ux research & wireframing for an iPhone productivity app

The Problem

People feel like their time is easily wasted by distracting apps as soon as they open their phone when they could be using it to work towards a more worthy goal.

The Insight

People don’t want to use their phone less, they want to use their phone more productively.

The Solution

Build an app that allows phone users to focus the time they spend on their phones with customizable categories and time limits for their apps.

The Methods

User interviews conducted with iPhone users about their phone habits and goals to inform wireframe designs of a productivity app.

Tools Used

Sketch

InVision

draw.io

My Role

UX Research

UX Design

Project Timeline

6 weeks

Industry

Mobile applications

take back your time: phone productivity app

bringing the spirit of the west online

Overview

In July 2019, I completed General Assembly's User Experience Design Circuit. In the course, I chose a topic I was interested in learning more about: intentional technology use. My initial instinct was to help people use their phone less. But through research and testing I discovered another problem people care about more. My research showed people are actually interested in using their phone more productively.

PROJECT PROCESS & DETAILS

USER RESEARCH
At the beginning of this project, I thought I would build something to help people use their phone less. I began creating user journey maps, target audience profiles, and brainstorming key features that would be necessary for a "less time on your phone" product. I went into user research with questions around how users currently used their phones and how they would ideally want to use their phones.

User interviews were conducted with 4 participants, ages 22-32, who used both iPhone and Android phones. As I conducted interviews, I heard something different from what I originally assumed:

DATA ANALYSIS
Through affinity mapping, planning out user flows, and storyboarding potential design solutions, I was able to start designing a solution with features that users would need in a productivity app. I added customizable categories where you could add your own apps, the ability to add multiple time limits and boundaries to the same category of apps, and reports where users could see which categories they spend the most time on while using their phones.

I then created low fidelity prototypes, which I tested with users.

DESIGN TESTING & ITERATION
Testing was conducted with three users using the paper prototypes. Feedback was implemented from the testing into the paper prototypes, which were then transferred into high-fidelity prototypes using Sketch. This prototype was again tested with users using task scenarios to ensure the app was intuitive and they could accomplish what they needed to do. After many iterations and rounds of testing, the final version was prototyped in InVision.