Mintzie, the cat that guides
A feline assistant that talks and acts inside the page itself: it scrolls to the right section and pre-fills the form from what was said in the conversation.
Where it came from
A site with a lot of information forces people to hunt. They open a page, go back, try another, and give up before finding what they came for.
The wish was double: shorten that path and make navigating feel light, with some humour in it. An assistant with a face and a name solved both at once.
On the bench
We started by trying to build the cat in 3D, vectorised in the browser. It got heavy for what it gave back, so we swapped it for animated videos with the background cut out, which run on any machine.
In parallel, we mapped the systems and the information of the house to make up its brain. That archive became the source of truth: the cat answers from what is written there, and admits it does not know whatever is not.
Then came the care with poses and reactions, which is what makes a person want to ask again. Last came the module that takes it out of the chat and puts it on the page: it scrolls to the right section, fills in forms and guides through a script of questions.
Where it fits
It fits where there is too much information for a visitor to find alone: a large catalogue, a long portfolio, a knowledge base, an intranet.
It fits well in a brand that already has a character and a personality, because the assistant arrives as an extension of it instead of a generic widget.
And it fits an organisation that has accumulated systems and needs a single layer on top, or that wants a source of truth that stops depending on whoever remembers the answer.
What we learned
A character breaks the resistance to chatbots. With a face and a name, people ask more and ask better.
Three.js opened a universe worth exploring, and turned out too complex for what this solution needed. We put it aside for where it pays off, like 3D product models.
The bigger find was letting the assistant navigate on its own. That changes its role: from a box in the corner to the first layer of interface, sometimes the only one a person uses.
Still open
We still have to try it on a client's site. Testing at home is too comfortable: only when the assistant faces a visitor from another brand will we find out what still does not work.