Creating a Buddy to Help You Study
Authors
James Hu — Contributor
Pedro Pires — Contributor
Lynn Nguyen — Contributor
Thomas Nguyen — Contributor
The Problem
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, universities have transitioned to predominantly online learning platforms and hybrid formats. This shift has proven to be difficult for individuals with ADHD, who currently make up 10% of the population. For many students with ADHD, being isolated working on a device for hours at a time, going from lectures to group meetings to online assignments, has made completing everyday tasks efficiently much more difficult. From our user research, we found that the commonly cited issues with online learning for students with ADHD are increased difficulty keeping up with their studies, meeting new friends to study with, and staying on task.
Our Solution
Introducing StudyBuddy, our innovative app that provides a fun and interactive way for students with ADHD to better manage their time and assignments while also staying accountable and meeting new friends. Unlike traditional task manager apps, StudyBuddy motivates users to regularly use the app by allowing them to take care of their own virtual pet through their completion of planned tasks. The user inputs tasks that when they are completed help take care of their own virtual pet and give them rewards. Users can also find, add, and text other users so they meet peers they can study with. Lastly, StudyBuddy has a focus mode that locks their device and blocks out distractions until they choose to end it. With our app, you will have better time management, feel less overwhelmed, and enjoy yourself while you’re at it!
Our Design Process (Paper prototype, testing process, results)
We conducted three usability tests with our paper prototype and made sure that at least one of our participants was part of our target group. We asked each participant to execute various tasks related to our two primary tasks (planning one’s tasks and finding peers to study with) and observed how they would execute them within our paper prototype. Some of the example tasks we asked them to complete include adding/editing a task and accepting/sending a friend request. While the users navigated through the prototype to complete the assigned tasks, we asked them to talk through their thought process, explaining why they performed or expected certain actions.
Overall, users found the ability to add a new task intuitive and accessible. One suggestion was moving the Add Task (+) button outside of the navigation bar since it seemed awkwardly placed. We ended up moving it to the bottom right corner of the Home screen to make it more visible and follow the conventional placement of floating action buttons. Interacting with friends in the social tab also went smoothly, but one user stated their confusion with how to navigate back to the home screen. To fix this, we changed the name of the “Tasks” tab on the navigation bar to “Home” to make it more clear to users. The most salient feedback that we received was that the user initially had no way to set deadlines for tasks or view future and incomplete tasks. We addressed this by adding an “Add Deadline” section to the “Add Tasks” screen and creating tabs for viewing current and overdue tasks. Users could use the arrows in the current tasks tab to view tasks for the current day and future tasks.
Digital Mockup
From our research, we identified two key tasks that guided our work. Our design supports these tasks in the following ways:
Task 1: Planning one’s day and daily tasks
Through the use of tasks, users are able to plan their days and keep themselves accountable for what they still need to do. Our app allows users to create tasks with a name, deadline, priority, frequency, and color. This lets them assign tasks that are descriptive of what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how important it is. The use of tasks is further incentivized as users earn rewards through their completion and if they don’t complete it, it gets added to a list of ‘Overdue Tasks.’
Task 2: Finding similar people to study with and keeping them accountable
The social tab gives users the ability to keep in touch with current friends or find new ones. Our app supports features such as messaging and group focus mode so you and your friends can focus together. We also have a “Find Friends” feature which can be used to find a user through their username or find strangers through the list of random users given as you enter the tab. Through messaging and focus time together, users are able to foster friendships as well as keep each other accountable on their tasks.
After creating our preliminary digital mockup, we received some constructive feedback about a potential color mismatch in our “Add Task” screen. Since the priority options are color-coded and “Add Priority” comes right before “Add Color”, the user might think that picking the task color might influence the color of the priority when they are actually two separate things. To better communicate this distinction, we changed “Add Color” to “Add Task Color” to specify that it is a way to color-code and categorize tasks. We also moved the “Add Task Color” section to the end so that it is not directly before or after the priority section and for all the deadline/date sections to be grouped together.
You can check out our final digital prototype here!
Summary/Conclusion
Overall, we have identified that individuals with ADHD have been having a hard time with the shift colleges have made to predominantly online learning. With a significantly larger number of distractions it has been hard for them to stay on task and complete their work. Therefore, we have created StudyBuddy, an app that allows you to create tasks and plan your days while meeting friends and taking care of their virtual pet. We hope individuals with ADHD will use our app to better plan their days and keep themselves accountable for meeting their goals.
