List

Background

Why am I working on this case study?

I've been giving some thought to calendar apps recently and made an interesting observation. There isn't much difference between a physical calendar and a digital calendar app. This realization underscores the potential for digital products to go beyond mere replication of physical tools.

Problem

The main issue with current calendar apps is that they only capture scheduled events, leaving out tasks that don't fit into specific time slots. This gap in functionality leads to ineffective time management and organization.

Constraints

Some of the constraints I faced while working on this project include:

Time Constraints: I had a limited timeframe for both the research and design phases, which required prioritizing certain aspects over others and streamlining the process.

Resource Constraints: Access to diverse user groups for conducting interviews and user testing was limited, which necessitated relying on a smaller, less varied sample size for gathering insights and feedback.

Design Process

Research - Existing Apps

Apple Calendar

Consider the Apple Calendar as an example. It essentially functions like a paper calendar, just in a digital format. This realization led me to find the main weaknesses in using a calendar for comprehensive time management. The primary shortcoming is that calendars only capture half the picture. Every person's life consists of events that are scheduled and can be placed on a calendar. However, there is also other items like tasks, that don't necessarily fit into scheduled time slots.

Todoist

This is why there is another category of app entirely for to-do list apps, like Todoist. They cater to the other half of our organizational needs.

Research - User Interview

I've realized I struggle with prioritizing tasks and sometimes forget to complete specific tasks for events. I want to understand the common issues and situations people face while trying to organize their lives better.

Insights

Insights from user research indicate that participants desire better organization and task management solutions that help them organize both their schedules and tasks effectively.

Ideate

Imagine you’re organizing a team outing next week. You add the actual time of the event to your calendar, and also add a few related to-dos, like booking a restaurant, buying company t-shirts, etc. onto your to-do list app. Then, oh no! There’s a team emergency, the outing will have to be cancelled this quarter. After removing the outing from your calendar, you need to manually track down the related to-dos on a separate app and delete them.

Events and tasks are often connected, and need to be in sync! A good app should manage both.

This is a representation of the items that need to be done in the team outing example.

💖 They are all “items”

💖 Events are items that are scheduled, and can only be done during the scheduled time.

💖 Tasks are items that are unscheduled, and can be done at any time.

💖 Any task or event (item) can have sub-events or sub-tasks, meaning you need to finish the sub-item first in some case to be able to finish the main item

What questions does our app need to answer for this mental model?

What am i doing at this time? Am I free or busy?

What things do I still need to do? If I have time, what should I do (in what order)?

To help answer the questions I’ve come up with two different views. The first one is calendar view that will answer the question “What am i doing at this time? Am I free or busy? “

Here's an example of the calendar view. The main event is a birthday party, which includes related tasks that need to be completed to attend this event, such as buying a cake and picking up a dress. Normally, subtasks like these might be added to the notes section of the calendar event, where they’re forgotten, or to a separate task manager, where they’re unconnected.

Additionally, there's a sub-event that must be attended as part of the preparations for the main event, which is going to the hair salon. Before heading to the hair salon, there's also a sub-task that needs to be completed, which is finding a hairstyle reference.

The second view which is the to-do list view answered the question “What things do I still need to do? If I have time, what should I do?”

In this example of the to-do list view, the list includes various tasks that need completion. Here, the main task is to finish the final essay. To complete this main task, there's a related event that must be attended, which involves interviewing Bob to gain some insights. Additionally, there's a sub-task that needs to be done, which is to read a research paper. This sub items are necessary in order to be able to complete the final essay.

Hi-fidelity Wireframe

The prototype I've developed represented how two different views look like on the interface. The calendar view allows users to see their upcoming events and related tasks by time slot. Meanwhile, the to-do list view lets users view tasks in list form, showing related events and sub-tasks. This design gives users the flexibility to view their schedule in the way that suits them best. Additionally, it enables users to see how other tasks or events are connected to their main schedule.

User Testing

Through my iterations, I did some user testing and received direct feedback about various features.

The first piece of feedback highlights that adding new tasks requires too much effort, as users must manually input all the task information, making the process hard and time-consuming.

So, I decided to leverage AI technology to simplify the process for users creating new tasks/events. This involves allowing them to input information directly or import existing tasks/events from external applications. Additionally, users can import tasks from other platforms, further streamlining their organizational workflow.

The second piece of feedback is about the initial version's category feature displayed on the homepage. This feature was designed to enable users to easily organize their tasks into different categories. However, users did not find this feature to be particularly beneficial.

Based on this feedback, I decided to replace it with a priority list, allowing users to view tasks/events based on their priority. This will also help user answer the question of “If I have time, what should I do (in what order)?”

To clarify the priority feature, I've treated priority as a sort of sticker that users can apply to any event or task. This approach will assist users in identifying and prioritizing events or tasks that are more importance.

By allowing users to assign different levels of priority based on color, such as high priority being red indicating it's the most important, medium priority as green, and low priority as grey, users can easily prioritize their tasks and events visually.

Next Step

The next step is to focus on how to improve time management, especially for events or tasks that require commuting. This could involve integrating features that account for travel time, providing recommendations for the best routes, or even syncing with live traffic data to adjust schedules as needed. By considering the logistics of commuting, the aim is to ensure users can plan their schedules more efficiently and realistically.