BENTO

A message consolidation application protoype created to help us manage our increasingly full inboxes.

Bento is an application meant to curb the increasingly frustrating issue of "message bloat". Similar to "tech bloat," this refers to the the overwhelming quantity of messages and information we as users receive on a daily basis through a myriad of platforms and applications.

The resulting stress and mental bandwidth it takes to shift through this constant flow of messages is becoming an increasing user frustration.  In an attempt to chip away at this evergrowing pile of messages, my team and I developed the concept for a product called Bento.  

Design Scope & Priorities

Reducing Cognitive Strain

Users can be overwhelmed by the amount of notifications they receive via different applications and platforms. The design of Bento aims to create a centralized hub that unifys all these different message sources so users spend less time thinking about if they missed a message or not. 

Ease of Use & Accessibility

Distinguishing different message flows through the app, while still keeping things consolidated enough, needed to be easy to both understand and learn to pick up. The goal is to reduce the frustration and the amount of time a user spends shifting through their messages, not add another barrier to the process.