PadPal

An AI-Powered password manager to help you manage your accounts

SUMMARY PadPal is an AI-powered password manager that helps end-users easily store and manage their passwords with maximum security.

In this project, I was tasked to design a new experience and interface to solve the problems faced with passwords and security.

MY ROLE Research, wireframe, design DURATION 6 weeks

The need for online security cannot be over-emphasized

PadPal started out as an experiment from a personal experience when my account was hacked because I kept on forgetting my password and ended up changing it to something very simple

To be sure I was addressing the right problem, I started conducting research on different users, asking questions and gaining validations from victims of online security threats. My findings were very insightful

Most people tend to use very simple passwords so they won’t forget. Some persons use a single password for all platforms. One password for every account created online.

Also, having to create a password combination is hard work especially when security experts advise that each password be unique to avoid other platforms being compromised when hacked

We're not robots, Yes, it's human to forget

$200 million lost forever - Research case

This story is about a guy named Thomas Stefan who forgot the password to his crypto wallet. About a decade ago, Thomas was gifted a lot of Bitcoin.

He kept the Bitcoin in an IronKey wallet and wrote the password on a piece of paper. To cut the long story short, Thomas forgot the password and has only 8 out of 10 attempts to retrieve his fortune

One key thing I found out was that people do not really care about knowing their passwords off the head. They just want to be able to get it whenever they needed it.

This changed my approach completely. I had to focus on a system that makes it seamless for users to log in to their accounts and not necessarily a way for users to store the passwords they used which led to the automatic creation and storage of password.

Sketching the framework

I used all the findings from my research and started sketching to get a first-hand view of what my app would look like. The paper sketch was an important process in the design phase to visualize the design and easily make iterations.

Designing the wireframes in low fidelity

The low-fidelity designs contained more details than the paper prototype. It shows a clearer view of what the finished app would look like.

Crafting a mini design system to ensure consistency

To make the design process easier, I created a mini style guide to guide me in the design process and also to ensure consistency in my design. The style guide highlights the colors, typography, etc. that will be used in the design

Putting things together, It was time to create a Hi-Fidelity prototype of my work. To better explain the prototype, I broke them down into flows.

A simple yet functional onboarding

Welcoming the users with a warm expression while giving them a feeling of security was key. The splash and onboarding screen combo did this effectively

Authentication Flow

The signup was designed to feel like you're interacting with an assistant which helps give the users a sense of security

There was also need for an additional layer of security. PadPal uses a combination of speech recognition capabilities to help ensure the user's account can only be accessed by the intended user

Home Page and Navigation

The Home Page was carefully designed to be simple and clutter-free. The bottom navigation bar was created with well design Icons to give users quick access to the most important features they might need right away.

Adding items to the vault

The Vault can house multiple types of items ranging from passwords to cards and even wallet items. This is one of the significant flows in the app and hence much emphasis was put on this button so as to give the users a superb experience

Viewing Vault Items

Items in the vault can be easily been found since they are put in categories. There is also a search bar to easily find items in the vault.

Conclusion

This project was really interesting, and I learned a lot from it. Applying artificial intelligence to security would be a game-changer in terms of password management. As a password manager, PadPal covers the major challenges and provides solutions to these problems. Since the project is a personal project, the possibility of it going live might not work out but it would be nice to see. Thanks for reading