UIUX case study
Musee
Common Café
Visual works
Gong Xu Design
EUNO Coffee
Musee
AI-Assisted Inspiration Management
AI-powered
0 → 1
Cross-device
Semantic Search
End-to-End
Musee — Your AI-powered inspiration system.
A multi-format, cross-device tool that turns scattered discoveries into structured, searchable, and usable creative assets.
Collect in seconds.
Auto-organize with AI.
Find anything by meaning — not keywords
Time
Aug 2025 → Jan 2026
Side project · 0 → 1Built and iterated based on real creative workflows
Role
Product Designer (UX Research · UI · Interaction)
Team
Solo designer
Framing the Problem
Today, we don’t lack inspiration or information — we lack a way to apply what we discover.
People save images, links, IG posts, articles, quotes, and product references, but most of these inspirations disappear into scattered platforms and never make it into real work. The real challenge is not collecting, but organizing, recalling, and reusing inspirations.
Musee turns fragmented discoveries into structured, searchable, and usable creative assets.
01
Capture happens in fragments
Inspiration appears in different contexts:
Desktop: focused, work-related discovery during projects
Mobile: impulsive, after-hours browsing
Saving must be fast, cross-device, and interruption-free
02
Inspirations are inherently multi-format
Images, articles, screenshots, links, quotes
Most existing tools only solve one format well
03
Recall is meaning-based, not keyword-based
People remember visuals, moods, and context
Traditional search fails when memory is vague
How might we
turn scattered, multi-format inspirations into organized, searchable, and reusable ideas — without adding organizational burden?
Persona
Alex (28)
Creative Professional
“ I know I saved it somewhere,
but I can’t find it anymore.”
Behavior Snapshot
Cross-platform inspiration collector
Remembers visuals & intent, not locations
Two primary capture modes:
Desktop: intentional, project-driven research
Mobile: spontaneous, casual browsing
Goals
Capture inspiration instantly
Find content by visual memory & intent
Challenges
Inspiration scattered across tools
Search doesn’t match how memory works
Customer journey map
🧭 Stages
Discover
Save
Recall
Organize
Apply
💭 Thinking
“This looks interesting, I might need this someday.”
“I’ll save it later.”
“Where should I save this?”
“Screenshot first, I’ll organize later.”
“I remember how it looked… but not where I saved it.”
“What keyword should I even search?”
“I should clean this up someday.”
This is going to take too much effort.”
“I know I had references for this…”
“It’s faster to just find new ones.”
⚡ Doing
Casual browsing on mobile (IG, Pinterest, blogs)
Intentional search on desktop for project references
Takes screenshots
Uses IG Saves, bookmarks, notes, chat apps
Tries keyword search
Scrolls through old saves or folders
Occasionally creates folders or tags
Often postpones organization
Re-searches instead of reusing saved content
Leaves old collections untouched
🌊 Feeling
🙂
Curious,
slightly overwhelmed
😐
Neutral, slight friction
😣
Frustrated,
discouraged
😩
Overwhelmed,
avoidant
😕
Disappointed, Indifferent
🧩 Pain Points
Inspiration appears across different contexts and devices
Saving feels interruptive or friction-heavy
Often delays saving or saves “somewhere first”
Inspirations are scattered across multiple tools
Different formats require different saving behaviors
No single place accepts everything
Memory is visual and contextual, not keyword-based
Search fails without exact words or platforms
Older inspirations become effectively “lost”
Manual organization is mentally taxing
Mixed content types don’t live well together
Saved inspirations rarely resurface during real work
Re-finding effort outweighs perceived value
Collections become passive archives
✨ Opportunities
Reduce capture friction across devices
Make saving feel instant and low-effort
Unify fragmented content into one consistent system
Support all formats without changing user habits
Enable recall by meaning, mood, or intent
Reduce dependence on exact keywords
Lower the cost of organization
Let structure emerge naturally over time
Resurface inspiration at the right moment
Turn saved content into reusable creative assets
Decision-driving Insights
Rather than treating individual pain points in isolation, the research revealed several underlying patterns that directly shaped Musee’s design decisions.
01
Organization cannot rely on user discipline
People collect inspiration faster than they can maintain structure. Systems that require upfront organization often fail over time. This led to a shift away from manual categorization toward AI-assisted auto-curation.
02
Recall is semantic, not literal
Users remember inspiration by meaning, mood, and visual impression rather than exact keywords, leading to a semantic search–first approach instead of traditional text-based search.
03
Inspiration is inherently multi-format
People collect inspiration faster than they can maintain structure. Systems that require upfront organization often fail over time. This led to a shift away from manual categorization toward AI-assisted auto-curation.
04
Discovery contexts differ, but memory should not
People collect inspiration faster than they can maintain structure. Systems that require upfront organization often fail over time. This led to a shift away from manual categorization toward AI-assisted auto-curation.
05
Retrieval determines reuse
People collect inspiration faster than they can maintain structure. Systems that require upfront organization often fail over time. This led to a shift away from manual categorization toward AI-assisted auto-curation.
Design Principles
Based on these insights, three guiding design principles emerged:
Capture must be effortless- Saving should never interrupt the moment of discovery.
Structure should emerge automatically- Organization should not depend on user discipline, but be supported by the system itself.
Rediscovery should follow human memory- Search should align with how people remember — by meaning, mood, and context — rather than exact keywords.
Additionally,
Designing for inspiration, not redistribution- To support inspiration while respecting original creators and platform boundaries, Musee treats saved social content as private inspiration references. Original sources remain visible and accessible through contextual links, ensuring transparency without interrupting creative flow.
Design Outcomes
Guided by these principles, Musee enables a different relationship between inspiration and creative work:
⚡
Enables uninterrupted capture across devices
Users can save inspiration instantly, without breaking their browsing or thinking flow.
🤖
Allows structure to emerge without manual effort
Content is enriched with AI-generated metadata and summaries, reducing the need for upfront organization.
🧠
Supports meaning-based rediscovery
Inspiration can be found by intent, mood, or visual similarity — not just exact keywords.
📁
Begins enabling saved inspiration to become reusable creative inputs
Inspirations resurface when users intentionally seek them within real project workflows, increasing long-term reuse.
🔗
Preserves source transparency without disrupting inspiration flow
Original content remains attributable and accessible via hover, while Musee stays focused on personal creative use—not redistribution.
From scattered discoveries → structured creative assets
Prioritization — Defining the MVP Scope
Guided by these principles, Musee deliberately prioritized validating semantic recall as its primary lever— focusing on recall and reuse over feature breadth, even at the cost of deferring richer organizational and reflective features.
P1 — MVP (Core Value Validation)
Can semantic search meaningfully reduce the cost of organizing and reusing inspiration across formats?
Multi-format saving
AI-generated tags and descriptions
Semantic search
Rooms (project-level organization)
Mobile share → Musee
P2 — Post-MVP (Depth & Flexibility)
Once trust is established, Musee expands how inspiration is structured and revisited over time.
Spaces (sub-themes within projects)
Screenshot import
Time-aware inspiration reminders
Out of scope (for MVP)
Intentionally excluded
Inline article highlighting
Year-end inspiration recap
Monthly reflection & cleanup flow
Potential paid feature
Collaboration with teammates
Moodboard creation & layout control
Video and PDF support
* Each P1 and P2 item directly maps to a corresponding solution explored in the following section.
Solution
Musee is designed as an end-to-end, multi-format inspiration system —
supporting images, articles, links, quotes, and references within a single workflow.
Inspiration appears
Auto-curation by AI
Organize into Room / Space
Semantic Search
Capture inspiration
Apply inspiration in real project work
Apply inspiration in real project work
User action
Save instantly—no organization decisions required.
System capabilities enabled after capture
AI curates content for structured or memory-based access.
User Flow (System-driven)
Capture activates system intelligence rather than manual organization. Saved inspiration is automatically structured and accessible via Rooms, Spaces, or semantic recall.
Simplified End-to-End Flow
Musee shifts the burden of organization from users to the system. After capture, inspiration is automatically structured and re-engaged through either project-based organization or semantic recall—leading to real-world application.
01
Make capturing effortless — in any context（P1）
Musee is designed as an end-to-end inspiration system, turning scattered discoveries into reusable creative assets.
Supports mixed formats including images, links, articles, quotes, screenshots, and social posts
Unified capture via desktop extension and mobile share
02
Reduce cognitive load with AI auto-curation（P1）
Instead of requiring upfront organization, Musee automatically structures inspiration at the moment of capture.
AI-generated tags, descriptions
Consistent behavior across all content types
03
Support project-based thinking with flexible structure（P1,P2）
Musee mirrors how creators think about work — thematically rather than hierarchically.
Rooms for projects
Spaces for sub-themes (e.g. color, tone, layout)
Mixed-format content lives naturally within the same structure
04
Semantic Search — enable recall by meaning（P1）
Musee enables rediscovery even when users can’t remember where content came from or how it was saved.By combining semantic intent with format-based filtering, users can search across visual and text-based inspiration—retrieving articles, quotes, or visuals by meaning while refining results by content type.
Search by mood, style, concept, or visual intent
Semantic and category-based filters work together to support vague recall, rather than relying on exact keywords
05
Time-aware inspiration reminders（P2）
After semantic recall is established, Musee introduces time as a gentle signal for rediscovery — not as a productivity or cleanup mechanism. Instead of letting inspiration fade silently, Musee surfaces saved items at the right moment, without pressure.
Shows how long inspirations have been saved (e.g. 30 days, 100 days)
Time prompts act as soft revisit cues, not forced organization tasks
Key Screens
High-fidelity UI screens include:
Home / Inspirations
A unified home for capturing and browsing mixed-format inspiration.
Setting / dark and light mode
Supports both dark and light themes for different working environments.
Search · Preview before committing
Users can long-press to preview articles on mobile, reducing page jumps and the mental cost of deciding what to open.
Item detail (image / article / link)
Regardless of format, each item shares a consistent detail structure — combining visual content, AI-generated metadata, and contextual notes for reuse across projects.
Outcomes
(From Usability Testing)
Scores reflect post-task ratings after completing core workflows.
Participants: 5 creative professionalsMethod: Remote task-based testing · High-fidelity prototypeScale: 1 (Strongly disagree) – 5 (Strongly agree)
Faster capture (2.2→4.6 / 5)
Users saved inspiration across devices without pausing to organize.
Higher reuse (3.6→4.6 / 5)
AI-generated metadata resurfaced forgotten inspiration during new tasks.
More reliable rediscovery
(2.8→4.4 / 5)
Semantic search enabled recall by mood or intent, not keywords.
Lower organization overhead
(3.6→4.4 / 5)
Removing upfront structure reduced mental effort.
Reflection & Next Steps
Key learnings
The value of inspiration tools lies in retrieval, not storage.
AI is most effective when it reduces cognitive load without replacing user intent.
Cross-device continuity is foundational, not optional.
Validating technical feasibility and platform constraints with engineers earlier would help anticipate implications around content sourcing, storage cost, and compliance.
Trade-offs & next steps
Earlier validation of semantic search feasibility would improve MVP scoping and technical alignment.
Deeper metadata extraction (visual style, tone, intent) could further improve recall quality.
Future directions include richer formats (PDF, video) and collaborative workflows, with consideration for storage cost and monetization trade-offs.
View case study: Common Café
Open to product design & UX opportunitiesmeetmix@gmail.com
© 2025 Pei Rong Penny Jiang
UIUX case study
Musee
Common Café
Visual works
Gong Xu Design
EUNO Coffee
Musee
AI-Assisted Inspiration Management
AI-powered
0 → 1
Cross-device
Semantic Search
End-to-End
Time
Aug 2025 → Jan 2026
Side project · 0 → 1Built and iterated based on real creative workflows
Role
Product Designer (UX Research · UI · Interaction)
Team
Solo designer
Musee — Your AI-powered inspiration system.
A multi-format, cross-device tool that turns scattered discoveries into structured, searchable, and usable creative assets.
Collect in seconds.
Auto-organize with AI.
Find anything by meaning — not keywords
Framing the Problem
Today, we don’t lack inspiration or information — we lack a way to apply what we discover.
People save images, links, IG posts, articles, quotes, and product references, but most of these inspirations disappear into scattered platforms and never make it into real work. The real challenge is not collecting, but organizing, recalling, and reusing inspirations.
Musee turns fragmented discoveries into structured, searchable, and usable creative assets.
01
Capture happens in fragments
Inspiration appears in different contexts:
Desktop: focused, work-related discovery during projects
Mobile: impulsive, after-hours browsing
Saving must be fast, cross-device, and interruption-free
02
Inspirations are inherently multi-format
Images, articles, screenshots, links, quotes
Most existing tools only solve one format well
03
Recall is meaning-based, not keyword-based
People remember visuals, moods, and context
Traditional search fails when memory is vague
How might we
turn scattered, multi-format inspirations into organized, searchable,
and reusable ideas — without adding organizational burden?
Persona
Alex (28)
Creative Professional
“ I know I saved it somewhere,
but I can’t find it anymore.”
Behavior Snapshot
Cross-platform inspiration collector
Remembers visuals & intent, not locations
Two primary capture modes:
Desktop: intentional, project-driven research
Mobile: spontaneous, casual browsing
Goals
Capture inspiration instantly
Find content by visual memory & intent
Challenges
Inspiration scattered across tools
Search doesn’t match how memory works
Customer journey map
🧭 Stages
Discover
Save
Recall
Organize
Apply
💭 Thinking
“This looks interesting, I might need this someday.”
“I’ll save it later.”
“Where should I save this?”
“Screenshot first, I’ll organize later.”
“I remember how it looked… but not where I saved it.”
“What keyword should I even search?”
“I should clean this up someday.”
This is going to take too much effort.”
“I know I had references for this…”
“It’s faster to just find new ones.”
⚡ Doing
Casual browsing on mobile (IG, Pinterest, blogs)
Intentional search on desktop for project references
Takes screenshots
Uses IG Saves, bookmarks, notes, chat apps
Tries keyword search
Scrolls through old saves or folders
Occasionally creates folders or tags
Often postpones organization
Re-searches instead of reusing saved content
Leaves old collections untouched
🌊 Feeling
🙂
Curious,
slightly overwhelmed
😐
Neutral, slight friction
😣
Frustrated,
discouraged
😩
Overwhelmed,
avoidant
😕
Disappointed, Indifferent
🧩 Pain Points
Inspiration appears across different contexts and devices
Saving feels interruptive or friction-heavy
Often delays saving or saves “somewhere first”
Inspirations are scattered across multiple tools
Different formats require different saving behaviors
No single place accepts everything
Memory is visual and contextual, not keyword-based
Search fails without exact words or platforms
Older inspirations become effectively “lost”
Manual organization is mentally taxing
Mixed content types don’t live well together
Saved inspirations rarely resurface during real work
Re-finding effort outweighs perceived value
Collections become passive archives
✨ Opportunities
Reduce capture friction across devices
Make saving feel instant and low-effort
Unify fragmented content into one consistent system
Support all formats without changing user habits
Enable recall by meaning, mood, or intent
Reduce dependence on exact keywords
Lower the cost of organization
Let structure emerge naturally over time
Resurface inspiration at the right moment
Turn saved content into reusable creative assets
Decision-driving Insights
Rather than treating individual pain points in isolation, the research revealed several underlying patterns that directly shaped Musee’s design decisions.
01
Organization cannot rely on user discipline
02
Recall is semantic, not literal
03
Inspiration is inherently multi-format
04
Discovery contexts differ, but memory should not
05
Retrieval determines reuse
Design Principles
Based on these insights, three guiding design principles emerged:
Capture must be effortless- Saving should never interrupt the moment of discovery.
Structure should emerge automatically- Organization should not depend on user discipline, but be supported by the system itself.
Rediscovery should follow human memory- Search should align with how people remember — by meaning, mood, and context — rather than exact keywords.
Additionally,
Designing for inspiration, not redistribution- To support inspiration while respecting original creators and platform boundaries, Musee treats saved social content as private inspiration references. Original sources remain visible and accessible through contextual links, ensuring transparency without interrupting creative flow.
Design Outcomes
Guided by these principles, Musee enables a different relationship between inspiration and creative work:
⚡
Enables uninterrupted capture across devices
Users can save inspiration instantly, without breaking their browsing or thinking flow.
🤖
Allows structure to emerge without manual effort
Content is enriched with AI-generated metadata and summaries, reducing the need for upfront organization.
🧠
Supports meaning-based rediscovery
Inspiration can be found by intent, mood, or visual similarity — not just exact keywords.
📁
Begins enabling saved inspiration to become reusable creative inputs
Inspirations resurface when users intentionally seek them within real project workflows, increasing long-term reuse.
🔗
Preserves source transparency without disrupting inspiration flow
Original content remains attributable and accessible via hover, while Musee stays focused on personal creative use—not redistribution.
From scattered discoveries → structured creative assets
Prioritization — Defining the MVP Scope
Guided by these principles, Musee deliberately prioritized validating semantic recall as its primary lever— focusing on recall and reuse over feature breadth, even at the cost of deferring richer organizational and reflective features.
P1 — MVP (Core Value Validation)
Can semantic search meaningfully reduce the cost of organizing and reusing inspiration across formats?
Multi-format saving
AI-generated tags and descriptions
Semantic search
Rooms (project-level organization)
Mobile share → Musee
P2 — Post-MVP (Depth & Flexibility)
Once trust is established, Musee expands how inspiration is structured and revisited over time.
Spaces (sub-themes within projects)
Screenshot import
Time-aware inspiration reminders
Out of scope (for MVP)
Intentionally excluded
Inline article highlighting
Year-end inspiration recap
Monthly reflection & cleanup flow
Potential paid feature
Collaboration with teammates
Moodboard creation & layout control
Video and PDF support
* Each P1 and P2 item directly maps to a corresponding solution explored in the following section.
Solution
Musee is designed as an end-to-end, multi-format inspiration system —
supporting images, articles, links, quotes, and references within a single workflow.
Inspiration appears
Auto-curation by AI
Organize into Room / Space
Semantic Search
Capture inspiration
Apply inspiration in real project work
Apply inspiration in real project work
User action
Save instantly—no organization decisions required.
System capabilities enabled after capture
AI curates content for structured or memory-based access.
User Flow (System-driven)
Capture activates system intelligence rather than manual organization. Saved inspiration is automatically structured and accessible via Rooms, Spaces, or semantic recall.
Simplified End-to-End Flow
Musee shifts the burden of organization from users to the system. After capture, inspiration is automatically structured and re-engaged through either project-based organization or semantic recall—leading to real-world application.
01
Make capturing effortless — in any context（P1）
Musee is designed as an end-to-end inspiration system, turning scattered discoveries into reusable creative assets.
Supports mixed formats including images, links, articles, quotes, screenshots, and social posts
Unified capture via desktop extension and mobile share
02
Reduce cognitive load with AI auto-curation（P1）
Instead of requiring upfront organization, Musee automatically structures inspiration at the moment of capture.
AI-generated tags, descriptions
Consistent behavior across all content types
03
Support project-based thinking with flexible structure（P1,P2）
Musee mirrors how creators think about work — thematically rather than hierarchically.
Rooms for projects
Spaces for sub-themes (e.g. color, tone, layout)
Mixed-format content lives naturally within the same structure
04
Semantic Search — enable recall by meaning（P1）
Musee enables rediscovery even when users can’t remember where content came from or how it was saved.By combining semantic intent with format-based filtering, users can search across visual and text-based inspiration—retrieving articles, quotes, or visuals by meaning while refining results by content type.
Search by mood, style, concept, or visual intent
Semantic and category-based filters work together to support vague recall, rather than relying on exact keywords
05
Time-aware inspiration reminders（P2）
After semantic recall is established, Musee introduces time as a gentle signal for rediscovery — not as a productivity or cleanup mechanism. Instead of letting inspiration fade silently, Musee surfaces saved items at the right moment, without pressure.
Shows how long inspirations have been saved (e.g. 30 days, 100 days)
Time prompts act as soft revisit cues, not forced organization tasks
Key Screens
High-fidelity UI screens include:
Home / Inspirations
A unified home for capturing and browsing mixed-format inspiration.
Setting / dark and light mode
Supports both dark and light themes for different working environments.
Search · Preview before committing
Users can long-press to preview articles on mobile, reducing page jumps and the mental cost of deciding what to open.
Item detail (image / article / link)
Regardless of format, each item shares a consistent detail structure — combining visual content, AI-generated metadata, and contextual notes for reuse across projects.
Outcomes (From Usability Testing)
Scores reflect post-task ratings after completing core workflows.
Participants: 5 creative professionalsMethod: Remote task-based testing · High-fidelity prototypeScale: 1 (Strongly disagree) – 5 (Strongly agree)
Faster capture (2.2→4.6 / 5)
Users saved inspiration across devices without pausing to organize.
Higher reuse (3.6→4.6 / 5)
AI-generated metadata resurfaced forgotten inspiration during new tasks.
More reliable rediscovery
(2.8→4.4 / 5)
Semantic search enabled recall by mood or intent, not keywords.
Lower organization overhead
(3.6→4.4 / 5)
Removing upfront structure reduced mental effort.
Reflection & Next Steps
Key learnings
The value of inspiration tools lies in retrieval, not storage.
AI is most effective when it reduces cognitive load without replacing user intent.
Cross-device continuity is foundational, not optional.
Validating technical feasibility and platform constraints with engineers earlier would help anticipate implications around content sourcing, storage cost, and compliance.
Trade-offs & next steps
Earlier validation of semantic search feasibility would improve MVP scoping and technical alignment.
Deeper metadata extraction (visual style, tone, intent) could further improve recall quality.
Future directions include richer formats (PDF, video) and collaborative workflows, with consideration for storage cost and monetization trade-offs.
View case study: Common Café
Open to product design & UX opportunitiesmeetmix@gmail.com
© 2025 Pei Rong Penny Jiang
UIUX case study
Musee
Common Café
Visual works
Gong Xu Design
EUNO Coffee
Musee
AI-Assisted Inspiration Management
AI-powered
0 → 1
Cross-device
Semantic Search
End-to-End
Time
Aug 2025 → Jan 2026
Side project · 0 → 1Built and iterated based on real creative workflows
Role
Product Designer (UX Research · UI · Interaction)
Team
Solo designer
Musee — Your AI-powered inspiration system.
A multi-format, cross-device tool that turns scattered discoveries into structured, searchable, and usable creative assets.
Collect in seconds.
Auto-organize with AI.
Find anything by meaning — not keywords
Framing the Problem
Today, we don’t lack inspiration or information — we lack a way to apply what we discover.
People save images, links, IG posts, articles, quotes, and product references, but most of these inspirations disappear into scattered platforms and never make it into real work. The real challenge is not collecting, but organizing, recalling, and reusing inspirations.
Musee turns fragmented discoveries into structured, searchable, and usable creative assets.
01
Capture happens in fragments
Inspiration appears in different contexts:
Desktop: focused, work-related discovery during projects
Mobile: impulsive, after-hours browsing
Saving must be fast, cross-device, and interruption-free
02
Inspirations are inherently multi-format
Images, articles, screenshots, links, quotes
Most existing tools only solve one format well
03
Recall is meaning-based, not keyword-based
People remember visuals, moods, and context
Traditional search fails when memory is vague
How might we
turn scattered, multi-format inspirations into organized, searchable,
and reusable ideas — without adding organizational burden?
Persona
Alex (28)
Creative Professional
“ I know I saved it somewhere,
but I can’t find it anymore.”
Behavior Snapshot
Cross-platform inspiration collector
Remembers visuals & intent, not locations
Two primary capture modes:
Desktop: intentional, project-driven research
Mobile: spontaneous, casual browsing
Goals
Capture inspiration instantly
Find content by visual memory & intent
Challenges
Inspiration scattered across tools
Search doesn’t match how memory works
Customer journey map
🧭 Stages
Discover
Save
Recall
Organize
Apply
💭 Thinking
“This looks interesting, I might need this someday.”
“I’ll save it later.”
“Where should I save this?”
“Screenshot first, I’ll organize later.”
“I remember how it looked… but not where I saved it.”
“What keyword should I even search?”
“I should clean this up someday.”
This is going to take too much effort.”
“I know I had references for this…”
“It’s faster to just find new ones.”
⚡ Doing
Casual browsing on mobile (IG, Pinterest, blogs)
Intentional search on desktop for project references
Takes screenshots
Uses IG Saves, bookmarks, notes, chat apps
Tries keyword search
Scrolls through old saves or folders
Occasionally creates folders or tags
Often postpones organization
Re-searches instead of reusing saved content
Leaves old collections untouched
🌊 Feeling
🙂
Curious,
slightly overwhelmed
😐
Neutral, slight friction
😣
Frustrated,
discouraged
😩
Overwhelmed,
avoidant
😕
Disappointed, Indifferent
🧩 Pain Points
Inspiration appears across different contexts and devices
Saving feels interruptive or friction-heavy
Often delays saving or saves “somewhere first”
Inspirations are scattered across multiple tools
Different formats require different saving behaviors
No single place accepts everything
Memory is visual and contextual, not keyword-based
Search fails without exact words or platforms
Older inspirations become effectively “lost”
Manual organization is mentally taxing
Mixed content types don’t live well together
Saved inspirations rarely resurface during real work
Re-finding effort outweighs perceived value
Collections become passive archives
✨ Opportunities
Reduce capture friction across devices
Make saving feel instant and low-effort
Unify fragmented content into one consistent system
Support all formats without changing user habits
Enable recall by meaning, mood, or intent
Reduce dependence on exact keywords
Lower the cost of organization
Let structure emerge naturally over time
Resurface inspiration at the right moment
Turn saved content into reusable creative assets
Decision-driving Insights
Rather than treating individual pain points in isolation, the research revealed several underlying patterns that directly shaped Musee’s design decisions.
01
Organization cannot rely on user discipline
02
Recall is semantic, not literal
03
Inspiration is inherently multi-format
04
Discovery contexts differ, but memory should not
05
Retrieval determines reuse
Design Principles
Based on these insights, three guiding design principles emerged:
Capture must be effortless- Saving should never interrupt the moment of discovery.
Structure should emerge automatically- Organization should not depend on user discipline, but be supported by the system itself.
Rediscovery should follow human memory- Search should align with how people remember — by meaning, mood, and context — rather than exact keywords.
Additionally,
Designing for inspiration, not redistribution- To support inspiration while respecting original creators and platform boundaries, Musee treats saved social content as private inspiration references. Original sources remain visible and accessible through contextual links, ensuring transparency without interrupting creative flow.
Design Outcomes
Guided by these principles, Musee enables a different relationship between inspiration and creative work:
⚡
Enables uninterrupted capture across devices
Users can save inspiration instantly, without breaking their browsing or thinking flow.
🤖
Allows structure to emerge without manual effort
Content is enriched with AI-generated metadata and summaries, reducing the need for upfront organization.
🧠
Supports meaning-based rediscovery
Inspiration can be found by intent, mood, or visual similarity — not just exact keywords.
📁
Begins enabling saved inspiration to become reusable creative inputs
Inspirations resurface when users intentionally seek them within real project workflows, increasing long-term reuse.
🔗
Preserves source transparency without disrupting inspiration flow
Original content remains attributable and accessible via hover, while Musee stays focused on personal creative use—not redistribution.
From scattered discoveries → structured creative assets
Prioritization — Defining the MVP Scope
Guided by these principles, Musee deliberately prioritized validating semantic recall as its primary lever—
focusing on recall and reuse over feature breadth, even at the cost of deferring richer organizational and reflective features.
P1 — MVP (Core Value Validation)
Can semantic search meaningfully reduce the cost of organizing and reusing inspiration across formats?
Multi-format saving
AI-generated tags and descriptions
Semantic search
Rooms (project-level organization)
Mobile share → Musee
P2 — Post-MVP (Depth & Flexibility)
Once trust is established, Musee expands how inspiration is structured and revisited over time.
Spaces (sub-themes within projects)
Screenshot import
Time-aware inspiration reminders
Out of scope (for MVP)
Intentionally excluded
Inline article highlighting
Year-end inspiration recap
Monthly reflection & cleanup flow
Potential paid feature
Collaboration with teammates
Moodboard creation & layout control
Video and PDF support
* Each P1 and P2 item directly maps to a corresponding solution explored in the following section.
Solution
Musee is designed as an end-to-end, multi-format inspiration system —
supporting images, articles, links, quotes, and references within a single workflow.
Inspiration appears
Auto-curation by AI
Organize into Room / Space
Semantic Search
Capture inspiration
Apply inspiration in real project work
Apply inspiration in real project work
User action
Save instantly—no organization decisions required.
System capabilities enabled after capture
AI curates content for structured or memory-based access.
User Flow (System-driven)
Capture activates system intelligence rather than manual organization. Saved inspiration is automatically structured and accessible via Rooms, Spaces, or semantic recall.
Simplified End-to-End Flow
Musee shifts the burden of organization from users to the system. After capture, inspiration is automatically structured and re-engaged through either project-based organization or semantic recall—leading to real-world application.
01
Make capturing effortless — in any context（P1）
Musee is designed as an end-to-end inspiration system, turning scattered discoveries into reusable creative assets.
Supports mixed formats including images, links, articles, quotes, screenshots, and social posts
Unified capture via desktop extension and mobile share
02
Reduce cognitive load with AI auto-curation（P1）
Instead of requiring upfront organization, Musee automatically structures inspiration at the moment of capture.
AI-generated tags, descriptions
Consistent behavior across all content types
03
Support project-based thinking with flexible structure（P1,P2）
Musee mirrors how creators think about work — thematically rather than hierarchically.
Rooms for projects
Spaces for sub-themes (e.g. color, tone, layout)
Mixed-format content lives naturally within the same structure
04
Semantic Search — enable recall by meaning（P1）
Musee enables rediscovery even when users can’t remember where content came from or how it was saved.By combining semantic intent with format-based filtering, users can search across visual and text-based inspiration—retrieving articles, quotes, or visuals by meaning while refining results by content type.
Search by mood, style, concept, or visual intent
Semantic and category-based filters work together to support vague recall, rather than relying on exact keywords
05
Time-aware inspiration reminders（P2）
After semantic recall is established, Musee introduces time as a gentle signal for rediscovery — not as a productivity or cleanup mechanism. Instead of letting inspiration fade silently, Musee surfaces saved items at the right moment, without pressure.
Shows how long inspirations have been saved (e.g. 30 days, 100 days)
Time prompts act as soft revisit cues, not forced organization tasks
Key Screens
High-fidelity UI screens include:
Home / Inspirations
A unified home for capturing and browsing mixed-format inspiration.
Setting / dark and light mode
Supports both dark and light themes for different working environments.
Search · Preview before committing
Users can long-press to preview articles on mobile, reducing page jumps and the mental cost of deciding what to open.
Item detail (image / article / link)
Regardless of format, each item shares a consistent detail structure — combining visual content, AI-generated metadata, and contextual notes for reuse across projects.
Outcomes (From Usability Testing)
Scores reflect post-task ratings after completing core workflows.
Participants: 5 creative professionalsMethod: Remote task-based testing · High-fidelity prototypeScale: 1 (Strongly disagree) – 5 (Strongly agree)
Faster capture (2.2→4.6 / 5)
Users saved inspiration across devices without pausing to organize.
Higher reuse (3.6→4.6 / 5)
AI-generated metadata resurfaced forgotten inspiration during new tasks.
More reliable rediscovery (2.8→4.4 / 5)
Semantic search enabled recall by mood or intent, not keywords.
Lower organization overhead (3.6→4.4 / 5)
Removing upfront structure reduced mental effort.
Reflection & Next Steps
Key learnings
The value of inspiration tools lies in retrieval, not storage.
AI is most effective when it reduces cognitive load without replacing user intent.
Cross-device continuity is foundational, not optional.
Validating technical feasibility and platform constraints with engineers earlier would help anticipate implications around content sourcing, storage cost, and compliance.
Trade-offs & next steps
Earlier validation of semantic search feasibility would improve MVP scoping and technical alignment.
Deeper metadata extraction (visual style, tone, intent) could further improve recall quality.
Future directions include richer formats (PDF, video) and collaborative workflows, with consideration for storage cost and monetization trade-offs.
A museum for your muse pieces.Capture, rediscover, and reuse inspiration—without organizing.
+
Inspiration Management
Semantic Search
Creative Memory
Visual Archive
Calm Productivity
Put an item
in Musee
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View case study: Common Café
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© 2025 Pei Rong Penny Jiang