Designing ScheduleQuest

The design challenge was to build a native mobile student planner. I was assigned to work with three other designers, and could only design features that were currently possible on native mobile apps. We had three weeks to take the project from conception to hi-fidelity. The following design requirements were provided:

1. Ability to share progress and grades
2. Track schedules
3. Take notes
4. Create and edit calendars

While the requirements were flexible, the app ultimately needed to support the end goal of helping students get better grades.

Getting Started

I always start with research. Research is the best way to build empathy for your users. I started with what I already knew:

• Students favor either analog or digital planners, picking one over the other
• Students have established a routine they’ve found works for them
• There are two types of students — those who keep track of everything in their head, and those that write everything down.

I conducted user research and what I found changed my perception:

• Most students use a combination of analog and digital planners
• Everyone is almost always using their native calendar app
• Students who have an established planning routine have spent years practicing.
• Students don’t always track grades and rarely share progress
• Students intend to plan better, but don’t always follow through

This led me to believe that perhaps the solution was not in creating yet another calendar to manage but instead creating an app that would help students plan better.

I always use my collected data to create a persona. Personas help me avoid self referential design and facilitate the retention of any empathy created during the research process.

Ideation

I created a user story map with some flashy features:

• An all-in-one digital planner
• Calendars
• Picture and hand drawn notes
• Customizable reminders
• Group collaboration

This would be the best planner app ever! — but something still wasn’t right. My research told me that students already use native calendar apps and didn’t have many pain points there. I also knew that students who use planners consistently already have established routines. I didn’t want to create yet another calendar for users to manage, and I didn’t feel the app was solving the problem of teaching students who don’t plan well to plan better. I was ignoring the research I had so carefully collected. I could design this amazing app with all of these nice features — but if students picked it up a couple times and then never went back — it would fail.

Re-Ideation

To teach students how to plan better, perhaps the focus should be on elementary age students. Additional research was required and yielded some very interesting data:

• Kids are happier when involved in their daily schedules
• Kids generally express interest in their schedule
• Kids aren’t generally taught to schedule until high school or later
• No comprehensive planner currently exists for kids.
• Parents usually create routines for their kids but have trouble keeping it consistent.
• Parents want their kids to be able to learn to focus on tasks for longer periods of time

I utilized the new data to create 2 personas this time: an eight-year-old boy and a working father. Kids would be the primary users, with parents using the app in a support role. I created a brand new story map that would ensure the goals of both the kids and the parents were being met. The app became a game-like version of a standard planner:

• Parents and children would work together to create “routines”, a simpler version of a calendar
• Routines would feature whatever events the parents wanted, ranging from brushing teeth to homework and classes
• Parents could create goals, and kids could select which goals they wanted to work towards next
• Goals would reward consistent app use
• Pomodoro timers to help kids increase their attention span and learn the importance of taking breaks.
• Customizable reminders to help parents keep up the routine.

The timer is shown here without breaks, for ease of viewing

The app would feature different themes — balloons, rockets, gems, and so on. Kids could unlock new and exciting themes through consistent app use, lifetime number of events completed, etc.

Themes would influence events and timers (timer prototype featured to the left).

The timers would be set for a specific amount of time, and automatically include breaks. If this timer here were set up accurately, the balloon would contract during the break time, only lifting off when the timer was finished.

Testing and Feedback

I tested my prototype on parents first. I had them complete a simple list of tasks:

1. Log In
2. Create new child profile
3. Create a new timer
4. Add an event to “Danny’s Routine”
5. Create a new reward.

Almost every user got stuck adding a new event. The routines are listed on the “Home” page, but that didn’t register as a place for the routines to be located. Based on this result I changed the label on the nav drawer from “Home” to “Routines”.

The users who did find it, couldn’t find a way to add an event — this was an oversight on my part. I added a FAB button to make that function accessible.

The feedback I got from parents is they felt like siblings would meddle in each others routines — so I added the ability to require a four-digit passcode when signing on to different profiles. I also discovered that the game-like parts of the app could be unhelpful or uninteresting for older students — so I created a “list view” that would hide many of the themed elements.

Theme View and List View, respectively

The kids test was much simpler. They were to simply explore the prototype. I was delighted to find that they thought it was a game — but also recognized that it was “chores”. This means it wouldn’t be too distracting and would emulate an actual planner.

“It’s not really a game mom — it’s just CHORES”

Visual Design

I chose bright and bold colors for the theme and created a logo I felt emulated mystic and adventurous games to draw users in. I wanted the app to feel as much like a game as possible. It took some reiteration and testing to get the colors and fonts all working together but ended up with a visual hierarchy that would make the interactive content stand out.

The micro interactions (prototype pictured left) would be a very important part of the project. This is where a lot of the “game” feeling would come in. Balloons expanding, floating away, or filling up with air like the timer pictured above.

I received feedback that the colors of the balloons was a little too intense next to the purple and orange system colors. In addition, the text wasn’t passing contrast checks. To fix this I reduced the hue of the red and made the balloon text a modified version of the balloon color. To create more of a balloon feeling, I discarded the material design shadows and gave tweaked the radial gradient, to give depth to the balloons.

Takeaway

It’s always better to design to solve a problem. We can create another cool app, or another shiny feature — but we must remember which problems we’re actual solving
We think we have the best ideas, but we simply must get those ideas in front of users before we set them in stone. We must let users tell us what is easy and what is good.
All design is about reiteration. Our first idea is not always our best. We must be willing to let our designs evolve.

Conclusion

Given more time, I would create even more of a game feel. The game elements remained a on the low fidelity side — I’d love to explore how to bring those to life. Perhaps by adding a background to the week view or adding micro interactions. I would also like to build each of the themes fully and explore exactly how they would fit in with what was already designed.

I would like to discover precisely what age range the themes work for. The app currently targets a wide age range and it would take some very focused testing to see which ages preferred the theme view versus the list view.

The project took some twists and turns, I had to look at the problems and goals presented in a different way, but I’m confident this app would help kids understand the importance of good planning. Good habits start early and I believe I created a way for kids to learn those habits. During the design process, many parents remarked they wanted a live version they could actually use with their children — I believe a full development team could create a successful, helpful, and fun app.

P.S.

I worked on a team for this project. I had the help of two talented designers, Lexi Crandall and Colby Goetz. The wireframes and animations are my own, but many concepts were created together. Teamwork is so important and I could not have done this without them.

Thanks for reading this far! Since you did, might as well give it a 👏🏻 or 500. I wish I could take the time to write about every aspect of this project. If you have questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you! You can fling an email my way via mrtailsdesign@gmail.com, or you can connect on LinkedIn if you’d like. Bye!