
TIMESION : ORGANIZE TIME WITH FUN
CONTEXT
This is the final individual project for the Human-centered Design course @University of Minnesota. During my last year of college, I was busy with projects, job searching, and grad program applications. I had a hard time organizing my schedule. I was struggling. In fact, I was not the only one who felt this way. For my final individual project for the Human-Centered Design course at the University of Minnesota, I wanted to find a way to help students manage their time. I conducted user research and found out that many people are not satisfied with the current time-scheduling applications.
individual project
UX Designer & pm
CHALLENGE
How might we create an easy-to-follow schedule knowing that plans often change?
No one can avoid unpredictable schedules. However, missing a scheduled task and not remedying it in time will put people in a bad mood. It may even bring irreversible negative results. Unfortunately, there are few tools on the market that offer a good solution to this problem. In fact, according to preliminary research, 100% of people have missed plans, and 30% of people give up using time planning tools because their plans change so frequently.
DESIGN PROCESS
I followed the HCD design process to investigate how people with busy schedules use and stick to a time-management app. Letting user research be our guide, I brainstormed and designed multiple solutions. I then tested our ideas via usability tests and developed a high-fidelity interactive prototype based on our findings.
DISCOVER
DEFINE
DESIGN
PROTOTYPE
TEST
DISCOVERY
Competitive Analysis
I analyzed two direct competitors in the productive category: Google Calendar, Productive, and two task-focused mobile apps: Forest and Done.

I found that
1)A straightforward and neat UI/visualization of a task and its progress
stimulates users to keep on track with their plan
2)People may need outside intervention to help them focus on their
scheduled tasks
3) Task-based and schedule-based productivity tools are complementary
4) People like to use minimal effort adding/setting their schedules
Pre-Test & User Interview
I conducted a pretest to collect quantitative data and interviewed 5 productivity-app users to collect qualitative information. These interviews helped me determine the scope of the project and to better understand what people look for in a productivity app.
Findings:

-
When people successfully complete most of their plans, they will be motivated and the whole experience is a positive cycle. If they don’t complete their plans, they are less motivated, and a negative cycle begins.
The phone is a large distraction while executing the plan/task
-
Phones are a large distraction when executing a plan/task
-
Visualization could be a motivator to make/follow a plan
-
People cannot prevent their plans from changing
The result of the pretest showed that time-management-app users are mostly 18-30 years old. Accordingly, I designed a time-management app that targets users with these characteristics:
18~30 years old
Student or Junior employees
have schedule & task management needs
DESIGN REQUIREMENT
Support focus
Provide a Plan-B
Appealing Visual Design
Motivational
BRAINSTORMING

SOLUTION
I decided to combine traditional time planning with a task-driven app so that people can have a plan in mind and be motivated to complete that plan. Because "plans always change,” this product will also implement a plan-B option. I decided to use "plant" as the gamification concept to create an incentive for users to complete their tasks.

Based on these decisions, I determined the key features based on different user needs.
Scheduling
Daily Scheduling
Reminder
Task Mangement
Task Overview
Focus Mode
Unique features
Visualization/ Illustrated
Motivative Language
Plan-B
USABILITY TEST
I narrowed down potential ideas and started prototyping based on the flow identified in the service design blueprints. I created a mid-fidelity prototype and moved on to evaluate that.
I recruited a total of 6 potential users from social media. Sessions were conducted at the University of Minnesota. Each session lasted around one hour.
Our goals for the testing were to:
-
Test the basic functionalities of the app like adding a task, viewing the schedule, and entering the focus mode
-
Test discoverability and usability of interaction flow
-
Learn about users’ behavior
ITERATION
Based on the key findings synthesized in an affinity diagram, I iterated on the design and upgraded the prototype from mid-fidelity to high-fidelity.
Key finding #1 : Unexpected situations happen while using the focus mode
Initially, I only considered situations in which the user does not complete the task on time, or accidentally misses the task. Plan-b was provided for these cases. However, during the research, two participants left their tasks midway for reasons like going to the restroom and receiving phone calls. Because of this, a new requirement was discovered: even in focus mode, users still need a Plan-B to deal with unexpected situations.
Solution: Plan-B in the Focus mode
After reviewing past experiences and conducting mini-interviews, I divided the contingencies into three categories: finished ahead of schedule, did not have time, and took longer than expected. Therefore, I added a "STOP" button in Focus Mode for those who finished early or didn't have sufficient time. If they chose "Finished early", they would get an immediate reward: the grown plant. If they choose "Didn’t have time", an automatically generated reminder is created. Users can edit or rearrange them later.

Key finding #2 : Simplifying "adding a task" could be helpful
During the interviews, I noticed that the participants showed negative emotions about typing out similar task names each time.
Solution: Adding predefined tag of tasks
Since repeated or similar tasks would have similar names, I added pre-defined tags for both frequently used tasks and missed tasks. I conducted an AB Test to test if adding some predefined options would help. The participants were generally very satisfied with the preset options.


DESIGN
NEXT STEP
SOCIALIZE
As an "MVP", I designed a less conspicuous entrance, the“Visit others garden” button, for social activities. However, since functionalities for social activities have been shown to be an important feature, the entrance should be more conspicuous in the next iteration. For the current design, users can access other users’ garden at random. However, sharing with people closer to them may be more attractive to users. Therefore, a friend sharing feature should be investigated and possibly implemented in the next design step.
cross-platform design
I found that one advantage and merit of traditional scheduling is that users can edit their schedules on their PC or mobile phone at the same time. However, due to project requirements and time constraints, I did not complete this cross-platform design. So the next step will be to add a web version of the website.
REFLECTION
unnatural interaction design
When I went through the design from the user's perspective after it was completed, I found that there was something unnatural about the gesture interaction at the time. For example, in the task setting screen, the interaction form of the preset task tag was both clickable and swipeable at that time. This was not very natural. As an improvement, it might be a better interaction to set a slidable progress bar and let the user slide to select.
instructional Onbroading experience
Because at the time of user research, there was a task for users to use the focus mode, there was a potential risk that if users didn't know the focus mode before, they would be confused by the meaning of focus-mode icon. Then when looking back, the icon of centralized mode is not so straightforward, if one does not know the context. So an instructional onboarding experience to show the functionalities of the app is needed.
Design process
Clear information architecture is important for designing a new product. In this project, the information architecture was not clearly listed. More user research using the card sorting method could help with a more intuitive design.
ux writing
Wording is a potenntial issue. When I got in touch with the UX writing, I noticed the words I choose should be refined.