UX case: Research for tracking habits and activities app
End to end Research to Design Process
Jun 26, 2021
Background Story
2 years ago, I tried to start a freelance job at the Upwork platform. Seeing that doing this kind of side hustle is something normal for UX designers like me (from what I see from my pals). It was quite difficult to get any job until I found there is a job that needs to do research and design (quite big actually), so I tried to apply for this job.
The job is to validate the stakeholder’s hypothesis about the app that he wants to develop. Not only that, but I was also asked to redesign his current Figma UI design, after getting the research result. And of course, validate my new design as well.
Stakeholder’s Hypothesis
The stakeholder actually already gave a name for his app, it was a “Stacked task”, but then it changed to “Time Wizard”. So basically, you can make your hierarchy of tasks, and then you can give a checklist to make them done. Previously, he actually made the App’s UI design on Figma and tried its prototype with his colleagues. So, he asked them to use the prototype for several days, and gather their feedback. But, from the feedback, it seems most of his colleagues didn’t really use the prototype.
His first hypothesis was using a daily planner might help people to stay organized and give them a sense of control, so it might reduce any feeling of anxiety because of unorganized. But, in the reality, a lot of people still don’t make any plans for their daily activities. And what I noted is that I must find why most people don’t do that activity yet? Although they know about its benefit.
His second hypothesis is that the design use experience was giving the participant too much memory load. Too many actions that they need to do, and might make them give up in the process.
And the last hypothesis is that using the time blocking feature may solve these issues.
User Validation
After the stakeholder interview, I’ve got the idea, issue, goal, problem, and the specific users that will use the app. So, next is validating the hypothesis that my stakeholder made before.
From what I got from my stakeholder, his target users mostly are the well-literate people who already knew about the benefit of tracking their activities.
For this case, I tried to ask my colleagues who previously ever used any of the habit tracking apps, or had their own tracking method as participants for the research. I chose to use the In-depth interview method, so I can deep dive into what actually participant’s real goal of tracking habits, and what were their real issues and pain points.
Research plan for IDI
During the interview session, I also tried to use the why laddering framework to get a better understanding of their answer. I asked 4 people, actually it’ll be better to find 5 instead but at that time, I only found 4 and the project needs to start soon, so I think it was still a better option instead if we were only using the assumption.
Define Problem & Synthesis
The affinity diagram from the research result
From the synthesis, we know that actually some of the stakeholder’s thesis was true. Like the anxiety was something real for the participants that don’t have any plan for their activities, they were feeling there was no progress in their current condition, everything is uncertain, and it makes them feel bad. This was similar to this research about how uncertainty might affect our mental health.
Most of the participants can stay in their tracking habit for several weeks. Why participants couldn’t stick to make and update their activities progress? From what I found, it was because there are a lot of distractions. Most of the people are tech workers, who will stay in front of their laptops during working hours. By making a mobile app, it won’t solve their problems, because they need to switch between platforms and get distracted by the other apps.
Participant’s issues
Another finding shows that it’ll be difficult to make a plan without any goal. So, having a goal is crucial if it is for repetitive or habit-changing activities. But, if the activities were something that would be done once a time, there is no big issue. They just need a particular time to plan their to-do list and retrospective.
Some participants told that the reminder feature is quite crucial. Because it’ll make them stay align with the goal. But, unfortunately, their current platforms don’t have that feature, so they must use the default alarm to remind them about the activities.
User Journey
Current user journey
IDeation
From these problems actually, there are a lot of journeys that could be explored. But we will focus on 2 ideas. The ideas were initiated between me and the stakeholder through discussion. If we had a bigger team, it’ll be fun to make workshop ideation, actually.
Our HMW statement is
How might we make the user stay using the app?
Before doing the ideation, we tried to make a competitor analysis with several similar apps. They are Duolingo, Routinery, and Rabit. And actually, these apps have some features that can be used to solve our issue.
Social proofTracking your progress alone would be hard because you can’t see nor compare your current state with the other users. The Idea is by providing a feature that allows them to see other people’s progress. From Duolingo, we found the “Leaderboard” feature that allows you to see and compare your “Points” with other users of the app.Not only that, but we also provide an idea to make a private leaderboard group. So, you can invite your friends to compare particular activities. Like to see who finish more book within a month. Because it feels more challenging to compare our progress with someone we know, than strangers.
Gamification Actually, if you only need to make a to-do list, your current note default mobile app will provide it. But, gamification can give different experiences. By using the point method, that will be shown on the leaderboard, we hope it’ll give a fun environment for the user.We also allow the user to choose any character, which makes this more like a game than an app.
ShareBy allowing the user to share their achievement and progress through social media, it might help people to notice about the app. It might also give a sense of achievement for the users.
Tracking time The user can track their activities in tracking time mode, so it’ll give them more focus when doing a specific activity.
Time Block From the research result, we know that participants could be anxious when they don't have a plan or are uncertain about what to do. Show by showing a time block, it might help them to feel more organized and less anxious.
Information architecture
I divided the main menu into 5 different features. The time block list will be put as the main homepage. It’ll show any info on the goal or activities that the user wants to do or achieve. It’ll also show the dates and times of the time block.
The second page is the leaderboard, it will show other users within a league. You might also see the points and quest to earn more points.
The time tracker is a button. If the user clicks it, it will be set a timer, so the user can focus on the task that they want to finish.
The posted menu will allow you to share your progress and activities so that other people will notice as well.
The profile page will show you the settings, your points, achievements, and any more personal info.
Conclusion
My research shows that anxiety is real as we stay in uncertain conditions. So, to help the users to stay organized, our solution is to provide them with a time block feature for the app. Adding some additional features like gamification and social proof might help the user to stay motivated with their new habit (tracking the other habits).
Sorry for not sharing the next progress of the UI design. Because we’re still in progress, and I think I still can’t share it yet. The UI is finished, but we need to test it with the users and iterate their feedback.
Thank you for reading my article!