lived recommends curated experiences instead of showing a generic feed. Users can filter by budget, time, effort, mood, social setting, and experience type. Once they choose an experience, the app helps them make it real through planning details, commitment tools, and clear next steps. After completing an experience, users can create a Receipt of Life: a lightweight reflection with a photo or video, a short written note, and simple emotional ratings like aliveness, meaning, and growth. These receipts are saved into a private archive, where users can see completed experiences, patterns, Life Wrapped insights, and a growing record of a more intentional life."