Pitt Mobile Calendar

Role

Product Designer

Duration

2 weeks

 

Pitt Calendar is the calendar feature in Pitt Mobile, allowing Pitt students to plan out their days and enjoy college life.

Context

Pitt Mobile is the official app for the University of Pittsburgh. The Pitt Calendar serves for students to

  • access their schedules, grades, and assignments easily, and meanwhile

  • improve Pitt students’ experience.

The Challenge

How can students manage their schedules on one platform?

Many college students are struggling with multiple apps to manage their lives, including both academic and personal ones. Most school calendar features only support present and plan out schoolwork, such as courses and assignments. However, college students also need help to handle their lives outside the classroom. Under this circumstance, many are forced to split their academic and personal lives due to the lack of a comprehensive schedule feature powered by the university.

I. Research

 

01. Research Problem

How do Pitt students manage their daily schedules currently?

 

02. Method

User Interviews

I conducted multiple interviews asking how they use the schedule feature on Pitt Mobile and how they plan out their days generally to gain insights into their current user experience.

 

"My primary purpose of using Pitt Mobile is to check my class schedule, like when is my next assignment due."

"I use another app, Canvas, to see my class schedule and check out other things like meetings for my group projects on iPhone's Reminder.

"I don't think I do scheduling…I only write down some important dues on my desk calendar."

"I turned on notification for multiple apps, like Canvas, Handshake, Google Tasks…."

03. Personas

I created two personas based on my user research to understand my users' needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals for following design work.

Screen Shot 2021-03-31 at 3.14.32 AM.png
 

Insights & Key findings

 

Finding01

Writing down all the tasks is only part of scheduling, and the more important are planning and implementing .

Students reported that they have difficulty in time management. Most of the time, they still struggle with achieving their objectives on time, even though they record all the tasks. They need assistance with actual planning out and execution.

 

Finding02

For college students, they need to plan out their academic and personal lives simultaneously.

For college students, “How to plan out a day“ is one of the most common issues in their daily lives because going to college is the first time for most of them to live independently. They are in need of assist with handling not only the academic schedule but also their personal lives.

II. Define

 

The problem

What services can Pitt Mobile Calendar provide to help students plan out and enhance their college lives?

 

Pain Points

 

01.Weak notification for class schedule

heir majority of tasks involve the issue of commute. Unfortunately, the current notification does not support advanced features that count commute time.

02. Distraction when working on a tasks

Most students are easily distracted by their surroundings, especially the internet and mobile phones. Due to that, they have problems with finishing their tasks on time.

 

03. Disorganization of schedule

04. Lack of opportunity exploration

College students spend a lot of time on socialization because college life is when people build their social connections and explore life goals. Therefore, students tend to actively reach out to new opportunities and activities to enrich their college lives.

Most students are not good at the organization of schedules. As a result, they have problems increasing their efficiency and productivity by categorizing and prioritizing tasks.

 

Design objective

 

01. Optimize class schedule

02. Assist time management

03. Incorporate socialization

  • Improve the user interface of calendar

  • Advance notification feature

  • Emphasize on prioritization

  • Help remove distraction

  • Allow students to explore opportunities of socializing

  • Merge academic and personal lives

III. Ideation&Design

01. Solution A: Optimize class schedule

Since students use this calendar primarily for viewing schedules and coursework, this solution focuses on schedule view, coursework details, and notifications.

🗓 Schedule

Notification

📃 Details

 
 

USERFLOW

By Figma

 
 
 
 
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Wireframes

By Balsamiq

 

Hi-Fidelity

By Figma

Flexible view mode

This Calendar clearly displays students’ daily schedules with a weekly view and daily view two modes. Students can easily review their plans on daily basis and for weekly summary.

 

Detailed task info

This Calendar also allow students to see the details of their courses and assignments as their primary needs for the Pitt Mobile. It helps users to review and plan out their academic life easily.

 

Advanced notification

This advance notification allows students to customize their notification based on their needs and preferences. They can include their commute time in their preparation for tasks.

 
 

02. Solution B: Assist time management

Since Students have a lot of dues and work need to do, this solution focuses on helping students to organize and plan out their days.

📋 Agenda

‼️ Prioritization

🎯 Distraction-Free

 

USERFLOW

By Figma

 
Screen Shot 2021-03-30 at 6.15.07 PM.png
 
Screen Shot 2021-03-30 at 5.47.48 PM.png
 

Wireframes

By Balsamiq

 

Hi-Fidelity

By Figma

 

Flexible view mode

This Calendar clearly displays students’ daily schedules with a calendar view and List view, which allows students to choose either have a big picture of their plan or concentrate on each tasks.

 

Prioritization

This Calendar allows students to add various features to one task, such as priority, deadline, and category. Users can easily organize and concentrate on their schedule by sorting.

 

Add new tasks

This calendar allows users to add new tasks to their academic schedules. Specifically, they can choose to add a due, which has a specific end time point; or start a new event that lasts for a period.

 

Helper of Concentration

This FOCUS function aims to help users to concentrate on one particular task. It allows users to block distractions from other apps like social media for a chosen interval, thereby focusing on the task itself.

 
 

03. Solution C: Incorporate socialization

Since students want to socialize and reach out for opportunities, this solution focuses on assisting in providing nearby activities to schedule their leisure time.

🗓 Schedule

🧘‍♀️ Activities

 

USERFLOW

By Figma

 
 
Screen Shot 2021-03-30 at 5.39.20 PM.png
 
Screen Shot 2021-03-30 at 6.34.29 PM.png
 

Wireframes

By Balsamiq

 

Hi-Fidelity

By Figma

 

A Merge of personal and academic schedules

This calendar not only presents users’ academic schedule but also include social activities. Students can review their weekly schedule at a glance and then find availability for participating in extracurricular activities.

 

Exploration of opportunities

This calendar allows users to discover nearby activities by simply choosing a time block from their schedules. They can also use filters to make the exploration process more efficient.

 

Direct access to events

Students can directly sign up for their exciting activities and then add them to their schedule on this calendar instead of switching between multiple platforms. This will rescue users from the troublesome work of incorporating peroneal life into campus life.

 
 

04. Pros and Cons

 

Solution A

 

Pros

It has details about each course and assignment

It has special notifications(TimeToLeave), which allows users to have better time management.

Cons

Schedule and Agenda are limited to schoolwork

It doesn’t connect with the community and doesn’t satisfy the need for socialization.

Solution B

 

Pros

It provides an organized and prioritized agenda.

Users can add and edit events other than schoolwork.

It provides a FOCUS feature to help users concentrate. 

Cons

It doesn’t include information about courses and grades.

It doesn’t connect with the community and doesn’t satisfy the need for socialization.

Solution C

 

Pros

It closely connects with the Pitt community and provides information about nearby activities and events.

Users can easily schedule their leisure time by choosing a particular blank time block.

Cons

It doesn’t provide detailed information about each course and assignment.

Users cannot add or edit events.

It doesn’t facilitate time managing and organizing.

IV. Final Product

 

The final product is the integration of Solution B and Solution C.

WHY

Users’ key needs are view schedule, time management and organization, and socialization. Solution B does a better job of assisting users in having better time management and organization by prioritizing agenda and FOCUS feature. Although Solution B does not provide information about courses and grades, students usually access them via Canvas, which all US colleges use. Solution C provides an essential feature of socialization and connects with the Pitt community. The combination of Solution B and Solution C will satisfy all three needs.

Delivery

Experience 1: Prioritization

To help users improve their time management and organization skills, Pitt Calendar allows users to prioritize individual event/due and the whole agenda, facilitating their efforts to accomplish multiple tasks.

Experience 2: Socialization

To bring the Pitt community up to users in their pocket and enhance their college experience, Pitt Calendar allows them to discover and participate in nearby activities and events to schedule their leisure time wisely.

Experience 3: Customization

To better facilitate users to organize and plan out their daily lives, Pitt Calendar allows users to add and edit their to-dos, including events with a certain deadline or duration.

Experience 4: Concentration

To assist users in increasing productivity by resisting distractions and focusing on the present, Pitt Calendar allows users to stay away from their phones temporarily.

 
final focus (1)4.gif
 

IV. Reflection

“Rome wasn't built in a day; optimal solution didn’t come from one trial.”

This project gives me valuable experience in ideating and designing various solutions to one problem. When designing Pitt Calendar, I realized that it is challenging to produce the best solution to a large scope. Different perspectives or focuses will generate different designs. It is always a wise choice to break down the problem first. Additionally, practicing and trying are the best ways to learn.