Nosh: Productivity for Procrastinators
Get more done and have more fun
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📄 Context
As part of the 10k Designers Cohort 6 assignment, I completed this UI/UX case study.
The objective was to create a hypothetical app for iOS, Android or Mobile Web based on a set of predefined problem statements, and choose the one that resonated with me the most.
✍️ Problem Statement
Design a mobile app for tracking and managing daily productivity and time management, including features for setting goals, prioritizing tasks, and blocking out distractions.
❓ Why Productivity?
I personally struggle with so i designed one for my self😋.
👀Sneak peek
Here’s the prototype of the app i designed, have a look & i’ll take you the exciting journey which led to this amazing concept!
🕵 What was the issue
When i was in the cohort i freelanced & managed my college all by myself & it was really hard to do so, i tried to use many apps such as to-do list apps, timer apps, and even note-taking apps but still it didn’t fulfil my need.
There wasn’t a single-stop solution to my problem, i had to dabble between a lot of apps.
Due to this, i didn’t have the motivation to complete my tasks & often times i used to watch Youtube videos or even scroll through Instagram wasting my time.
🎯 Defining the Goal
So once i outlined all problems i was facing, it was clear what i had to design.
“Make a productivity app for procrastinators”
🔍 Research
😃 Understanding Users
I browsed Twitter & Reddit threads to see who actually was facing the same problem as mine & also what all are the other problems they were facing.
So here’s the 2 group of users, that i finalized & decided to design for them.
🧠 Ideation
After defining the problem to address & the users to build upon, i started to brainstorm a few solutions, this was my process👇
- I didn’t just want to make “just another productivity app”, i wanted to give a touch of my own.
- So as being a spiritual person i looked at Islam to see if i could find anything related to productivity.
- I was also researching modern day productivity hacks & tricks, then it sparked to me, what if i combine 2–3 frameworks & design an app on that! (bravo😎).
- Daily life of prophet (pbuh)
In Islam we believe that our prophet is the most productive man who walked this earth
Insights from his life
- Stay fully focused & fully present, with out any distractions.
- Be fluid & flexible to be more productive, mold your routine according to the tasks or daily situations.
- Take constant intervals between tasks to refresh your mind & body.
2. Ali Abdaal’s Energy Investment Portfolio
You need to treat time like money & Invest accordingly
Insights from his framework
- Have a bucket list of all the tasks you want to accomplish this week.
- Have an Active list & a Passive list.
- And think of in terms of what i can accomplish this week, then categorize tasks & get to work.
- Limit the number to Active tasks per day to stay good with time management.
3. Varun Mayya’s trick to staying focused
Gamifying stuff makes things more fun & enjoyable
Insights from his framework
- To stop distraction, make the thing you’re doing FUN.
- Reward yourself after you finish every task.
- Throw away your phone or turn off notification
- Have a clean environment
4. Ali Abdaal’s second brain system
With this you can work on multiple projects at once, without worrying much about a single one.
Insights from his framework
- Take down notes throughout the day & store it.
- Organize Ideas based on how you plan to use it.
📋 Feature list
So from the above research here’s the feature list i made & categorized using the MoSCoW framework
📐 Information Architecture
After deciding on the feature list i made an IA by analyzing competitor’s apps, looking at structured & prioritized things.
🖍️ Style Guide
The aim was to create a minimal design.
🎨 Final Design
Home
The home screen had statistics & levels, giving the user a quick report to see how they are performing.
Calendar
Here you can add events, set reminders, and add links or locations to the event if needed all in one place.
Task Flow
When adding a task you can add tags & goals to it so that the system will prioritize the tasks for you accordingly.
Profile
In the profile, we have tokens earned for the day & detailed reports of productivity & focus, with setting at the bottom.
Notifications & Premium
To keep user updated about their activity in a fun manner, the notifications have emojis attached to them, & the premium feature screen.
Rewards
To keep the user motivated, different tokens are rewarded after the completion of every level.
Extra Features
The feature like deep work, goals, notes, and groups are like the essence of a product giving the extra touch.
🚀 Iterations
Behind the scenes of what made this design possible.
🎓 My learnings
- I learned to prioritize features using frameworks to have a clear vision on what you’re building.
- It’s valuable to do research before making important decisions, so we can rely on insights and data instead of just our gut feelings or what we personally like.
- I learned to iterate on my initial concepts as design can always be made better, iterating from v1 to v2 improved my visual skills by a lot.
- I learned the attention to interactions and how they make the overall experience of the app delight full.
💻 What I could have done better?
- I could have worked more on the groups sections giving users how exactly they could find similar people & collaborate with them.
- Data visualization, as i didn’t have any experience i found it hard to do but i figured it out, i could have still shown data in a visually appealing & easy to scan manner.
- Notifications i had this idea to use tones of different personalities & give prompts to users motivating them to do the tasks.
✈️ Conclusion
And that’s pretty much it, i hope you liked reading my case study, if there’s any feedback please leave down in the comments below.
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