Colleges in the United States regularly enroll students who are not academically equipped or motivated to do college-level work. Many of these students exhibit insufficient word recognition, limited phonics skills, and laborious reading rates whether or not they have reading disabilities.
During this 1-week design sprint, I researched, designed, and tested a concept for a speed-reading & productivity app aimed at post-secondary students that would help them stay motivated through the semester, set attainable reading goals, and complete their work on time.
Team: Solo 😎 / Roles: UX Research & Design / Tools: Figma, Pen & Paper, Google Sheets / Research Methods: User Interviews, Ethnographic Research, Competitive Analysis, Journey Mapping, Persona Development, Usability Testing, Heuristic Evaluation / Timeline: 1 design sprint
The Problem
Assigned readings are a major part of the learning experience — they often make up for what wasn’t covered during lectures. However, for those not in the habit of reading large amounts every week, keeping up with these readings along with other schoolwork can be challenging. Not only is it time-consuming, but continually using active reading methods to retain the information can be draining.
Overarching goals
- Research and observe what students currently use to manage their course readings, determine their pain points, and question existing assumptions that may exist about their needs
- Determine opportunities for improvement
- Develop a solution that helps students stay motivated, do readings efficiently, & stay on schedule
- Design through user empathy & create a solution that is accessible and intuitive
- Test & iterate solution
Research
45% of United Kingdom students report feeling stressed by their coursework, citing a feeling of unpreparedness for finals and midterms being the top source of stress.
I started my research by talking to my peers about their experience and frustrations with finishing schoolwork and assigned readings on time and to the best of their ability. I followed up with 5 formal interviews with 5 students ranging from ages 18–23.
Interview Goals
- Understand their current experience with staying on top of their work and readings
- Find out what methods and tools they use to keep up with their work and readings
- Determine their main pain points and the frustration they face with their current methods
- Bonus: Advice they would have for other students!
Key insights
- With their busy schedules, many students struggle with time management. They don’t know how to efficiently plan out their schedules and struggle with accurately blocking out time for assignments or readings.
- Mid-semester burnout and the resulting lack of motivation takes a major toll on all students’ productivity levels. Students give up on readings later on the year despite the benefit they would have on their learning experience, citing lack of time and motivation. Getting together with fellow peers to work helps but is not always an option.
- With digital learning the new norm, most students have their textbooks, notes, and more just a click away. However, this also allows distraction to be just as accessible — many students fall victim to being drawn to social media when their initial intention was to get work done.
Meet Rey!
Rey is a fourth-year commuter student majoring in neuroscience and psychology. Most of her time is spent studying, participating in extracurricular activities, or volunteering her time to help with applications for grad school. As a senior, she has also recently started on her undergrad dissertation, putting even more reading & research on her workload. Rey is a hard-working student who’s always looking for new ways to boost her productivity, but can also become demotivated when she doesn’t reach the high standards she sets for herself.
“I need to finish all my assignments and readings, make detailed notes, and study them to the best of my ability. It just seems like there isn’t enough time — I don’t know if I can do this.”
🙁 Rey has 4 main pain points
- “Seeing all the work left to be done is really overwhelming and makes me feel unmotivated.”
- “Although I try to stay organized, I sometimes forget what I’ve already finished, or where I last read up to. I end up doing some readings all over again.”
- “Some stuff takes longer than others but I don’t realize until I’m actually doing it — so either I block out too little time or too much.”
- “I always get distracted when reading on my phone — whether that be a social media notification, games, or a text. I end up not getting anything done.”
🤗 Here’s how we can help her
- A screen highlighting her previous progress and achievements to motivate Rey. Gamify the experience to make it more enjoyable (i.e. earn points as she reads).
- Provide clear information about a document’s completion status (i.e. read/unread/in-progress). Allow her to bookmark/highlight/take notes within the app.
- Ask Rey to input her reading speed to accurately inform her of how long each reading will take. Help her save time by providing a way for her to read faster while maintaining retention (i.e. proven guided reading methods).
- An in-app focus timer requiring her to stay in the app for its duration to prevent distraction.
User Journey Map
My interviews helped me gain a better understanding of the main type of user, their goals, pain points, and needs. I created a general user journey for Rey to help guide me during the ideation and design process to find areas in the experience for improvement.
Competitive Analysis
Before ideating, I looked into existing solutions in the problem space and tools participants mentioned in the interviews, such as Google Drive/Docs, Forest, and Spreeder.
✅️ Problems being addressed:
- Accessibility: Files are made accessible on all devices using Google Drive
- Free, ease of use: Most apps in this problem space are free, secure, and easy to use
- Minimized distraction: Distraction is minimized using the in-app timer using Forest
- Organization: Staying organized is made easy with Google’s file management system and the ability to prioritize files by ‘starring’ them
- Efficient: Time is saved using the speed-reading function in the Spreeder app
❌ Problems being ignored:
- Tracking progress: No way to track their reading progress or see their previous reading history/activity besides general timers
- Time blocking: No way to see approximately how long reading a certain file will take
- Separate systems: Lots of back and forth required between different tools being used for file management, reading, distraction prevention, tracking time, scheduling, etc.
- Reading optimization: Google Drive/Docs not optimized for reading filetypes besides Google Docs (i.e. no way to bookmark/highlight/take notes on PDFs)
- Primarily digital, still distraction prone: Due to the digital nature of all these solutions, opportunities for distraction are not entirely eliminated
Ideation
I organized all the ideas I had for potential features into an affinity map and highlighted the main themes. Then I consolidated them into an impact/effort prioritization matrix to decide on which ones to actually implement. I then decided on the following solutions:
- A page dedicated to the user’s achievements and rewards earned from their progress
- An in-app timer to prevent distraction, similar to that in the Forest app
- A file management system with a speed-reading feature built-in, as well as the ability to take notes/highlight/bookmark.
- A calendar/schedule page optimized for getting readings with upcoming due dates completed efficiently.
Design Principles
- Usability first: Ensure UI follows Apple Human Interface Guidelines
- Breathable: Don’t overwhelm user, use white space to keep the design clutter-free
- Calm & welcoming: Use a calm, welcoming colour scheme to uplift the user.
- Welcoming, simple language: Use casual, uplifting, and personal copywriting to motivate the user.
- Reading focused: Simple and intuitive, make the user spend more time on reading than learning the ins and outs of the app
Testing
After developing some mid-fidelity prototypes, I conducted user testing for a few main use cases on 3 users. A few improvements I made were:
- Personalized copywriting to make the overall experience more welcoming
- Moved Reading History to Focus Timer tab — users expected it to be there more than the Goals/Achievements page
- Subdued colour scheme to be less straining to eyes & changed it to be more consistent overall
- Increased user control — added quick undo option when deleting a newly drafted document
- Moved button to add a new file to the bottom right of the screen for easier access (versus top right) in Library tab
Design
1. Stay organized & save time
Prioritize readings, speed-read to save time, bookmark and take notes in-app.
2. Challenge yourself & stay focused
Use the in-app timer to avoid going on other apps during your study/reading sessions. Stay in the app for the entire duration to gain extra points!
3. Track your progress & plan accurately
See how much time you need to block out to finish readings and quickly check your reading activity to stay on track and view your progress.
4. Set goals & unlock achievements as you read
Read every day to continue daily streaks, reach your goals, and gain points to level up!
Citations
Capotosto, L., EdM. (2017). Research to Practice. Retrieved October 3, 2020, from http://www.collegetransition.org/promisingpractices.research.fluencyproblems.html
Conlon, E. & Sanders, M. (2011). The reading rate and comprehension of adults with impaired reading skills or visual discomfort. Journal of Research in Reading,34: 193–214. doi: 10.1111/j.1467–9817.2009.01421.x
Manno, B. V. (1996). The swamp of college remedial education. Academic Questions, 9(3), 78–82. doi:10.1007/bf02683063
