Plannr

A refreshed and smarter version of your average planner app.

Project Overview

The Problem

Balancing my own life and schedule is difficult, and I've noticed that my friends and roommates face similar challenges with the demands of school, work, and more.

The daily commute and constant schedule adjustments can be overwhelming, making it challenging for many to stick to their plans.

Role: UX/UI Researcher & Designer
Tools: Figma, Miro

The Solution

An intuitive and smart planner/calendar app that enables you to input your daily routines, that automatically considers real-time traffic, and facilitates seamless calendar synchronization with friends.

Task

Researching and designing a planner/calendar app that meets the needs of target users.

1. Research

Having experienced the challenges of planning firsthand, I aimed to dive deeper into understanding user experience. I initiated this process with secondary research and a competitive analysis to grasp the significance of planning in people's lives and explore how other apps address common planning issues.

My goals going into researching was figuring out:
→ How can we improve a simple calendar app ?
→ How can we take out the stress of planning everyday tasks and events ?

1.1 Secondary Research Results

People tend to use multiple different apps to plan

Calender/planning apps have an audience of ages 18-55

70% of American adults rely on some sort of digital calendar

As of 2023, there are 310M+ smartphone users in the US, virtually having a phone on them 24/7

1.2 Competitive Analysis

a table of top planner/calendar apps comparing their strengths and weaknesses

2. Empathize

I decided to collect some primary research by conducting user testing in order to create user personas for our target users.

2.1 User Interviews

I conducted 3 interviews with participants aged 18-22. While this was aimed towards younger college students intially, Plannr grew into an app aimed at all ages and groups that want to plan and manage their life easily.

Throughout the interview process, the participants were asked open-ended questions and asked to elaborate and explain their experiences around planning their everyday lives.

2.2 Interview Findings + Affinity Mapping

key points that stuck out from each user interview

affinity diagramming to sort and categorize all the user data to understand key trends

2.3 Key Takeaways

usability

calendar apps are time consuming and difficult to use

forgetting

easy to overplan because users forget their previous committments

tedious

hard to write out or input a daily agenda, reoccurring event features are frustrating to use

2.4 User Personas

Jeffery and Rose, the user personas that are kept in mind while designing Plannr

3. Ideate

Now that we've developed personas for our target users, we're going to move onto to how we may meet the user needs and eliminate pain points.

3.1 User Journey

Rose's user journey during a common scenario

3.2 Sketching

I sketched up some screens for the main screens and features of the app

3.3 Low-fidelity Wireframes

digitizalizing the sketch and laying out key foundational features

4. Design

4.1 High-fidelity Wireframes

left to right: weekly calendar, homepage, and monthly calendar

The homepage offers a clear view of daily tasks, quick links to the user's saved locations, and the user's calendar. A notable feature is the reminders on calendar tasks, indicating the ideal time for users to leave their current location to reach their events on schedule.

The calendar tab provides two viewing options: weekly and monthly events. Some weekly events are marked with a dotted line, indicating time allocated for preparation. Users can include their routines that they've pre-entered when scheduling events, helping to organize their day and reduce mental strain.

left to right: tasks, profile, and routines

The tasks tab includes both recurring and long-term tasks. User feedback revealed instances of forgetting to mark events. To address this, the "+" icon is easily visible on the task bar from anywhere in the interface.

Within the user's profile page, an option exists to play routines for quick reminders and guidance throughout their routine. Additionally, a friends feature enables users to synchronize calendars and find available times for shared activities.

5. Test + Final Design

Next up, I tested the initial design with some partipicants and collected their feedback to improve and iterate on the initial design

5.1 User Feedback

"Looks flat, like something is missing, but I'm not sure what"

"Nice app, but it feels old-fashioned, like it's missing a modern feel."

"Some of the information feels repetitive (location times + reminders)"

5.2 Final Design

The final iteration on Plannr focused on providing a cleaner, more modern, and cohesive feel, all while building on the important key features from the first design.

Check it out above !

6. Takeaway

What I Learned

interviewing

Conducting interviews enabled me to grasp and emphasize user stories and experiences relevant to my design. It was a great opportunity to practice and enhance my interviewing skills while engaging effectively with participants.

iterating

Design is an ongoing process, not a one-prototype-and-done deal. Iteration is key, continually enhancing both the design and user experience. This iterative approach has taught me to be my own critic, viewing my designs subjectively for continuous improvement.

prototyping

The journey from sketching to creating an interactive prototype helped me pick up and practice my organization, design, and Figma skills.

Reflection

Plannr is the first design sprint and project I've completed on my own. I've loved putting all my of my learning and UX/UI knowledge so far into action.

I've also started to find what works best for me as a designer and researcher in the endless sea of knowledge in the design world. I'm excited for this journey and continuing to create better and beautiful designs.

Cheers to the start ! ❤️

Check out my other projects