Leon Heng
UX/UI Designer
Hobby Tracking App:
Make Time
A mobile app concept for busy individuals looking to make time for their leisure activities
Design Brief
Make Time is a mobile app concept designed around helping users make time for their leisure activities. Given that we all live in a fast-paced society, people now find it hard to make time to either improve their lifestyle or engage in leisure activities. We have been through an exceptional time during the quarantine period.
Research has shown that there is an average increase in the amount of time per day we spent on entertainment, socializing, etc. Many have associated this use of free time to learn more about skills and hobbies.
However, will this situation stick? What will happen when we go back to our daily routine after the pandemic has been contained?
Duration
2 weeks
Individual Project
Role
UX Researcher
UX/UI Designer
Skills
User Research
Sketching
Wireframing
Prototyping
Tools
Figma
Adobe Illustrator
Miro
Discover
Define
Develop
Deliver
User
Research
User Persona
Problem Statement
Ideation
Wireframing
Prototyping
Initial Research and Insights
Firstly, interviews were conducted with participants between 20-40 years with varying experiences of having or picking up a hobby during the quarantine period during COVID-19.
Some of the insights gathered are:
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Most of the interviewees, when restricted during quarantine, engage in new activities, picked up new hobbies.
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Most of them, due to having more free time, do those activities more frequently.
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More than half of them have slowly decreased the amount of time they invested in these activities after going back to work, with a lack of time being the main barrier.
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Time management seem to be the biggest barrier, followed by the mental effort to invest in said activities after their work & life routines.
Problem Statement
"
Users need to quickly and decidedly set aside time, in order to invest it in the things that they really enjoy doing
"
Design Direction
While focusing on helping users in their need to set aside time for their chosen activities, the main aim is to decrease the time that the users might require to setting aside time for said activities (Time Management), and in order to do that, the mobile app will have to provide suggestions about what they can do in that time, so that the users do not have to invest any form of mental effort.
Also, the gamification of the process and the engagement of their community will play an important role. They will allow users to find instant suggestions and challenges amongst their community. These coupled with the metrics that are being logged, users should feel that this concept if efficient and intuitive, while being fun at the same time.
Wireframes
With the solutions in mind, extensive wireframing was carried out in order to plan out the various screens and components needed. The priorities to establish early were the activities page, users' personal feed, and the starting an activity process.
Features
Starting an Activity
The activity starting process is the focal point of the project. The user could declares their specific interests during the on-boarding process. From here, they would first set how much free time they currently have, before the app starts providing suggestions for activities based on the time they have set. Upon starting an activity, instructions in both written and video formats are provided to allow users to not get confused on what to do.
Getting Social
The final purpose of the app was the ability to connect and challenge other users within their community (friends and family). While the current concept is not that established and robust as other social media platforms, the main purpose is to allow the users to find and link up with a friend who is willing to engage in an activity together with them. The following screens display how users will plan and communicate with their community.
Additional screens displaying the user's personal page, as well as the activity suggestion page
Personal Feed & Activity Suggestions
Reflections
If I had more time, I would work more on the user flow, as users demonstrated some form of confusion when starting an activity. Another feature would be to further expand and refine on the user's personal profile page for a more personalized feel.
This was my first time working on a mobile app design concept. Albeit being very inexperienced, I worked non-stop for 2 weeks, learnt and implemented many things in terms of user research, design practices, and product design mindset. It has taught me to be less assuming when it comes to user research. I don't know about others, but for a first timer designing a mobile app, I would have a picture of what I am going to design, what features I might include, even before conducting the user research. In the end, the results turned out vastly different and so much more insightful from what I had previously expected.