Habit
Your habits will determine your future
Role: Research, UI/UX
Duration: 2 week design sprint
Problem
In a quest for academic mastery, our challenge was to design an app to revolutionize the way you learn. Empowering students and educators alike to unlock their full potential, one productive session at a time.
Project Vision
Habit is a user-friendly study app that helps users effectively manage their time and improve their learning outcomes through the integration of the Pomodoro technique and online education courses. My goal is to empower students and educators to reach their full potential by providing a personalized and efficient learning experience. Habit will make it easy for users to access and engage with educational content, track their progress, and stay motivated to achieve their goals.
Challenges
1) Incorporate a seamless and intuitive study app.
2) Identify key features of a study app.
3) Understand the relationship between time spent studying and productivity fall off.
4) Blend educational content within the study app.
Background
The education app market is estimated to grow “28.61%” between 2022-2027 with a forecast of 125 million (USD).
The productivity app market is valued at 8.14 billions (USD) in 2020 and expected to grow at 9.1% from 2021-2028.
Productivity/studying apps like the forest have more than 4 million paid users.
User Observation
Observing users was extremely crucial as it provides the most accurate information about their needs, wants and interactions. The observation took place in the state library and RMIT University, as this environment often is surrounded by students studying.
User interviews
The conception of the project began with asking participants fundamental key questions, such as:
Any particular techniques or habits you use that greatly assist with studying?
On average how often do your study sessions last? And how many breaks would you take based on this?
How long do you find yourself studying before you start to lose focus?
Can you list some features or qualities you would like in an application revolved around studying?
Main insights
Students tend to lose focus in the 20-30mins mark, thus reducing productivity levels and a degrade in quality of work.
All students incorporated a break throughout their study.
Music was a huge factor when studying. Given the complexity and the application of Habit, incorporating music would not have made sense- there were too many variables to consider. Habit would have swayed away from its main objective, that being a tool for studying, time organization and education.
Interviewees preferred vibrancy, due to the tedious and boring nature of studying.
Students wanted video based content, in conjunction with notes, as they found it to be easier in absorbing information, due to the various ways its displayed.
A way to keep track of tasks, as part of an organizational and study tool.
Competitive Analysis
Before diving into creating “Habit”, I had to explore other study apps in order to identify what user needs they weren’t reaching. Based on my data, interview questions and challenges, I was able to evaluate key features that were missing or needed improvement. Study and time-oriented apps didn’t incorporate educational content, which allowed me to attract new and existing users.
Meet the Users
Name: Kevin
Name: Vivian
Age: 27
Occupation: Teacher
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Kevin is a Science teacher at a high school, he is extremely ambitious in educating the youth. He studies in his own time to upskill himself and occasionally uploads educational content to assist others. Kevin is on a search to recommend his students a platform that can view his content, and encourage them to efficiently study in their own time.
Vivian is a full-time University student, who also has a job. As a result, her time is valuable. She is seeking a study app that will segregate her study time, allowing her to manage and organize her busy life. She sometimes finds herself struggling with her assignments and needs additional help.
Information Architecture
Paper & High-Fidelity Wireframes
Paper wireframes were created to establish a foundation, while allowing rapid iterations and adaptations. Once a foundation was set, high-fidelity wireframes were created to visualize a more accurate representation of the app.
Adding a new feature + setbacks
After creating the final wireframes and in the midst of developing Habit, I decided to take a halt and implement the Calendar feature. This decision was made due to the importance of tracking their progress and managing their time in accordance to their schedule. It was also a feature that was mentioned in my survey, but at the time I was restricted by time and lack of demand for the feature (16.7%). After careful consideration, I realized this was an essential feature that needed to be implemented into the final product.
Improvements
Continuous iteration was done based on feedbacks provided by 5 users interviewees + 3 peers. Constant improvements and adjustments were made throughout the app and are not limited to what’s shown.
Enhanced Readability
Increased font-weight from Medium to Semi-bold and Black.
Made the background image less transparent to increase readability.
Consistency and Visual Hierarchy
The app consistently revolved around a rectangular visual hierarchy. As a result, changes were made from squares to rectangles.
This also reduced clutter and found that users had a 50% increase in executing the next action.
Challenge 1
Incorporate a seamless and intuitive study app.
The research gathered concluded that striving for characteristics of seamlessness and intuitiveness came down to keeping it simple. The less the user sees on the screen, the easier it is for them interpret what is in front of them. As a result, features and components were deliberate, precise and served a purpose.
For example:
Appropriate spacing
Minimalism
Visual Hierarchy
Consistency
Appropriate Typography
Challenge 2
Identify key features of a study app.
Key features identified was a timer, the ability to create tasks, calendar and integrated learning. It was imperative that each feature was executed thoroughly with attention to detail. The most distinct feature that differentiated from other productivity/study apps was the ability to learn and explore topics through videos, notes and quizzes.
Challenge 3
Understand the relationship between time spent studying and productivity fall off.
Although many users are different, the most common time productivity fall off was around the 25min mark. This directly correlated to the Pomodoro timer. User research suggested that it:
Created a sense of urgency
Resisted interruptions
Makes users aware of their time
Prevents mental exhaustion
Challenge 4
Blend educational content within the study app.
Educational content was incorporated through the main navigation bar. Blending educational content allowed Habit to target 2 primary users- that being educators and students. The feature allowed users to focus on their own study but also grant the ability explore and learn new topics.
Reflection- What I’d do different next time
Overall a successful project 🎉 and I can definitely say I’ve acquired and learnt so much. Working on this project provided great insight on studying and deepened my learning on the UX design process from conception —> Research —> final outcome.
Features I would include: Ideally, there were plenty of features that I would have liked to include, such as:
(1) A pay wall for premium users to access additional features and receive key insights,
(2) Rewarding educators to continue uploading content and,
(3) Benefits/rewards for actively completing their tasks.
These were not incorporated due to the time constraint placed on the project, but that’s not to say it won’t be revisited.
The key things I’ve learnt: Learning from other users is golden. In exploring numerous courses, blogs, websites and projects to gain inspiration and understand design fundamentals, the 2 key takeaways I have learnt are:
(1) Research is extremely valuable in understanding who you are building the product for.
(2) Users should be placed in the forefront of your design thinking process.