Procrastination among students can be very common. In fact, Studies show us that around 80%–95% of college students engage in procrastination to some level, approximately 75% consider themselves to be procrastinators, and approximately 50% say that they procrastinate in a consistent basis and problematic manner.

Students can also experience academic burnout which can make procrastinating even more of a problem because when you're stressed out and overwhelmed, it can be much harder to muster up any energy to get things done and be productive. A study done on academic burnout show that 81.2% of the participants were at a low level of academic burnout and 18.8% were at a high level of academic burnout.

After reviewing the struggles that students can face with their studies, here is the solution that I came up with that can help target and address the pain points and frustrations that students struggle with in their studies.

It became obvious that stress and mental health can play a huge role with regards to a student's performance at school which is why having positivity, self-reflection and self-care aspects into the app is important.

After reviewing the user problems and solution for this app, I then moved on to creating a MoSCoW Analysis to manage the requirements of features that this app needed to have to serve its target users' needs and wants.

MoSCoW Analysis

I also did a Red Route Analysis to help to pinpoint what features users consider of importance to their journey on the app. Additionally, this helped me prevent any addition of unwanted/unnecessary features. 

Red Route Analysis

I then created the Information Architecture for this app to outline and detail the screens/content that the app will have and the categories of screens.

After that, I mapped out the User Flow of the journey the users will take when they first get started with the app as well as the User Flow for the primary action on this app which is adding a new task to the to-do list.

As you can see with the user flow of adding a new task, the app is forgiving and encouraging in nature because if you end up not finishing a task in your to-do list for the day, the app will ask you if you would like to move this task to a different day so you can try again which will help lessen the pressure on the user and will also help encourage and keep them accountable to continue on with their task for another day.

Branding/ UI Elements

For the branding colors, I originally thought to use just pure blue as blue symbolizes reliability and stability which fits the app's intentions and purpose, but also decided on using violet as it is quite similar to the color blue but also is more modern and gives the app a more fresh overall look while also making it calming to the eye to see.

The logo is a handmade paper airplane and the meaning/symbolism it holds with regards to this app is that the users can make an upward trajectory through their studies/life with progress made from their own hard work and efforts.

You can see below the evolution/progression of the app's homepage design from where we first started off with just the sketch, then the wireframe where I added all the features the app needed to address and serve our personas' struggles and frustrations. 

Assumption:

Homescreen A will resonate better with the users due to its monochromatic nature (use of only 1 color, violet) making it look quite similar to just a flat color and a flat color background will perform better due to its simple and uncomplicated nature which will also make it even easier for people to read the text written on it.

Homescreen B's use of different colors (cyan, light blue and purple) could potentially make it a bit risky to use as the different shades of colors could potentially introduce some issues with legibility of the text on top of the gradient colored background and could also be a bit distracting with it's design.

A/B Testing Results:

8 out of 10 individuals preferred the look and feel of homescreen B and found it more pleasing to look at and work with.

Conclusion:

Sometimes design may not always be about what 'technically' works better but rather about what actually resonates more with the users because if the design resonates with them, that is what will make them stay and continue to be users.

After the A/B testing, I then moved on to designing the rest of the UI screens of the app.

Have a look at Steadily's final UI design of its app screens.

Now that the app has been designed, I also designed a landing page that promotes the app and encourages pre-sign ups from future users who would like to use the app once its been launched.

Landing Page Design

Here is a video I made that walks you through to app and shows you how everything works.

App Walkthrough Video

Try out the app's prototype below made in Figma to explore the app yourself!

Figma Prototype Link