The ultimate multi-management application designed to enhance students' productivity and work-life balance
There is a constant struggle to juggle school work with personal life. Finding balance in hustle culture is a continuous learning curve for everyone, especially for students who are adjusting to workloads or managing schedules.
Despite the numerous applications to help with time management and planning, we saw an opportunity to create an app that encourages a healthier digital lifestyle with students and professionals. With an emphasis on productivity and well being, Omniflow offers a custom-tailored experience for every user and their priorities.
We noticed that many students tend to be intimidated or discouraged from using workspace platforms. Staying on top of deadlines and completing daily to-do lists can be difficult, let alone spending an extensive amount of time to navigate a time-management app
Overview
Context
Problem Space
Define
How can we develop a task management app that adapts to students' unique needs without adding complexity challenges?
This contradiction led us to wonder
Research
Secondary
To get a better understanding of the commonly used applications, we wanted to see where we could improve through a competitive analysis
87%
of Users
92%
of Users
Brought up the struggle of Balance between work and personal life with Time as a common keyword
Depend on some form of online application to organize tasks and deadlines
Primary
We continued with primary research by conducting user interviews with alumni, freshman, and upper year University students. The questions were directed to their current organizational methods and habits to discover ways in which we can help maximize productivity
Multiple apps: Many of the same apps with similar features can feel redundant
Social life: Missing out on social events due to academics
Time management: Procrastinating with social media distractions
Motivators
Frustrations
Time: Having time for personal interests and hobbies
Connecting with peers: Feeling a sense of community when studying with others
Academic validation: Motivation to work harder after seeing results
Many applications can overlook the factor of time when simply focusing on delivery of various features. We continued with our design processes with this in consideration
Why invest time in tracking tasks if it takes longer than doing them?
User Archetypes
With the research findings, we created archetypes to better empathize with our user insights and how we could address concerns that many platforms may overlook.
Key Takeaways
We had brainstorming sessions to develop features that would facilitate time management and connection with peers from these takeaways
We realized prioritizing an easy set up process was important, so users are not overwhelmed and go back to old habits that may not be effective.
Fear of missing out
Users can’t focus on school or social life without feeling guitly about how they are spending time. Students from other campuses feel more isolated or less connected with peers.
Going back to old ways
Time management applications with various customization features can be overwhelming for users to set up and get adjusted to, often causing them to give up after a short period of time
Neglect of Self Care
When interviewing students, most said self care was not even on the list of priorities during school terms. Does self care and work have to be mutually exclusive?
Features to include
Wellness feature: Reminders and encouraging prompts to track ones progress of tasks to stay on top of personal wellness goals
Study spot tracker: Map of available campus spots to help students save time on finding spaces to study
Customize notification/reminder: Select frequency of notifications based on task load and when they’d like to take breaks
Connect page: Allowing peers to keep users motivated without fear of missing out as you can meet people with similar goals
We continued with user flows to visualize paths and key features including
Ideation
User Flow
Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes for our features and gaining an idea of Omniflows layout
We led usability testing among students with our mid-fidelity prototypes to gather valuable insights. Utilizing the feedback to inform our targeted improvements including the following major changes.
Design Decisions
User testing
Dashboard - Before
“I mainly found the floating action buttons useful in the beginning to add/edit widgets when I was setting up”
Dashboard / After
New widget tab
We discovered the need to edit and add widgets barely occurred in the later parts of a users journey and it was simply blocking space on their dashboard. The placement also made it easier to accidentally click on it with our mobile prototype. When users were asked to rank the priorities of the default widgets, responsive were very subjective and it was difficult to meet all needs.
Begin with an empty dashboard to customize with selected widgets, enhancing intuitiveness in dashboard setup and widget feature.
Choose relevant widgets from separate tab to meet unique student needs and save time navigating and updating the default widgets.
By removing the floating button saves space on dashboard, students can explore and understand their functions through detailed overviews.
Dashboard - Before
We discovered the need to edit and add widgets barely occurred in the later parts of a users journey and it was simply blocking space on their dashboard. The placement also made it easier to accidentally click on it with our mobile prototype. When users were asked to rank the priorities of the default widgets, responsive were very subjective and it was difficult to meet all needs.
Reflecting on KioMax
Takeaways
This was one of my first team-based UX projects and I gained valuable insights on how different perspectives helped us understand our users better. I learned the importance of deeply understanding user needs through comprehensive research and empathetic engagement. This project not only developed my UI design skills, it also taught me how to effectively translate user data into actionable design solutions. Beyond the technical aspects, I found Omniflow really exciting through how it challenged my creative thinking and problem solving skills!
Final Designs
OmniFlow | Case Study