Week 11

 

This week I mainly focused on building up the color system and also I thought about how making a to-do list can affect users’ behavior in long term.

ZEN mode, which I previously designed ran into a problem when I asked users. They said for a significant amount of tasks, they don’t know how long it will take, which makes the time counting/percentage done feature in ZEN mode meaningless to users. So I change to collecting to encourage users to keep track of what they have done. By finishing a task (event, goal, or reminder), they collect a shape corresponding to the task, so by the end of a period of time, perhaps a month or a week, they will get a report and be able to share on social media.

Week 10

 

This week I was working on distinguishing different kinds of tasks. Since I realized that sometimes users know how long a task will take, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the task has a clear due date, sometimes it doesn’t. For those tasks which will take a period of time, while users know how long it will take, I call them EVENTs. For those users who don’t know how long they will take, I call them GOALs. For those which users only need to be reminded at a certain time point, I call them REMINDERs. Showing on the calendar view, EVENTs and GOALs will have time length and will be able to drag, while REMINDERs will be a dot. And also that’s why Zen Mode was so weird to make any progress last week since I was using a reminder (time point) in Zen mode.

Week 9

 

I realized one of the biggest problems for me right now was that there were already too many competitors in the market, and they had already covered most of the things I could do, so what I was doing, rather than creating something new, was to choose some features which had already been created by others based on my user needs.

So the first thing I had done this week was that I went back to the personas, based on the user needs, clearly sorted out the scenario - need - feature chart, and I realized that the map feature may not be my top priority for my users.

Based on the chart, the second thing I had done this week was create a structural map. Having a structure map was really helpful for me to narrow down the features I want to put into my product since there were too many choices and directions for me in the market.

Also about the product, I finally decided on the task flow: create - put into the inbox - sort in calendar view (other modes) - engage in ZEN mode.

Some questions:

1. What other modes do users need?

2. Do users like to sort in INBOX or CALENDAR VIEW?

Week 8

 

Last week we reviewed 3

Sp2022

Week 11

 

This week I was planning to do another small round of user research since I found people are having trouble with keeping focused on the task from the last round of user research.

Inspired by the app Forest, I was planning to have a similar function to help people keep focused and also give them positive feedbacks after they succeeded.

I wanted to find some Forest users and listern to their thougts about Forest, so I am working on the research right now.

Week 10

 

Reflect on what you did this week. How are things going? Have you been able to "learn through making" not just "research"?

This week I started to work on the very first prototype of my design. I used paper prototypes instead of digital like I usually do. This allowed me to have more freedom and it needed less effort to quickly make changes between interations.

In terms of the schedule of my project I am running a little later for about one week. I’ve changed the timeline and found it still worked.

Week 8

Week 7

 

I've talked to several potential users, including 2 students who are suffering from bad time management and a process manager who are working in a company right now, and got some interesting results.

I havn’t really started to organize them, which I will do next week. After they have been organized, I am planning to work on the user report. It should contain some insights that can be used throughout the entire project.

Week 6

 

Share what you have questions about or insights you’ve had? Or write what you want.

This week I was moving and having several 1-week-challanges for my job so really havn’t done much on the project.

In terms of my schedule, next week I should finish determining the user need, but I think I need to push the schedule later for a week to gather more information. I will hear form more people about what a bad time management look like to find what a good time management is.

Week 5

 

Now that you have a focus, what are you most certain of? What makes you the most nervous?

This week I collected several competitive product and started using them as a tool for my daily life.

Right now I am at the point of trying to start the project. For sure I knew that I can make a product in the end since ther are so many examples I can learn from.

The part I feel most nervous about is that now I am still addressing the user need as “to have a better time management”. But what is “better”? I am not able to break it down to different aspects, and I think I need an index to measure my succesfulness.

Week 4

 

What did you do? What did you learn?

In this week the first thing I did was to determine, among the two I left last week, which eventually I am going to work on. I chose Personal time & task managing as my final decision.

I also rethought about the question list.

  • What’s your core skill set?

  • What aspects of design do you want to show off? Where are you less strong?

My skill set, strengths and weaknesses:

Interface Design
System Thinking
Visual Design
User Behavior Nudging
Micro-Interaction
Digital & Tangible Prototyping
Story Telling
Product Design
Branding
Information Architecture
User Research
Basic Coding
AI Machine Learning

  • What are your assumptions about this?

  • What unknowns are there?

  • What kind of research could you to test assumptions and fill in gaps?

Assumption The most fundamental assumption is that a lot of people are suffering from bad management of both time and tasks and my product will not only help them on the current task they are working on, but also improve their habit in the future.

Unknowns Why are people having bad managing habits? How strong do they wish to fix the problem? What kind of people will need my product?

Research Methods of scientific time & task managing, Previous cases of improving time & task managing, Procrastination relate materials (cause, how to improve), Potential user research

  • I want to make _______ for _______, so that they can _________.

I want to make a task managing tool for the task-ridden person, so they can complete each task more organized

I want to make a life assistant for people who want to complete tasks quickly, so they can leave more time for their lives.

I want to make an urger for procrastinators, so they can start their task as soon as possible.

MORE INFO: Final Project Brief (Not done yet)

Week 3

 

What did you do this week? What are you learning? Anything you are struggling with?

This week I was trying to step back a little to see the big picture. And also looked at some of the existing solutions.

Considered again the 3 ideas I had in last week, I found all my topics were eventually about time management. There were two directions:

  1. Personal Time Managing I procasinate, and always have a hard time to put my tasks in the order of imporcance/urgency. So my problem will be How to enable my users to fluently manage their schedule.

    Existing solutions: Goolge Calendar, Productive, TimeBloc, Microsoft ToDo…

  2. Team Task Managing This is a problem I saw during my intern, the problem in detail is How to connect each others’ tasks in a team, so if one of the task changes (e.g. delay), the rest will follow the change.

    Existing solutions: Monday…

Also I feel like I havne’t got enough time to explore wide enough, so I am also still looking for new ideas in new fields.

Week 2

 

What topics have you explored? What parameters and constraints have you  considered? 

  1. Work calendar - work arranging for a team can be very rough. When someone’s late  for his work, the entire progress will be pushed back. Also, it needs a lot of ways of  showing the status.  

  2. Fridge management - Fridge is a huge and complicated maze. Some food hides in  it for a long time and comes out with a stink. So a fridge management app can help  to solve this, and it can combine with a lot of other functions like recipes.  

  3. Note app - since I am a forgetting person, I hope there is a memo that is easy access, can auto or quick categorizing. 

I feel like I was thinking too big, should I start with just a small key function?