Never lose track of time again with “Beat”
The Problem
Just like many others, I tend to lose track of time, and let distraction take over. Most of my adult life I have been on the lookout for time-management tools that will allow me to be in control of my time rather than its victim.
The difficulty with keeping track of time is our inability to actually sense it, unlike our other senses — taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing. We don’t sense time, we perceive it, and time perception is a subjective experience of time. It gets distorted by individual personal circumstances, such as one’s motivation to do something, attention to the task, and even the emotional state at that specific time. Hence the proverb “time flies when you’re having fun”. To mend this distorted perception of time, we can rethink our interaction with it.
My mission was to redesign the way people experience or interact with time. I wanted to design a task timer app that will represent time as a process. A timer that will affect the perception of time by enabling the user to be more aware of it, and consequently more in control of it.
The Solution
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a timer as a device that makes a sound when a certain amount of time has passed. That “certain amount of time” amounts to an idle, or empty, waiting time. Unless you constantly peek at a watch/phone/clock on the wall, you have no way of knowing how much time is left.
What sets Beat apart from every other task timer out there is that it inverts the traditional timer concept. Beat fills that empty waiting time by automatically selecting a number of songs to approximate the desired length of time.
Beat is designed to make it possible to hear time. It lets you audiolize the portion of time you selected, so you don’t lose track of time while waiting for an alarm to go off. You can know exactly how much time has past and how much time is left, so you can concentrate on finishing the task. Since timewise, you can sense 3 songs playing but you can’t sense 10 minutes passing.
The Specifics
Beat has two main features to help the user maintain focus and manage distractions. A timer and an interval timer.
Timer
Set the timer, and a number of songs is automatically selected to approximate the desired length of time.
Considering the average length of a song is 3min and 30sec, you can pretty much predict how many songs you will get to listen to on your daily commute, or while going for your usual fitness walk. Listening to a number of songs you like is a much more personal and enjoyable experience than just waiting for an alarm to sound at the end of a countdown.
Interval Timer
Set time to focus quietly, with no music playing. Then set time for a break, listening to music. You can create cycles to repeat the session.
This option is perfect for studying sessions for example. Taking a 15min break, usually 5 songs, after hitting the books, is fun and energizing. Keeping you aware of your time frames.
Music
Beat has an easy integration with music platforms. Set up your music source and select your music preferences, and you can start enjoying your beat timer.
The Process
I was curious to learn about the relationship people have with time management tools in their daily lives. While conducting interviews in the needfinding stage I found a common struggle with losing track of time. Based on my insights from these interviews I brainstormed many possible solutions for some sort of tangible representation of the passage of time.
Two prototypes were created and tested. Going forward with one of the prototypes, changes were implemented to reflect conclusions from the tests. Because the interaction was simple, clear, and did not meet with any significant breakdowns the changes weren’t major. I did make a big mistake though — It was assuming that the user will have an idea of what the app does.
The basic idea was a simple countdown timer with music as the main timing action. However, since the beat inverted the traditional timer concept, the main difficulty became getting the app’s concept through. What the features are and what they can do. This led to designing a set of first time user walkthrough screens, and a good lesson in onboarding experience. Optimizing user experience for the initial encounter with my app.