Back to Portfolio

Giftlo.

The AI Gift Finder & Wishlist App

Built to make gifting less of a chore — one swipe, one wishlist, one reminder at a time.

Role Product Designer
Platform iOS & Android
Category AI Social App
Giftlo App Mockup
Giftlo App Mockup

Gift-giving became a chore.

It's 11pm the night before your best friend's birthday. You've spent two hours across a dozen browser tabs, and you still have nothing. You panic-buy a gift card. Again.

Honestly, that's not a one-off. It's what gifting looks like for most people now. We've got endless options and somehow less idea of what actually works. So we end up duplicating presents nobody wanted, defaulting to a gift card that basically says "I gave up," and gifting quietly stops meaning much.

"Most gifting tools pick one of those problems and solve it halfway."

Hours of research, zero ideas

You scroll through a dozen apps and still nothing feels right for the person you're shopping for.

Duplicate gifts, every time

Nobody knows what anyone else already bought, so group gifts turn into a guessing game every time.

Generic gift cards as a last resort

The classic "I didn't know what to get you" gift card — nice thought, but nobody remembers it.

What if gifting felt effortless?

Giftlo pulls the AI recommendations, the group coordination, and the actual browsing into one app, so you're not stitching together three different tools for one gift.

01

Discover

Swipe through picks that fit their taste, or just ask the AI. You land on something that matches the person, not the price tag.

02

Connect

Scan a friend's QR code to link up. You'll both see each other's wishlists, so nobody buys the same thing twice.

03

Give

A reminder pops up before the birthday and takes you straight to their wishlist, so remembering and actually buying happen in one step.

Five features.
One complete gifting loop.

01

Swipe Discovery Feed

It's basically Tinder for gifts — swipe right to save something, left to pass. Turns out a quick gut reaction beats an hour of overthinking it.

Discovery
02

AI Gift Assistant

Tell it who you're shopping for — personality, occasion, budget — and it comes back with real suggestions and buy links. It remembers what you told it last time, too.

AI-Powered
03

Universal Wishlist

Paste a link from basically any store — Etsy, Amazon, some random indie brand's Shopify page — and it all lands in one wishlist. No more juggling five different sites.

Organisation
04

QR Friend Sync

Scan a friend's QR code and you're connected. Their wishlist updates show up on your end too, so you always know what's already been claimed.

Social
05

Smart Birthday Reminders

Giftlo keeps track of your friends' birthdays and reminds you early, with a link straight to their current wishlist. No more scrambling the night before.

Automation

See it in action.

This is the actual app, not a mockup. Here's Giftlo doing what it was built for.

Built for everyone who gives.

🎁

The Last-Minute Gifter

You mean well, but somehow it's always 11pm the night before and you still haven't bought anything.

👥

The Group Coordinator

Coordinating a group gift? See what everyone's already picked so you don't double up.

📋

The Wishlist Builder

Tired of getting asked what you want? Put together a wishlist from any store and just send the link.

📅

The Birthday Tracker

Forget a birthday again? Not with reminders that drop you straight into their wishlist.

Understanding the gifter.

Almost every decision here, from the swipe mechanic to the reveal, came out of actual research.

Key Insights

People care about how a gift feels, not just that it arrives

The reveal moment is what people actually got excited about

People cared way more about the right gift than the expensive one

Add one more step to the flow and people start dropping off

User Survey 52 respondents · 2026
Care more about the emotional impact of a gift than its price 83%
Said they'd engage more if there was a surprise reveal moment 78%
Think the gifting apps they've used feel impersonal or generic 91%
Gave up on a gift purchase because there were too many steps 69%

A mix of one-on-one interviews and a broader online survey

Designed for real gifters.

Alex

Muhammad Ali

Working Professional · Age 20–30

  • United States
  • Digitally active · values relationships
  • Working professional / College student
  • Celebrates milestones with loved ones
The Caregiver

Interests

  • Goes all out for birthdays and milestones
  • Hunting for gifts that don't feel generic
  • Staying in touch with friends and family online
  • Always curious about new ways to gift

Motivations

  • Wants the other person to feel actually noticed
  • Trying to create a moment someone will remember
  • Wants gifting easier without it feeling impersonal
  • Lives for the reaction when someone opens the gift

Pain Points / Frustrations

  • Most gifting apps feel cold and transactional
  • Group gifts always turn into a stressful mess
  • Hard to nail the right gift without really knowing someone's taste
  • Waiting until the last minute means settling for something forgettable

Needs / Expectations

  • Wants suggestions based on who the person actually is
  • A wishlist and reminders so nothing sneaks up on him
  • A way to split group gifts without the back-and-forth
  • Something simple and enjoyable from start to finish

From occasion to emotional reaction.

01

Open Giftlo

User launches app

02

Select Occasion

Birthday, surprise, or custom

03

Choose Gift

Swipe or ask AI assistant

04

Personalize

Add message or media

05

Send Gift Link

Receiver gets a link

06

Reveal Animation

Emotional unboxing moment

07

Reaction

Engagement tracked

Giftlo User Flow Diagram

Early layout exploration.

Before jumping into final visuals, I roughed out the core screens to nail down structure and flow, then used that to build toward the high-fidelity UI.

Giftlo Wireframes

Every choice has a reason.

Every choice here came out of research, balancing the emotional side with plain usability.

Soft Gradients
Feels warm and builds anticipation without cluttering the screen
Card-Based Layouts
Makes browsing feel like one decision at a time, not an overwhelming grid
Minimal Steps
Every tap you remove is one less reason for someone to bail
Reveal Animation
The unboxing moment is basically the whole point of the product
Personalization-First UI
People care more about a gift once they've added something of their own to it

Validated by real users.

01

Testers kept finishing more often every time we removed a step from the flow

02

Almost everyone brought up the reveal animation unprompted as the part they remembered most

03

Adding personalization options made people feel like the gift was actually theirs

04

A cleaner checkout UI meant way less confusion and fewer abandoned carts

"

I'd burn a whole evening hunting for ideas and still land on something generic. This time I typed two sentences about my sister and got five options that actually fit her.

M
Marcus R. 28 · Chicago, US
"

My girlfriend actually teared up during the reveal animation. She said it felt like unwrapping something real, which isn't a reaction I expected from an app.

S
Sophie L. 25 · Manchester, UK
"

Someone in our friend group always showed up with a duplicate gift at every birthday. Now that we're all on Giftlo, that just doesn't happen anymore — the wishlist sync actually works.

I
Imran Z. 31 · Sydney, AU

Gifting made memorable.

Emotional Gifting Experience

Tried to make sending a gift through an app feel closer to handing it over in person

Memorable Interactions

The reveal moment is the part people actually remember afterward, not just another notification

Personalization & Storytelling

A custom message or photo turns a gift into something with its own story

Digital–Human Connection

Makes the distance between sender and receiver feel a little smaller

Lessons that shaped me.

01

Emotional UX Outperforms Functional UX in Gifting

I kept hearing testers talk about how the reveal made them feel, almost never about the features. That held up in every single test session.

02

Simplicity Improves Conversion in Gift Flows

Cutting even one step raised completion. I just don't notice friction the way a first-time user does.

03

Storytelling Enhances Perceived Product Value

The same gift feels different once there's a message attached to it. The story is part of the gift.

04

Micro-Interactions Create Emotional Engagement

None of the small stuff seems like much alone — a spring on the swipe, a glow on tap — but it adds up.

Try Giftlo free.

Available on iOS and Android. Free to download with optional Pro features.

Other projects

Back to All Projects