Gratification and Validation: A Feature Add-On for Google Calendar to Boost Productivity
The amount of pressure that General Assembly students face is palpable, with deadlines and myriads of assignments that are due weekly. As a result of the rigorous and fast-paced General Assembly curriculum, immersive students struggle to manage their time and tasks properly.
To help support General Assembly students throughout the duration of the course, I created a new feature within Google Calendar that would allow students to create native checklists within a calendar event to better manage their time.
My Role: UX Designer | Duration: 1.5 Weeks
Scope of Work
I was tasked with creating a new feature within an existing mobile app to help General Assembly students with time and task management. Through user research, I ultimately decided to add a feature to Google Calendar, because most, if not all, students use this app to stay on top of their deadlines.
UX Design Process: The Double Diamond
For this project, I employed the UX Double Diamond process, which can be broken out into two phases: the research phase and the design phase. In this case study, I’ll be walking you through the double diamond process.
The Initial Problem Statement
Before diving into the research phase, I drew my hypothesis: students are having a hard time managing their time and tasks because they’re using too many different apps and methods to complete their tasks, With that, I also came up with some assumptions, ranging from students wanting a consolidated place for all of their information, a “reward” for crossing something off of their list, and the need to sync both their personal and work calendars. Putting this all together, I came up with the following problem statement:
How might we help General Assembly students find a more efficient manner in which to manage their time so they can complete their tasks in a timely fashion?
Goal of Research and Methodology
In order to collect data to understand how GA students manage their time and tasks to inform which feature to incorporate, I conducted user interviews with two of my classmates; this was the only portion of the project that was done in groups. While we did interview six students, I was ultimately only able to use five because one of our users was an extreme outlier.
We learned that many students love a physical to-do list, because the act of checking or crossing something off of a list gave them a feeling of accomplishment, which was aligned with one of our assumptions.
“It would be nice to see some sort of ‘check’ work simulation of you actually checking it off and [saying] I actually did that versus no, I didn’t do it.”
Synthesis to Affinity Mapping (speaking to what was illuminated)
In order to visualize the data that we collected from the interviews, I created an affinity map to uncover patterns, which I then turned into insights:
- Students consider multi-device access for their tasks in case there is a need to check tasks on-the-go.
- Students are not able to get the same gratification of crossing/checking an item off of a physical checklist through digital means.
- Students are self-aware; they carefully outline and break out their tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks in order to successfully complete their work.
- Students separate their important tasks (ie. schoolwork) from their more menial tasks (ie. chores) by using a different app.
- As they get accustomed to a color’s purpose, students are able to save time by quickly glancing at their calendar and instantly know what needs to be done.
- Students consider additional functionalities from other apps to further fuel their productivity.
- Depending on what device they are using, students prefer certain calendar views over others in order to optimize their attention.
Persona
The culmination of data and insights led me to Melanie, a blanket representation of our target audience with their goals, frustrations, and needs.
Revised Problem Statement
Bringing our research and synthesis full circle, I revised my problem statement:
Time and workload are difficult for General Assembly students to manage on their own.
As a result, Melanie is overwhelmed and narrowly misses deadlines for important projects and assignments, with possible “academic probation” measures needing to be implemented.
How might we help her stay on top of her long list of tasks as well as keep her motivated as she completes her assignments?
Insights to Features
Extracting the most interesting and relevant insights that highlighted Melanie’s goals and needs, I landed on a native checklist feature that would allow her to create checklists within the Google Calendar app to track her tasks in the same place she is also marking important deadlines.
Additionally, I inferred that little things like checking tasks off of a list are important to keep students motivated, so leaning into evoking a sense of accomplishment, I wanted to animate the action with a “firework” to celebrate the completion of a task.
Designing Wireframes and Usability Testing
Introducing… The Google Calendar Checklist function! How did we get here? It wasn’t easy.
After sketching and ideating, my lo-fidelity paper wireframe was ready for my first (ever) usability test! Using a clickable InVision prototype, I gave each user a scenario for context and an accompanying task to accomplish, and to fully capture their process, I also asked each user to think out loud as they were clicking through the prototype.
The scenarios and tasks were as follows:
- You are several weeks into your immersive course, and deadlines are quickly approaching. You decide to create “Time Blocks” on your calendar to make sure everything is running on time. Create a new event with your day’s to-do’s.
- To start your project, you want to refresh your memory on some of the topics you learned earlier. Because you remember the concepts fairly well, you breeze through the review. Mark that you completed the task.
- While you’re working on your design, you get a call from your dog walker saying that your pup needed to head to the vet. You’re unable to get to the designing portion of your to-do’s. Shift the task to another event block in your calendar.
From initial tests, I uncovered the following:
- Users indicated that they like to use the long-press/3D touch function on the iPhone
- Users went through the motions of the app in specific steps (ie. adding event title, changing time) that they were used to
- Users thought to shift the entire event block when asked to shift one checklist item and looked for a drag and drop option
- Users looked for some kind of confirmation when an action was completed to ensure that it was saved
These findings allowed me to create a modified mid-fidelity prototype of my feature within Google Calendar. I tested the new prototype using the same test script with five different users. This time around, I timed the users and calculated the success rate across the board.
While users were able to figure out the tasks relatively quickly and easily with the lo-fidelity prototype, with the mid-fidelity prototype, users seemed to be more confused and unable to locate core features within the pages. Additionally, users looked for multiple different ways to shift a to-do to an existing event block because it wasn’t clear that a long-press option was available. Some users even said they don’t use that functionality on their phones.
Looking Ahead
For future iterations, I’d explore simplifying the initial “create event” page to reduce clutter on the screen and to increase visibility of the checklist function. Or I’d also explore clearer indications for the checklist feature, like a simpler icon or text hierarchy.
I’d also explore adding multiple pathways for users to move existing tasks to different event blocks on their calendars (ie. adding visible menu indicators on checklist items) to reduce confusion.
Lastly, I’d add the ability to view all current checklists (meaning lists with tasks that haven’t been checked off yet), so the user can have a holistic view of what they need to do. If needed, they can expand to view.
Overall, many users said this was a feature that they’d actually use, so giving it more prominence across the app could be helpful. Additionally, the animated “firework” elicited strong, positive reactions from several users, which played well into my original assumptions.
All in all, my very first UX design project was an incredible learning experience. Coming from a strategy background afforded me tons of advantages, especially when it came to gathering research, synthesizing the research to uncover insights (a strategist’s favorite word), and creating a target audience, or in this case, a persona. However, the usual process stopped there; the information would get transferred into a brief and another creative team would take the reins to bring the insights to life.
Being able to take the data that I uncovered and keeping it in my hands to help solve the user’s problem from beginning to end felt like a moment of pride. I was finally able to crack my knuckles and get crafty with how I could make an experience better for other users.
With that, I’m also beginning to understand and better empathize with companies when they roll out product redesigns or features updates. We’re so quick to judge and immediately criticize when something looks or feels different, but these decisions, as I’m learning, aren’t made lightly; they come from extensive research to understand what the users actually need, not what they say they need.
