Project Overview

• Project Name: Focus&Grow
• Type: UX Design / Academic Support App / Self-Discipline Tool
• Platform: Mobile Application (iOS & Android Prototype)
• Duration: 6 Weeks
• Role:
  • UX Designer
  • Interaction Designer
  • User Researcher
  • Information Architect
  • Visual Designer
• Tools: Figma / Illustrator / Google Forms (Interview)
• Project Positioning: A mobile academic assistant designed to enhance learning efficiency, time management, and self-discipline for university students through intelligent task planning, goal tracking, and focus mode tools—bridging productivity and emotional motivation in one seamless app.

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Background

• In today’s academic environment, students face increasing challenges managing time, staying focused, and organizing their studies effectively. These issues are particularly acute for undergraduate and graduate students preparing for high-stakes goals such as graduate school entrance exams or dissertations.
• To address these common pain points, Focus & Grow was conceptualized as a mobile academic assistant app that empowers students to take control of their learning journey. It is designed to support:
  • Time management and task organisation
  • Goal setting based on the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound)
  • Progress tracking with visual feedback (charts, weekly summaries)
  • Learning focus via a one-click distraction-free mode
  • Daily reminders and milestone rewards to build discipline and maintain motivation

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Interview

• Background information on the interviewees

• Questions for interviews

• Summary of the interview

1. 1. Commonalities

• 2. Differences

• Interviews with participants from different educational backgrounds revealed common difficulties such as time management, task reminders, self-discipline, and resource search, as well as their preferences for academic tools and intended purposes for using learning assistance apps.
• Differences included discovering personal preferences such as the need for clean user interface design, and the need for learning goal setting and progress tracking features.

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Persona

• The process of creating personas for the creation of apps creates persona images that become specific representations of the target users by integrating interviews.
• “Haoyu Cai, a 21-year-old undergraduate student preparing for graduate school,” which helped to synthesize key attributes such as challenges with time management, resource search, and task reminders.
• This persona not only exemplifies the typical user, but also informs the design of the academic assistant app.

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Design Process

• App Sketch

• Flowchart of information architecture

• Low-fi wireframes

• Home Page

• Function Page

• Login Page

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Surface

• Color Scheme

• Button Styles

• Style

• High-fi wireframes

• Logo Design

• Figma Interaction Diagram

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High-fi Prototype

• Prototype display

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Challenges and expectations

• One of the main challenges throughout the design process was the need to strike a balance between providing useful features and data without overwhelming the user.
• In conclusion, the core purpose of designing the Focus&Grow app was to help students stay focused, organized, and motivated. Hopefully, the next step will be to focus on valuable user feedback to iterate the design to ensure that the app's functionality meets users' needs and expectations, ultimately creating a product that is both functional and visually appealing.