👋🏼 hsinyuyang.com

Focus Calendar

Using behavioral economics to nudge people to to get things done

2020

Solo product designer

Passion project

✨

Intro

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* Problem

* Solution

💭

Understand

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* User interview

* Competitive analysis

* User journey

* Pain points

🧪

Design

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* Design requirements

* Lo-fi & mid-fi

* User feedback

* Prototypes

🎨

Testing

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* Unmoderated testing

* Future design ideas

Problem

People can’t accomplish important tasks they set their mind to do in time because they are constantly distracted

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61%

Reported social media is the greatest distraction

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53%

Are most influenced by smartphones

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40%

WFH people are distracted by binging TV shows

Solution

A productivity app powered by behavioral science: using goal-setting theories to help people get things done

like task breaker and calendar with focus timer

Research

Foundational research: 1 round of user interviews with four participants and 1 competitive analysis.

Foundational user interview

4 participants

from 3 backgrounds: design, business and engineering

1 shared habit

all of them use digital calendar in their day-to-day schedule

Why focused?

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Interest level

"For projects I like, I have no problems focusing."

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Deadlines

“When there’s a deadline, I can focus on getting tasks done.”

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Plan ahead

“If I analyze and write down things to do, I feel better and can focus.”

Why unfocused?

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Feeling stressed

“If I find the task difficult, I can’t bring myself to accomplish it.”

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Low self-efficacy

“I just want to delay the feeling of unconfidence a bit.”

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Distraction

“Sometimes I receive texts from friends……”

Journey mapping

User Journey

Competitive analysis

4 competitors

focus apps with various product features

1 opportunity

none integrates with digital calendar

	Serene	Focus To-do	Flipd	Forest
Timer	✅	✅	✅	✅
To-do list	❌	✅	❌	❌
Task breaker	✅	❌	❌	❌
Gamification	❌	❌	❌	✅
Website blocker	✅	❌	❌	❌
Live group session	❌	❌	✅	❌
Community	❌	❌	✅	❌
Calendar integration	❌	❌	❌	❌

Key pain points

1. Plan & schedule	😰	When tasks are overwhelming, participants feel paralyzed to even start planning
2. Happen soon	📈	Participants’ emotion and focus state fluctuate drastically right before a scheduled task happens
3. Happening	🥱	If it’s not interesting to participants, they are easily distracted by external factors

Design

Based on key pain points, I created three design principles that prioritize user focus throughout their experience

Design requirement

	😰 Pain points		✨ Design requirements
1. Plan & schedule	Tasks are overwhelming, feel paralyzed	➡️	Design needs to guide users through a step-by-step process to prepare for and break down difficult tasks
2. Happen soon	Tmotion and focus state fluctuate drastically	➡️	Design needs to bridge the gap between digital calendar and focus mode
3. Happening	Easily distracted by external factors	➡️	Design needs to sustain their focus span as long as possible