Designing A Way to Avoid Time-Wasters
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Exploring a Need
I was interested in exploring the concept of one’s ability to manage time. My question: how does one’s ability to avoid procrastination impact their ability to have what they would consider a highly productive day?
I chose three participants who have recently or will anticipate a significant life change. The presence of a significant event can be distracting to one’s normal routine, so I am interested in how people handle increased workloads.
The three participants verbally walked through their day with me, highlighting moments of:
- breakdowns — times when they have not been able to maintain productivity
- opportunities — areas where we could create a solution, usually in light of some breakdown
- successes — times when they have been able to maintain productivity
In summary, each participant made clear attempts to plan ahead in order to avoid unnecessary stress and avoid distractions. However, distractions were inevitable — whether they were doing personal things at work, getting lost on social media, or socializing with others.
Synthesizing and Analyzing the Routines
After assessing each participant’s weekday routine, I brainstormed fifteen various solutions that address breakdowns, dig deeper into opportunities, or maximize successes. The solutions were high-level and did not focus on the actual execution.
For example:
User is expecting a career change in her life, which requires her to go to networking events in order to increase success of her getting a job. She is more likely to attend when she knows someone who is also going. User needs a better way to motivate herself to do important activities that she does not enjoy alone.
Exploring Other Solutions
I was interested in seeing other solutions that helped make people more productive or more mindful. Some Insights:
Storyboarding Two Solutions
I considered the solutions that best addressed two very salient breakdowns that significantly impacted two of the three participant’s day — staying focused.
The two ideas I selected were:
- Avoiding Personal Time at Work User finds that being in meetings have forced him to be productive at work because others provide accountability, but being in meetings all day is not realistic or productive. He needs a way to identify other strategies that can help him be accountable for his work.
- Avoiding Distractions on Mobile Phone User listens to music at work so that she is not distracted by the people with whom she works. Ironically, because she listens to music through her phone only, she gets distracted by incoming notifications on her phone. User needs a way to avoid getting distracted by her phone and the environment around her.
The next two sections will detail how I explored each idea.
Solution 1: Avoiding Personal Time at Work
I developed a storyboard for this solution that explored the idea of having a strict schedule that highlights moments of non-meeting “free” time and provides a list of work-related to-do to help the person fill their work time appropriately.
In addition to the above feature, I was interested in providing an rewards and punishment system that would really motivate the user. When they were able to knock off to-dos during their free time and stuck to their schedule, they would be able to donate money to a charity of their choice or move money to a saving account. If they didn’t, their money would be donated to an organization they hated.
The user would also receive text message reminders to ensure that she was staying on track with her day, thus increasing the likelihood of getting the reward. This ensured that, even on a busy day, the user would still be cognizant of the system.
The initial prototype had following features:
- Sync all third party calendars to one place (Outlook, Google, iCal)
- Set the times that the person is at work
- Highlight “free time” during the day
- Manage a to-do list
- Allow app to send text message reminders
- Connect bank to app
- Select an organization that the user likes
- Select an organization that the user dislikes
With the prototypes together, I did a few dry runs to ensure that I had the essential elements needed for the app to be minimally functional. I then brought in one participant IRL and one remote participant to walk through the app so that I can see how one would naturally explore the app, get impressions of each feature as well as the app as a whole, and observe any breakdowns in the usability or learnability of the app.
I obtained the following key insights:
- User was suspicious of adding a bank account without too much context
- User does not have a lot of flexibility in the view types for the calendar (weekly, monthly views)
- User felt the setup was very long and was unclear when it would end — there needs to be some indication of this
- User is unclear if the app will be storing information from other calendars and where the information from meetings created in the new calendars would be stored
I compiled a list of all of the heuristic violations and insights and made changes to the app based on what were important to address and core to the app’s functionality.
Solution 2: Avoiding Distractions on Mobile Phone
I developed a storyboard for this solution that explored the idea of making one aware of when too much time has been spent on time-wasting sites and apps. Since the person that I was designing for worked on an hourly basis and had breaks, I wanted to center around the idea of making sure that those breaks don’t go any longer than is appropriate.
The initial prototype had the following features
- Set number of breaks and time per break
- Select time-wasting websites
- Select time-wasting mobile apps
- Connect phone to app so that app can monitor time spent on time-wasting apps
- Receive warnings when user has spent too much time on a website or app
- View data on time spent on time-wasting websites and apps to make user more cognizant of the time she spends on things that are not productive
- Maintain a to-do list where the user focuses on “one big thing” to do per day
With the prototypes together, I did a few dry runs to ensure that I had the essential elements needed for the app to be minimally functional. I then brought in one participant IRL and one remote participant to walk through the app so that I can see how one would naturally explore the app, impressions of each feature as well as the app as a whole, and any breakdowns in the usability or learnability of the app. I was particularly interested in exploring the heuristics of the app.
<img of one going through app>
I obtained the following key insights:
- Users were unclear about the purpose of “connecting the phone” and how that related to the site
- To make this scalable, the app needs to account for users who have varied schedules and no set breaks
- Users unclear what happens after setup
- The fidelity of the app, particularly with the copy, made it confusing at times for the user to understand the app’s value
I compiled a list of all of the heuristic violations and insights and made changes to the app based on what were important to address and core to the app’s functionality.
Narrowing it Down to One App
While I believed there was value in both apps, the complexity of the app that addressed personal time at work was too much for a minimum viable product (MVP). It would only get more complicated as I refined the granular details of the app.
I decided to move forward with the app that helps users avoid distractions on their phone and on the web. I called the app “Time Hero” because it saves you time as you work to reduce time spent on unproductive websites and apps.
Instead of controlling the number of breaks and amount of time per break as a default, the app will simply provide an analysis of your time spent on time wasting sites. You as the user can control if you want to set goals for limiting your breaks. The app will also have a feature that plays on the productivity concept of the “one big thing” — an idea that you set a goal of one big thing that you want to do that day. Based on the heuristic evaluation of the two prototypes and feedback from target users, I am interested in moving forward with one prototype but taking in aspects of the second prototype.
The product would be an app that monitors your website/app browsing behavior on both your mobile phone and your computer and provide you with an analysis of your time spent so that you can make positive changes.
The app will be able to gather the following data from the users:
- Exceptions (any time that you don’t want to be monitored)
- The number of breaks you would like to take throughout the day
- The amount of time you would like each break to be
I made usability changes to the app based on the results of my heuristic evaluation.
Creating a Development Plan for the Remainder of the Project
Using the structure developed by Coursera, I created a development plan for the remainder of the project. The goal is to have a high fidelity prototype that most accurately showcases my vision for a productivity app.
Final User Testing
In anticipation of the final user testing I made the app interactive and outlined a simple user scenario that fulfilled the main goal of the app — setting up the system to begin monitoring website and app usage.
I developed a test guide that had users initially walk through the app as they naturally would. From there, I introduced a scenario that they were to fulfill. I was interested in testing its flow and understanding its perceived value and first impressions. I obtained consent forms and conducted testing.
From that testing, I made final minor changes to the flow, particularly:
- making the “connecting the phone” the first part of the setup. It was initially the last part, which was confusing for the user since it seemed such a critical part of the apps’ value.
- small usability changes to the to-do list to make it look more interactive. The users were unsure how to actually interact with the app since there were no obvious indications.
A/B Testing
Since the setup was critical to the app, I was interested in testing out two ways to execute the flow: one was showing it step by step (highlighting simplicity and directing the flow) and the other was to have the entire setup on one screen. I was interested to see which one was preferred by testers.
I set up the two prototypes, A (step by step) and B (all in one screen) and A/B tested them on usertesting.com. Each user was exposed to both versions and answered questions that related to understanding the flow of the setup.
The results were clear: three out of four users preferred prototype B, with the fourth user not having any preference.
Although version B was “visually a lot,” no user felt that any of the questions were inappropriate. It was easy for the users to know what to expect throughout the setup and know what was involved because users explicitly stated this. Transparency proved to be very important because users expressed apprehension throughout each step and wondered aloud when it would be done. Users were able to move through the setup more quickly than version one because they had better expectations for the flow of the setup.
Setup flow aside, all users were able to quickly understand the value of the app for helping them avoid spending so much time on time-wasting websites. One of the main issues that was brought up was the privacy and security. The users were not clear on what exactly was being tracked, so there needed to be some clarity on that. That said, they were all interested in using the app since it did provide more mindfulness about productivity inhibitors.
Finalizing the App
Based on the tests, I made final changes to the interactive prototype. The two most significant changes were having the setup as one long page and removing the todo. The latter choice was due to the tepid reactions to the feature and the fact that it felt like an extra that was not directly related to the rest of the app’s functionality.
You can view the final prototype here: