ROLE
Product Designer
TEAM
Independent Partner Project - 2 Designers
TIMELINE
Sep 2023 - Dec 2023
SKILLS
UX Research
Interaction Design
Visual Design
Prototyping
App Concepting
TOOLS
Figma
FigJam
Adobe Creative Suite
CONTEXT
What is StudyBud?
StudyBud is a mobile application designed to promote work-life balance and boost productivity among college students. Collaborating with a fellow UX enthusiast, this project marked our first UX project and venture into design. Our goal was to seamlessly blend social engagement with productivity tools to address the often overwhelming and high-pressure academic environment at Cornell.
THE PROBLEM
Balancing academics, personal wellbeing, and social life is stressful and demanding.
As a typical college student hoping to maintain both friendships and academic prowess, this is a conversation I’ve had one too many times. Amidst the hustle of classes, extracurriculars, and other commitments, it often seems impossible to sustain a healthy, productive, and sociable lifestyle at college. In fact, over 80% of college students in the U.S. have experienced frequent stresses in relation to the matter of work-life balance. Having repeatedly experienced these stresses and frustrations ourselves, we set out to on a goal to address the issue at hand: How might we design a product that improves our users’ confidence in managing work-life balance?
USER RESEARCH
How are college students currently managing their work-life balance?
We wanted to gain a better understanding of how students feel about navigating their academic and personal lives. After interviewing several Cornell students at various different locations across campus, we identified a few common grievances and key insights.
In analyzing user research, we developed two main user personas that best embodied our target audience’s needs, painpoints and goals.
IDEATION
Exploring key features to address the complexities of the college experience.
Upon taking our user research and noting key pain points to address, we brainstormed and mapped out the preliminary information architecture through which our product would be structured.
I created low-fidelity sketches to consolidate our potential ideas and envision the core features of the application. These included the Home Page, a Personal Profile, Productivity, Nutrition (which we later removed to narrow our project scope), and Friends.
ITERATION & USER TESTING
Designing with the goal of optimizing work-life balance & mutual productivity.
After sketching preliminary lo-fis, we created mid-fidelity wireframes to develop flows, build our vision of StudyBud, and accordingly, conduct user testing. During this process, I took ownership over the home, profile, and social sections of the application, ideating features that would enhance a user’s ability to stay productive while also having the option to stay connected with their social circle.
Home Page Iterations
When creating iterations of the home page, I explored various potential features through which StudyBud’s main functions could be highlighted. These included a mood tracker for the user’s personal reflection, calendar previews and focus statuses to encourage productivity, as well as a friends section with motivating interactions. Because the inclusion of all such features could be potentially overwhelming, I decided to narrow the home page scope to the following options.
I ultimately chose Option 3, where I removed the friend activity/notification feature, as these interactions could pose to be more distracting than encouraging. Furthermore, upon user testing, we found that the first two options were more visually dense and potentially confusing to navigate for users. Option 3 allows for a divide of user’s space between personal (calendar preview) and mutual (friends preview) productivity. In between these sections is the focus status feature, which allows the user to choose their state of focus and share it with friends, furthering a sense of reciprocal motivation.
Profile Iterations
While iterating on displays of the friend profile, we were left to analyze the extent to which leaving encouraging comments and reactions for a friend could maximize their productivity. The following are some designs created to showcase a friend’s profile, which a user may view to stay connected with their social space.
I decided to go with Option 3 because of its emphasis on finding matched availabilities and focus sharing with friends, rather than the potentially distracting interaction features. The preview to the matched availabilities feature of the app allows for insight into when the user is able to connect with friends while being mindful of both parties’ respective schedules, thus assisting the goal of work-life balance.
Friends List Iterations
The friends list is a comprehensive view of a user’s friends, where a user can click further to their friends’ profiles (iterated on above). Below are a few iterations, where we reflected on ways to incorporate this social feature without driving the application to be reminiscent of a traditional social-media platform.
I ultimately chose Option 3, because it best represented a social feature that prioritized the app’s dedication to mutual encouragement and productivity. Instead of placing more visual weight on friend names and profile pictures, this friends list view gives the user efficient access to the matched availabilities and focus features - both of which serve to motivate the user’s productivity while also leaving space for shared connection.
FINAL DESIGNS
After many rounds of ideation, iteration, and testing, we present StudyBud!
Design Kit
REFLECTIONS
A newfound meaning to communication, collaboration, and iteration.
The ideation and creation of StudyBud was my personal introduction to the world of product design, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Through this process, I learned the invaluable nature of communicating with my partner to brainstorm diverse possibilities and in turn, iterate until we accomplished our best work (special shoutout to Nitya, for all of our late dinners and productive, snack-filled nights in my dorm)!
If I had more time...
If time allows, I hope to conduct further research to expand our user base beyond the college student pool, focusing on a wider range of teenagers and adults. I would also like to explore features such as a more comprehensive progress tracker for users to see tangible results, as well as a gamified system with incentives for reaching certain progress milestones, to further encourage the goal of productive work-life balance.