Juggle
An app to aid designers balance professional projects on online platforms, Juggle employs the use of a to-do list and calendar-based task system to start and manage projects with the utmost efficiency, This would then allow new designers to penetrate the market more efficiently and to better complete for online gigs during the Covid-19 endemic.
Click here to test it out!
We were first prompted with the specification that we design towards entrepreneurs who were looking to conduct business amidst the Covid-19 endemic. We then conducted research on different groups working people that had been affected by the pandemic, and particularly found that designers who were looking to start-up online design gigs and projects through online platforms. One of the most striking things about this, as designers ourselves is efficiency in the whole process and the need to reduce time between the 'planning' and 'doing' processes of a project.
Understanding
For this, we chose the domain of design entrepreneurs and worked towards finding ways in which we would be able to bring together the professional and personal halves together, while still maintaining the distinction, under one interface. Unlike most other to-do lists, this was a highly group-specific solution that we were working towards, and intended purely for allowing designers to be able to kick-off their projects without as little delay as possible, and allow them to see these projects through in a most time efficient manner.
Research
The figures above depict wireframe sketches I had created, as part of our ideation process. For this, I specifically focused on ways to integrate the two categories of "work" and "side hustle" sections in one window. Further, we explored different ways we would incorporate signifiers for the different types of tasks, within the calendar section. We also had the idea of expanding the app to encompass more than just project related items, and possible into more general day-today task usage as well.
Issues
Essentially what we were looking to do was for the designers to be able to quickly start on a new design process with a a pre-set framework for each new project that they would engage in. Upon creating a project, it would appear as a stack of triangles that the users could then toggle along to navigate through different projects. This would then present a set of individual tasks that the user would complete, contributing to furthering the completion of the project, in bite-sized modules.
User Flow
During the user-testing for the dashboard and to-do list section, I found that focusing on conventional methods of signifying to users based on colours (red, yellow, green) in tandem with time were most effective at letting users know where to focus on while using the app. The usage of dynamic design through 'crossing out animations' and a constantly updating percentage gauge of tasks completion furthered users's engagement of the app, as well. The prototype featured a calendar of each project that would add tasks relating to the project on certain time-spreads indicating, by the usage of colour, when the task was meant to be completed.
Prototype
While we intitially planned the app to be a 'jack-of-all to-do lists', we quickly realised that it was better to stick with one particular frame of development. Thus we moved away from the idea of incorporating a general to-do list for day-to-day tasks that the users might find it easy to do, such as 'purchasing the groceries' for example, and stuck to reserving the to-do functionality for professional design project usage. While we did understand that it would be a good idea to bring such a functionality to be all in one place. We felt that it would remove from the professional nature of how the app was intended as well as it not being viable for the timeframe that the project was planned in. I was specifically tasked with the design and functionality of the dashboard and to-do sections of the app. In order to achieve this, there was a greater emphasis on signifiers in order to convey meaningful data to the user in a quick and efficient manner. The presentation of a clean interface would also help in the delivery of the information, a style I took inspiration from the style of the Duolingo application and implemented it within the style of my areas of design within the app.