Many students struggle to prepare for big tests and assignments ahead of time and often end up pulling all-nighters just to get things done in time, citing a lack of time or not being able to prioritize these things until they’re almost due. To address these problems I designed a responsive planner app called Schedule…
Expertise
- Wireframing
- UI design
- Prototyping
- Usability testing
Tools Used
- Adobe XD
- InVision
- TryMyUI
Platform
- Mobile app
- Tablet app
Background
In a survey of undergraduate students, 99% of them admitted to cramming and pulling all-nighters. Numerous studies have shown that things like staying up late to cram for exams or finish off big projects have a demonstrable negative effect on students’ grades. Things like taking in large amounts of information and staying up late can cause undue stress on the brain and will eventually take a toll on the body as a whole.
Most students turn to cramming because they don’t feel like they have enough time or they have trouble coming up with a study plan and sticking to it. I decided to design this scheduling app to take on the burden of time management and help students take advantage of spaced learning techniques to improve their grades and overall wellness.
Approach
Understanding the target user
Based on my secondary research into the problem, I created a proto-persona to represent my target users and guide my designs as I entered the ideation phase.
Creating the initial user flow and wireframes
I began to conceptualize what features and user flows would help my imaginary student with her time management. I settled on the idea of a “smart” calendar that could not only keep track of due dates and events, but could also suggest a timeline with spaced out blocks of time to study or work on projects while taking the user’s schedule into account.
Users would input a weekly schedule into the calendar, teaching the app when they were available. Afterwards, students could add tasks such as “final exam” or “science project.” When entering the task, they would rate its difficulty, and the app would automatically schedule time blocks for the student to work on the task based on the rating. Other features, such as a built-in pomodoro timer, were also included.
I began to sketch wireframes of the screens a user would go through to illustrate this flow.
Usability testing with a high-fidelity prototype
To test the proposed user flow, I converted my wireframes into high-fidelity screens based on the Material Design system. Using Invision, I created a prototype and designed a usability test. Remote usability testing was performed using TryMyUI.com. Participants were given twenty minutes to perform four tasks, including adding new items to the calendar and solving scheduling conflicts. After completing the test, participants were asked to answer four questions regarding their experience using the prototype as well as rate the prototype using a System Usability Scale (SUS).
Making sense of the results
The usability tests results were very illuminating. All the users were easily able to schedule a new task due date and navigate to the screen showing their weekly schedule. However, many users were confused by the difference between a task study/work session, task due date, and schedule event, which prevented some of them from completing the latter half of the tasks. I’ve provided a highlight reel of the testing footage to highlight some of the common usability issues.
Based on the testing, I identified these major takeaways:
- Participants did not distinguish between schedule events, task due dates, and task sessions despite their being marked by different color indicators.
- Users mistook the weekly schedule overview screen as a variation of the calendar view and misinterpreted its function.
- Scheduling conflicts were not highlighted prominently enough.
To see an in-depth description of the methodology and results, please read the full usability research report.
Next Steps
Based on the results from usability testing, I identified changes that should be made to address prominent issues. Many of the major ones would be solved by providing more feedback in response to user actions, such as highlighting newly added tasks or otherwise providing confirmations in the form of a snackbar.
However, perhaps the largest overall problem was caused by users not understanding some of the basic app concepts, such as the difference between the weekly schedule and the calendar view. This may be solved by introducing an on-boarding process when users first log into the app, but further user interviews or other discovery needs to be done before this can be developed.