Yue Si
Act Now
A time management app tailored for college students, designed to boost motivation and enhance task management, ultimately aiding in overcoming academic procrastination.
ROLE
UX Designer
TIME SPAN
1.5 Month
0/ INITIAL MOTIVES
As a college student struggling with procrastination, I always find myself rushing to completing assignments just right before the deadlines. After discussing with my friends, I realized many of them were also facing the same issue as me. This has led me to wonder whether there is any solution to address this problem?
1/ RESEARCH
Desktop Research: Procrastination
Target User
Since 75% are collage students and 95% want to make a change, my target users are:
College students having difficulties of procrastination on their academic tasks and are negatively affected in terms of mood and academic performance, and want to make a change.
User Survey
In order to gain more insights about what tasks are college students procrastinating on and what are the most common causes of their procrastination, I designed an online questionnaire with 12 questions, and collected 47 valid responses in total.
User Interview
I conducted 5 interviews to understand more about users’ pain points during the process of procrastination, and sorted their thoughts into the affinity diagram.
User Journey Map
When the needs of users and feasible solutions coincided, I was able to produce a problem that will aid in measuring the success of our results.
Problem Statement
Most collage students struggle with procrastination in their academic endeavors. They want to make some changes in order to meet academic deadlines, improve the quality of work, and reduce the stress and anxiety associated with procrastination
2/ IDEATION
Competitor Analysis
There are currently few products specifically designed for procrastinators in the market. Therefore, I conducted a competitor analysis focusing on apps that could potentially be helpful for the target users. Those products all help users to some extent, but cannot overcome the problem of procrastination.
Forest
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Gamify the focus feature
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Clear statistics
Structured
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To-do calendar
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Customized task icons
Microsoft To DO
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Easy task creating
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Note taking feature
Productive
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Habit tracker
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Clear statistics
Priority Diagram
I brainstormed different solutions based on research and users’ pain points, and then organized them into a priority matrix. After sorting, I identified task prioritization tool, task break down tool, AI-based study planer, and progress milestone had the highest impact while requiring relatively less effort. Therefore, I decided to design based on these ideas.
Design Goal
I aim to develop an app for college students seeking to overcome procrastination by providing a variety of features including task prioritization tool, task break down tool, AI-based study planer, and progress milestone that could boost their motivation to study, and facilitate their task management.
Information Achitecture
3/ Low-Fidelity Prototype
4/ FINAL MVP PRODUCT
During the final design process, I also integrated what I’ve learned from Cognitive Science into the design to make the mechanism of the product more feasible, acceptable, and scientific-based.
1) Task Management
Onboarding Survey
The onboarding survey collects users’ basic information and lifestyles to better understand users and help the AI planner develop a more personalized plan for users to act immediately.
AI Planning
The AI system will generate a plan based on the course number users provide. Users can fill in the boxes or upload criteria attachments to help the planner generate a more customized to-do list. After clicking on each sub-task, users will be directed to a page that gamifies all the milestones they need to achieve. With a clear path, users will know where to start without hesitation or confusion.
2) Motivation
Focusing
The highest prioritized task will be set as the default, so users can start to focus for their tasks directly on this page. Between each session, there will be a small break, which helps users to relax and increase efficiency for the next study cycle.
Pop-Ups
Every time users complete a task, a pop-up can appear to celebrate their accomplishments as a positive reinforcement to increase users’ motivation and help them stay on track. A pop up can also appear as a notification when users first open the app or when the deadline is approaching.
5/ ITERATIONS
Before proceeding to the final phase, I conducted some tests to ensure that the user interfaces and interaction patterns work well for users.
I split the subtasks again to make sure the length of each small task does not stress the user out, which helps increase their motivation.
I changed the default page so that after users click in, they will see directly the highest prioritized task the system has prepared for them as well as the approximate time it will take, which helps boost motivation.
I added an onboarding question for users to input their school. I also incorporated two boxes on the create task page for users to enter their course number and grade weight so that the system will automatically analyze the importance level, facilitating more personalized task management.
6/ Future
If I had more time, I would explore how the app can develop a system by collecting data to improve the planner more personalized. Additionally, I would consider incorporating an instantaneous online study group into the app to further boost users’ motivation.