Pandemic Work Calendar, Events & Location Tracker
Backstory: I wanted to learn how to create consumer apps because I work for a company that makes B2B applications. To develop my abilities as a B2C designer, I set a monthly objective of creating an actual app. For this project, I was in charge of the research, information architecture, and user interface, as well as copywriting and user testing.
Context: It’s 2022. The way we work needs a makeover
We now have more meetings than ever. We are sometimes trapped in a home with two individuals having meetings at the same time when our child is wailing. It’s simply chaotic. Furthermore, pandemics forced us to do all events and activities online, including birthdays, marriages, games, celebrations, and even the death of a loved one through zoom. It’s more important than ever to take control of our schedule in one single place
The pandemic irrevocably changed our way of life. People are likely scrambling to figure out how to transition to remote work.
A glimpse of Today Reality
The Problem
Although pandemics altered our way of life, humans are always changing and making the required changes, but the tools we use remain trapped in the pre-pandemic age.
“The tools we use remain trapped in the pre-pandemic age.”
After investigating several tools and conducting interviews through Zoom, I narrowed the problem down to three major areas.
1. Overlapping meeting schedules
When you and your partner work remotely, you’re going to irritate one other from time to time by overlapping meeting schedules.
2. Arranging & Managing a virtual event
Initially, one would believe that arranging a virtual event would be simpler than organizing a physical event. Wrong. Virtual events are not only as difficult as in-person events, but they also need a whole new strategy.
3. Highlights of COVID dense Area
When an area is densely populated with individuals who are COVID positive, we may warn our family members not to visit that location, or we can learn who has just visited that location.
I started with several user flows to get a sense of the scope of the problem we’re trying to solve, then narrowed it down to a few scenarios for my case study.
Design
As a result of my investigation and use of the card sorting process, I am able to focus on only three viable scenarios.
Version A
Initially, I tried the direction of Google shared calendar, the idea is to show both you and your partner's calendar in a single calendar. I tried making it more expressive by adding more illustrations.
Some of the details I tried adding like if someone has to speak in the video or they need to turn on their video.
Why Didn’t Work
Many of the individuals I tested it with stated that it appears to be quite similar to Google Calendar and that switching to this platform does not bring any benefit. They also discussed having a weekly review.
Version b
In this version, I made it more personal by adding Memojis also provided a weekly;y view to show the overview of the week.
Why Didn’t Work
The folks I tested said they loved the Memoji and square tile views, but they found it difficult to read since it required a lot of horizontal scrolling. The one thing that people have often expressed is that video conflicts are the most difficult thing they encounter on a daily basis. When two persons are in a meeting at the same time, they may both hear their partner in the background.
Video conflicts are the most difficult thing they encounter on a daily basis.
Based on all the previous I made a final version that clearly highlights the Conflict when you tap on it you can notify your partner or you can reschedule the meeting
Version a
Initially, I experimented with several iOS system styles.
Why Didn’t Work
I adored this version, however most users complained that the creation pages were difficult to use and took at least 5 minutes to create a single event.
Version b
The objective this time was to make it as light as possible, therefore I chose this small modal layout to make it as simple as possible to establish an online event. The key things I performed here were organizing the various sorts of events that users may host and where they might hold them, such as zoom, YouTube live, and having a group of family members so that users could simply pick them.
How it can scale
Then I considered how all of my activities, such as my doctor’s visit, a friend’s wedding, a game night with college friends, and so on, might fit into this one module.
Problem a: Notifying your Kids
The first draft I tried was quite a basic one where I let users see all red covid zones in the and let user alert their kids through iMessage.
Why Didn’t Work
There are two issues. During my user testing of his screen, I discovered that a lot of users didn’t realize that those red circles are a covid region, and many commented that it’s a bother to see here, go to the message, and find the contact to message them again.
How can I provide a more human-centric experience here?
So, to address this issue, I created this more dramatic version of the COVID highlight in map view.
The second little change I made was to allow you to notify your children straight from the app. I attempted to convey the human feeling of placing a mask on your child to the smartphone app, where you hit the Wear button to ask your child to wear the mask.
Problem b: Map view is hard to navigate
Most people had trouble zooming in and out to view and alert their children, which surprised me.
After pondering this for a while, I came up with the concept of a Harry Potter clock that would display all of the Harry Potter charters in a clock-like format.
That got me thinking about how I could digitally replicate this real-world experience.
Here is the super draft version of how it turned out
Then I decided to give it a more vintage and wooden feel to make it more distinctive and to give the user a sense of the app’s memorability while still giving all of the capabilities.
After multiple rounds and shifting all of the pixels to match properly, this is the most current version I landed.
Reflections
After completing this project, I was overcome with emotion, and I considered pitching this app concept to a venture capitalist in order to obtain funding. Because I am certain of it.
“The tools we use remain trapped in the pre-pandemic age.”
Thank you for taking the time to read about my project!