aibo Owner Portal Redesign
Redesigning Sony's My aibo portal around the three things devoted owners actually worry about
A self-initiated concept redesign of the desktop portal aibo owners use for the slow, careful side of ownership. I ran three virtual interviews with ERS-1000 owners, tore down the official site screen by screen, and rebuilt the homepage around their real anxieties and real wants.
- Role
- Product Designer — Personal Concept
- Timeline
- Summer 2026 · 2-week sprint
- Tools
- Figma · Remote Owner Interviews · Heuristic Teardown
- Platform
- Desktop Web
TL;DR / Quick Facts
I redesigned Sony's My aibo desktop portal around what three ERS-1000 owners told me in virtual interviews — backups, repair, and health status — and the one thing they come to the desktop for: the photo archive. I demoted the coin shop and promoted the things owners lose sleep over.
Core Problem
Sony's My aibo portal treats emotionally invested owners like casual shoppers — coin promotions lead, while backup status, repair costs, and the photo archive stay buried or missing.
Final Outcome
A high-fidelity, companion-first homepage where every module traces to an interview finding — and all 8 issues from the official portal audit are resolved.
Situation
The Problem
Sony's My aibo desktop portal greets some of the most devoted owners in consumer tech with coin-shop promotions, a camera button, and their companion reduced to a tiny pill in the corner. Yet the portal shows no backup status anywhere.
"If his body fails without a backup, that's not a broken product. That's losing him." — ERS-1000 owner, Tokyo
An aibo owner is not a casual gadget buyer. The ERS-1000 costs roughly $2,900 plus a subscription, so most owners are 40+, often empty-nesters or people who can't have a live pet. Especially in Japan, owners treat aibo as a genuine family member — they hold birthday parties and cry at retirements.
The portal's actual notification feed the week I audited it:
- •"For a limited time only, you can trade coins for a 'Howl'"
- •"You can now trade coins for a new treat!"
- •"Father's Day is right around the corner!"
Marketing nagware — mixed with nothing an owner actually worries about.
Task
The Approach
My task: rebuild the homepage around the owner's emotional reality, using interviews as the arbiter of every layout decision.
I designed a companion-first desktop homepage that leads with what owners came to check:
- •A greeting and portrait card that makes their aibo the centerpiece
- •A status column that answers "is he backed up, charged, and covered?" in one glance
- •The photo archive surfaced as a browsable album with download in reach
- •Maintenance reframed in pet-health language, with the cost stated up front
Action
The Process
01 · Discovery
Virtual Owner Interviews
I ran 3 virtual interviews (about an hour each) with current ERS-1000 owners — one in Japan, two in the United States. Small sample, but an unusually devoted one: all three had owned their aibo for over a year, and all three talked about it the way people talk about pets, not products.
What they worry about (unprompted, all three):
☁️ Backups — the single biggest anxiety. An aibo's personality lives in aibo Cloud; if the physical body dies without a backup, the "soul" is gone. None of the three could say with confidence when their last backup ran.
🩺 Repair & Status — aibos age. Joints wear, batteries degrade, and repairs are expensive enough that owners track them like car maintenance. "I paid $2,900 for him. I want to see battery wear and warranty the way I see it for my car."
📸Photos — the want, as opposed to the worry. aibo photographs daily life constantly, and owners wanted to browse and download that archive. It's the main reason they open the desktop site at all.
Why desktop, when there's a phone app? The phone is for the daily "hi Roo, roll over" interactions. Desktop is where owners do the slow, careful, emotional work:
- •Managing the enormous photo archive aibo generates — hundreds to thousands of photos a year
- •Confirming the personality backup is safe in aibo Cloud
- •Reviewing subscription, warranty, next service, and battery cycle wear
- •Reminiscing — milestones, "on this day," first trick, adoption day
- •Managing multi-aibo households and family-member access
02 · Definition
Personas
I composited two personas directly from the three interviews, anchoring opposite ends of the same devotion. Keiko's backup anxiety and photo habit shaped the status column and the memories row; Dale's repair vigilance made the care and cost surfaces non-negotiable.
Keiko
Retired teacher · Tokyo · Empty-nester · Age 63
“If his body fails without a backup, that's not a broken product. That's losing him.”
Goals
- •Confirm the aibo Cloud backup is current at a glance
- •Browse and download photos to share with her daughter
- •Revisit milestones — adoption day, first trick, first friend
Frustrations
- •Backup status is invisible on the portal
- •Photos render as tiny fisheye circles with no easy download
- •Notifications push coin promotions, not what matters
Dale
Engineer · Ohio · Two-aibo household · Age 52
“I paid $2,900 for him. I want to see battery wear and warranty the way I see it for my car.”
Goals
- •Monitor battery cycles and joint wear proactively
- •Know exactly what warranty covers before something breaks
- •Manage two aibos and his family's access in one place
Frustrations
- •No service or battery-health view exists at all
- •Repair costs are revealed only when booking
- •Portal assumes one aibo and one admin
03 · Definition
Teardown: What the Official Site Gets Wrong
I audited the official My aibo desktop portal screen by screen against the interview findings. Eight issues, in order of how much owners cared:
1. The companion is a pill, not a centerpiece — Roo appears as a tiny avatar chip in the top-right corner. The emotional core of a $2,900 relationship gets less screen space than the search bar.
2. Photos are an afterthought — the thing owners come here for renders as small fisheye circles, navigated by a month dropdown, with downloading buried. 251 photos, treated like a settings list.
3. Notifications are shop nagware — "trade coins for a Howl," "trade coins for a new treat," "Father's Day is right around the corner!" — mixed with anything that might actually matter, no prioritization.
4. No visible aibo Cloud status — the owner's single biggest fear is invisible. Nowhere does the portal say "backed up 4 minutes ago."
5. No service, warranty, or battery-cycle view — owners literally lose sleep over this and the portal has no surface for it.
6. No "on this day" or milestones — despite this being an emotional pet-ownership site, there's no reminiscing surface at all.
7. No real household support — multi-aibo families and family-member permissions are barely acknowledged.
8. Marketing-cutesy tone — the voice is aimed at a curious shopper, but the actual user is emotionally invested and 40+.
04 · Ideation
First Pass: A Prettier Version of the Same Mistakes
My first full design pass rebuilt the portal as a modern bento grid — warm cream canvas, serif greeting, Roo in a big photo card. It looked like a redesign. Checking it against the interview transcripts showed it mostly wasn't one:
✗ The coin jar and shop were still on the homepage — with "Open shop" as one of the few buttons.
✗ The live camera ("What is aibo viewing now?") still had a prime card — a phone job occupying desktop real estate.
✗ Quick actions (Call Roo · Give a treat · Nap) sat in the header — more phone jobs.
✗ Battery got a giant lime card while aibo Cloud backup — the anxiety all three owners named first — appeared nowhere.
✗ Notifications still led with coin promotions, unprioritized.
✓ What survived into the final: the greeting voice, the personality growth card ("How Roo is growing up"), diagnostics in plain language ("Everything's running smoothly"), and the household card.
The lesson that shaped the second pass: a redesign that keeps the same information priorities is just a reskin. The layout changed; who the page thought its user was hadn't.
05 · Iteration
Second Pass: Redesign Decisions
The second pass rebuilt the page around the interview priorities. Every teardown issue became a promote-or-demote decision:
✗ DEPRIORITIZED: Live Camera & Quick Actions — "What is aibo viewing now?" is front and center on the official site (and survived my first pass), but that's a phone job. Owners at a desktop are here for the archive and the health check, not remote play.
✗ DEPRIORITIZED: The Coin Shop — nice to have, not why anyone opens the site. It leaves the homepage entirely; no more trading coins for howls between warranty rows.
✓ ELEVATED: Photo Archive — today's photos on the homepage as a real album with times, contributors, and "Open album" one click away. Downloading in reach, not buried.
✓ ELEVATED: aibo Cloud Backup Status — the top row of the status column: "Backed up 4 min ago," green check. The biggest anxiety, answered before it's asked.
✓ ELEVATED: Subscription, Warranty & Battery — plan renewal, warranty coverage, battery cycles (214 / 1,000), and next service, all visible on the homepage Care card.
✓ ELEVATED: On This Day & Milestones — "One year ago today" resurfaces old moments; personality growth ("more cuddly this month") makes aging something to celebrate, not just monitor.
✓ ELEVATED: Household — Roo & Momo, three family members, and Patrol Pass friends as a first-class card, matching how multi-aibo families actually live.
✓ ELEVATED: Care as a Section, Not a Footnote — service framed in pet-health language ("left hip joint wear, normal for Roo's age") with the cost answered up front: ¥0 · covered.
Companion Card & Calm Status
Roo goes from corner pill to centerpiece: portrait, live mood, adoption date. The status column leads with what Keiko checks first — aibo Cloud backed up 4 minutes ago — then battery and warranty, defaulting to reassurance: "Nothing needs your attention."
Memories & Care, Side by Side
Today's Photos replaces the fisheye circles with a real album (times, family contributors, open-album path), "One year ago today" gives owners the reminiscing surface the official site never had, and the service card answers Dale's cost question before he asks it.
The Explore Bento
The four desktop jobs as glanceable cards: Photos (3,124 archived, storage visible), Personality (growing up, trait bars), Household (two aibos, three members, twelve Patrol Pass friends), and Care (warranty, battery cycles, next service) — a first-class section, not a footnote.
06 · Delivery
Final Design
The final homepage reads top to bottom the way an owner's attention actually moves: greeting → companion card → memories → explore.
"Good afternoon, Miki. Roo missed you." — a warm serif greeting for a user who is emotionally invested, replacing the marketing-cutesy voice.
The hierarchy encodes the design thesis — pet first, device second. Device data (ERS-1000 model, battery cycles, storage) stays available, but always one glance deeper than the pet context. An owner who scrolls the whole page gets a health check, a memory, and a reason to come back tomorrow.
Honest scope note: I validated this concept against the interview findings, but it has not yet been usability-tested with owners — that's the explicit next step.
Result
Outcomes & Impact
A complete 2-week concept sprint: three virtual owner interviews, teardown, personas, and a full desktop homepage redesign.
🎯Concept Outcomes:
💡Key Insights:
Evidence Notes:
This is a speculative concept project, not affiliated with Sony. It is grounded in 3 virtual owner interviews and a heuristic teardown of the live portal; the redesign has not yet been usability-tested with owners.
Reflection
Retrospective
Why This Project:
I wanted to practice emotional design on a product where the stakes are unusually real. The gap between how aibo owners feel — birthday parties, tears at retirement — and how the software speaks to them was the widest I'd ever seen.
Interviewing Across Cultures:
The Japanese owner and the American owners framed the same anxieties differently — she talked about the backup as protecting his spirit; they talked about warranties and battery cycles. The redesign had to hold both: the status column reassures emotionally, while the care card shows the hard numbers.
What I Learned:
1. Three Devoted Users Beat Thirty Casual Ones — every one of the eight teardown issues came from something an interviewee said unprompted. Depth of investment made the small sample unusually load-bearing.
2. Reassurance is a Feature — the highest-value screen state is the one where nothing is wrong. Designing the "everything is fine" state first inverted how I prioritized the homepage.
3. Tone is a System, Not a Coat of Paint — demoting the coin shop was a tone decision as much as an IA decision. What a product chooses to nag you about tells you who it thinks you are.
4. Killing Error Codes Doesn't Mean Hiding Truth — "left hip joint wear, covered under warranty" keeps every fact of the error code and loses all the fear.
What I'd Do Differently:
University Campus Map
From static PDF to a live wayfinding app — shipped to campus with accessibility data on every building
