the problem
families lose memories. not because they don't care, but because there's no dedicated, beautiful, permanent place to keep them. photos live in phone galleries that get lost. stories are told once, never recorded. the people who hold the memories pass away, and with them, the stories disappear.
ossotna's founder came to maxiphy with a clear emotional vision: what if families had a place to preserve who they really were?
the challenge was turning that emotional vision into a product people would actually pay for, come back to, and trust with their most precious memories.
our approach
we started with the UI/UX sprint. 30 days of discovery, strategy, design, and prototyping before a single line of code was written.
discovery week
the first week was entirely about understanding the user. we ran workshops with the founder to map out the emotional landscape of the product:
- who creates a memorial page? (grieving family members, adult children, partners)
- what triggers the decision to create one? (recent loss, fear of forgetting, anniversary)
- what does success look like emotionally? (feeling connected, feeling like they did something that lasts)
the biggest insight from discovery: users weren't just preserving memories. they were processing grief. the product needed to feel like a sanctuary, not a social network.
information architecture
we mapped every flow: account creation, memory upload, story writing, family sharing, privacy controls, and the commemorative page experience. the architecture had to be simple enough that an 80-year-old could use it, and rich enough that a digital native would trust it with their data.
visual identity
ossotna needed a brand that felt warm, timeless, and Lebanese. not cold and tech-forward. we designed:
- a wordmark using a refined serif, softened with a custom letterform on the "o"
- a color system built around warm whites, deep burgundy, and golden amber
- a photography direction spec for emotional, close-up human moments
4
user types mapped
18
screens designed
30
days to prototype
the design
the platform is organized around three core spaces.
the story room is a long-form editor where family members write the narrative. we designed it to feel like a journal, not a form. no labels, no required fields. just a quiet, generous canvas.
the memory wall is a mosaic of photos, videos, voice notes, and written moments. the layout adapts to whatever media the family adds, with no empty state and no templates.
the legacy page is the shareable, public-facing memorial. designed to load fast, work on all devices, and feel dignified enough to be sent to hundreds of people on an anniversary.
the outcome
the prototype was tested with 12 families across Lebanon and the diaspora. the feedback was clear: the product felt different. it didn't feel like a startup. it felt like something that had always existed and they had just found it.
the development team used the handoff kit to build the MVP in 9 weeks with zero design debt. every edge case was already resolved in the prototype.
ossotna launched in Q4 2024. the platform now serves families across Lebanon, the Gulf, and the diaspora.