Highflier is a mobile platform designed to increase productivity and improve digital wellbeing.

ROLE
TOOLS
TIMELINE
UX/UI Design
Paper & Pen, Figma
June - August 2020

PROJECT BRIEF

In recent events of the COVID19 outbreak, our lives during lockdown has been consumed by a whirlwind of distractions. As humans, we tend to break out of feeling or being uncomfortable and rely on escapism to let time pass by. Often the tasks that we need to complete and habits that benefit us constantly being pushed away which has many of us worried, stressed and confused.

While I endured this case study on my own, the project focuses on user productivity, ensuring to creating awareness regarding smartphone screen time and provide progress insights.

“It’s easy to be seduced by the small amounts of profit offered by the latest app or service, but then forget its cost in terms of the most important resource we possess: the minutes of our life.”

― Cal Newport, Author of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Problem Space

Create a mobile environment that helps users thrive in their day to day tasks, improve time management and unlock productivity potential.

How Might We

01 Design a solution that is easy to use and engaging while emphasizing the importance of personal progress.

02 Communicate a balanced lifestyle that consists task completion and self care through a mobile platform.

Solutions & Features

01 Goal Setting - Users can set goals to inform and help them of how much they need to accomplish, including a Mobile usage tracker which the user can limit use of apps throughout the day.

02 Pomodoro Tracker - A Built in Pomodoro Tracker that would encourage the user to remain focused for intervals of 25 Minutes, while rewarded a 5 minute break. This was important because there were many Productivity apps out in the industry that did not have this feature built in their respective platforms.

03 Insights - A seamless Progress tracker to help provide users understanding of completed tasks, remaining tasks. A Digital Wellbeing tracker to notify users the amount of time incurred on Apps, this feature would influence user behaviour to allocate time wisely.

A brief Onboarding introduction to Highflier, before sign up.

RESEARCH

The research process began by identifying and developing an understanding of how users allocate their time on a daily basis was key. By leveraging User Research during the Coronavirus safeguards, I furthered this notion by completing 5 Remote User Interviews and an online survey. With the feedback from the responses I received, 75% of my participants concluded that they have never used a mobile usage tracker. Over 50% stated that they use other means of tracking when it comes to productivity, despite the availability of phone or a daily journal.

Gathering data through Secondary Research allowed me to understand the larger scope. Through my learnings, I have gained insights that users that are 18-34 years of age signify the most distracted throughout the day.

Takeaways:
Social Media and Communication apps were close to "vital" for some users.
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70% increase of smartphone usage worldwide due to Coronavirus outbreak.
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66% of survey responses had sedentary lifestyles despite smartphone usage over 2 hours a day.
Attitudinal Trait via Interviews
Behavioural Trait via Interviews
“I often feel pressured when I see Push Notifications and I end up using Social Media and a messaging app more than I should when I wake up and before I go to bed more than I should”
“Smartphones without Apps are a bit useless, I always use it when I’m bored I need to use apps on the go or wherever really”

80%

60%

2h 33m

of Survey responses convey the importance of gaining awareness of time spent on smartphone vs productivity.
of Survey responses admit to being smartphone dependant and have never tracked mobile usage.
An average user spends over per day on Social Media per day.

Source: Techjury

DEFINE

To help me identify our users, I was confident to focus on 2 User Personas that would portray the target audience. These users are often on the go, but are tech-savvy. With empathy and putting myself "in the users shoe" I remained to be in tune with how the target audiences are within a broader scope in terms of goals, habits and motivations. Despite generational gaps the information used through User Research is essentially regarding millennials.

Competitive Analysis

I began to dive deeper into the direction I wanted to implement my product. I gathered 2 Mobile Apps that I wanted to analyze that were fairly new to the industry and gave me insight, the reason why I have notched it down to these 2 were that I found too many apps created to only count mobile screen time or more so acts like a timer. Additionally these I found Forest/Slash not overwhelming compared to Todoist and Trello.

IDEATE

I wanted to create an all in one solution platform. Ease of use was a key motivation because that I find some Productivity apps too overwhelming with an overload of tasks. I wanted to provide an interpersonal feel in which the user has the ability to set goals and understand their progress.
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To address user needs I implemented these requirements such as a Seamless organizer that would entail their day to day tasks with coloured icons.
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A trustworthy dashboard that would allow them to track their progress and key personal metrics to prove their growth.

Moodboard Inspiration

I was driven to design a platform that is simplistic, minimal and smooth while empowering user experience to have clear task interactions without interfering or overwhelming the journey. To guide me during the process I researched and sought after Headspace and airBnB, their UX and UI look + feel matches the criteria I was going for.

DESIGN

Task flow for Creating a Task, beginning from the Activity Home screen. This action is established by tapping the "Create Task" button. When completed, A modal will open in the interaction stating you have successfully added a new task.
A feature for Highflier is the Insights screen, with tracking the user is provided what they accomplished. A built in Pomodoro Timer, increases productivity by establishing a 25 minute timer.
A follow up of User Interface including Onboarding Screens and Main Content.

REFLECTION & NEXT STEPS

This was my first concept project to be published online, although there are many things I can take away from a growing mindset of a UX/UI Designer. I was able to communicate with 2 fellow designers and receive feedback that I am more than committed to take one. Keeping things simple was one that I really adjusted to, At first I had a mindset that I wanted to build an all in one platform that considered both Productivity and Habit building, that resulted into creating designs that were really not useful or not situated around solving users main problem.

Back to the drawing board I went, I believe I had created over 70 screens of UI Design. Although I am not at all saying I did not enjoy the part with all the Iterations, but I had to put my head down and came up with a better, much simpler strategy to involve in my designs and that was to eliminate solutions and mix up of other ideas

What I'm looking forward to, down the line in hopes that I can improve User Research to validate my future designs. I will also be working on Interaction design for as a part of building that skill. I've learned that at first time you embark on a project that you really get to wear a lot of hats. I'm continuing to keep that mindset to improve on for my future projects in the near future.

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