(1.2) The Prototype — ‘Idea’ becomes real
Manage.me : The Prototype
The time to make ideas real ! It was the time to come out of mere thoughts and talks and show something real. The idea meets reality , the prototype of Manage.me. In my previous blog post I discussed in detail why I chose this idea and what problems i target to solve with this app, for more you can have a look at the post :-
The main purpose of this post is to introduce you to the prototype of the app I have made to solve the time management woes of all students, again not getting into the app idea much , you can read plenty about it in the above post link, so lets get started with the app prototype.
The Minimum Viable Product
The main feature of this Application is Simplicity , it sports a simple UI to show the weekly schedule and the time allocated to different tasks which gives an insight into how much time the students has for that particular week on daily biases. The MVP , or the first version will have a weekly view of allocated and free time which is free for further allocation. The app will check weather the added tasks comply with the SMART principles or not , for more on smart principal you can refer to the “In Quest of the IDEA” post , link given above.Not just the weekly view , the App will have a report tab t give an insight on the percentage of day spent in which category, this will enable a student to see where he wastes the most time which category need more tome to be put in. In the MVP, there will be an option to add tasks, delete task and edit existing tasks. here is small video showing the flow of the Application.
The User Interface and Screens
Screen 1 : Dashboard
Dashboard is the main screen you land on after login , dashboard features the weekly view of you time how and to what you have allocate your time. The aim of this screen is to provide a gantt chat(those coming from technical background and have studied OS would know) kind of concept for scheduling ourselves for various tasks
features
- Week view of the allocated time
- Add Task option to allocate available tome to new tasks
- Edit task functionality , by clicking on the box representing the task it can be rescheduled.
This is the main screen of the app which servers the main purpose of strategic planning and allocation of your priceless time to make more efficient use of it , it will keep checking as we add tasks weather they comply with the SMART Principles.
Screen 2 : Reports
The report screen gives an analytic insight into how much time is being allocated to which category of task. This feature has a main aim to help students identify where do they allocate majority of their time and can help them realize and change the way they distribute their time. This might help students identify the category of tasks taking up more time than what they deserve so that students can prioritize their tasks and redistribute time accordingly.
Features :
- PIE chart showing percentage of day spent is all activities to give an insight into distribution of time over various tasks.
- List view of all allocated tasks under every category to help student decide which tasks to postpone in case a redistribution on time is required.
Screen 3 : Add/Edit tasks
Add Task Screen can be accessed by simply clicking on add task button on the to right corner of the week view pane in the dashboard screen , as the name suggests the purpose of the screen is to add new tasks in the free time and check in real time that weather addition of the task complies with the SMART principles.
Edit Task Screen can be accessed by clicking on any box representing an allocated task in the week view on the dashboard , the edit task screen shows up to make changes to the task , upon saving it will be checked dynamically in real time that whether the change complies with the SMART Principles.
Miscellaneous Screens :
- Login/Register Sreens
as the name suggest the aim of the screen is to facilitate existing users to login to the app and for new users to register to the app. registration is simple which just requires your email and contact no. to register , you can choose your password and username.
2. Home/Introduction Screen
This screen is a static content based screen that introduces the app to new users and provides an insight into how to use the app as well as into what are the SMART Principles and how to make use of them.
other than introduction and description of features this screen provide help docs and a login button to take users to the login /register screens.
so , that all folks ! , the main challenge for me is to implement the calendar view and embed real time check for SMART principles, hop implementation of this beautiful idea also goes as planned.
In the next phase of internship , we will begin with development phase starting with the dev environment setup , my next post will feature my experiences with the local development setup and tutorials on how to do that.
Stay Tuned for more …!
Update
when i made the prototype, it was a bit naive according to the surveys i conducted amongst my friends , classmates and college mates and some of my fellow interns, the major points i got were as follows ,
- UI : The user interface was over colour full and looked childish. One of my friend pointed out that the colour scheme also resembled an already existing app called timeneye so it was clear my ui needed some refreshment and originality
- Complexity : According to Tanmai sir’s advice , the app was a bit complicated and it should have been made simpler to be able complete within the timeline for a first time web developer like me. He suggested to simplify the UI as it would have taken a lot of time to code it otherwise, apart from the complex UI I had added 3 big features like analytics report (there was a shocking feedback on this) a To Do list and the calendar UI. Talking of a separate pages for for To Do which and the agenda-view was kind of inconvenient for user to keep switching between 5 screens ( 3 for agenda -view , add and edit event forms).
- Add/Edit Event Pages : it was very inconvenient to to go to a page by click a button to add an event or simply just change the date and time of the app, just image , you have to click a button , then wait for a form to load fill in details click save wait for calendar to load every time to add or change basic particulars of an event , this sort of defeated the main purpose of the app that was simplicity. Like why the hell would i use an app to manage my time and tasks when it takes more time to enter tasks in it than it takes to do the task itself , i needed to redesign the app , to make event addition simple and quick , I wanted an app that has a Calender UI and my tasks as pieces of puzzle i can arrange just by drag and drop.
- Reports : It came to my surprise when maximum of my friends told me that the reports feature to tell what percent of my time is allocated to which category was useless, firstly many events just don’t fall under any category logically, and some unallocated time was kept for basics tasks like food , rest etc , which it showed like wastage of time , they instead wanted to know the success percent , of all the events allocated what percent of it were they able to complete in a particular category. they wanted something that can help them track the goals the have set , are they able to achieve it. This made it clear the reporting required more market research and hence i am deferring this feature to be released in ver 2 of this app which I will Continue to develop post this internship.
Please visit the following link for a detailed post on the reborn Manage.me after User feedback on 1st prototype.