Phocas

"Studies suggest that procrastination chronically affects 15%–20% of adults, and that approximately 25% of adults consider procrastination to be a defining personality trait for them"*.

The goal became creating a means to curve this habit in a healthy way. By doing so, individuals would have more control over their time and lives.

* Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D. and Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D.

Link to full article

“How might we create something that targets user's procrastination habits.”

Problem / 问题:

Products already exist that help users organize their tasks and achieve their goals, but nothing targets the source of procrastination.

Solution / 回答：

In order to provide a product that provides something new, users need to both feel the pressure to get tasks done via carrot + stick methods, while also being able to see what patterns emerge that stop them from achieving their goals.

Role / 角色：

Researcher

UX Designer

UI Designer

Tools / 工具：

Sketch
Figma
Miro
Slack
Google Docs
Google Slides
Zoom

Research / 研究:

Secondary research was done through articles to better understand procrastination, how the habits emerge and how they persist along with helpful deterrents.

Primary research was then conducted via interviews with a number of individuals who’s personal accounts helped solidify trends.

Takeaways:

Social media.
Online shopping.
TV or other streaming media.
Looking for other things to do to mask productivity.
Lack of flow.
Boredom.
Fear of failing.

Takeaways:

Environment / location.
Time related pressure.
Check-ins or timers.
Inspiration from others.
Working on similar problems with others.

Personas / 个性:

These personas were developed as a means of discussing findings of interviewees while retaining anonymity. The trends were based on notable patterns discovered by individuals’ particular styles of procrastination.

Takeaways:

No issue accomplishing one or two particular goals.

Fails to take care of task outside of their direct focus.
Lacks balance and/or energy in their daily lives.
Justifies incomplete tasks as not of direct importance.

Takeaways:

Goals tend to be on a more on a flexible or self imposed time frame.

Tasks tend to be done on the 11th hour believing that they perform better under stress.

Sketches / 草图:

I wanted to make sure that in the design there was level of accountability so that users would feel more pressure to mark tasks as completed.

Gamification: by rewarding users with points for completed tasks and forcing users to pay with points to restart any task that wasn't accomplished within its given time frame.
Social pressure: by giving the user's friends the ability to spend points to invest in a task.
༶ Success: the task is finished, extra points are awarded to both friend and user.
༶ Failure: the investment and the initial points spent are lost.

Sketches to Wireframes / 草图到框架:

After some guerrilla testing, I made some slight alterations to the initial design noting that users wanted to see and identify their own task more clearly along with other buttons. I converted those sketches into wireframes with the edits in mind.

Red Routes / 路径:

I had some basic routes known with the sketches, but I created some user stories to help determine what sort of errors and other issues users might encounter to make a more full and thorough experience.

High Fidelity 1.0

/ 高保真度 1.0:

The first high fidelity mockup was done after creating a color palette with good contrast and visual accessibility, which helped to narrow down a theme. I wanted to go for a Greco-Roman theme as I wanted to mimic a stoic feel.

High Fidelity 2.0

/ 高保真度 2.0:

Initial usability test revealed a few issues:

Users struggle with some of the color and font choices.
Each task as a flame made navigation difficult and struggled to show user's progress.
Buttons were not clearly labeled.
Fan fair for accomplishments were too discreet.

This is the result after resolving these issues.

Final Thoughts

/ 最后的想法:

Were this project to continue I'd love to work with some developers and brainstorm other ways to enhance the experience of this app or any issues that might be involved in designing it.

Programing is a bit of a blind spot for me so to get insights from someone in the field I'd find incredibly valuable.