SmartPlanner

hybrid productivity app

PROJECT OVERVIEW

SmartPlanner is a productivity app that combines all of your practical productivity apps into one. Many people have a handful of productivity apps, so why not combine them all? SmartPlanner combines your event planning app, calendar app, and checklist app. Other than being a top competitor in the productivity space, SmartPlanner provides the highest level of practicality and efficiency.

PROBLEM

A lot of productivity apps are either very minimal or don’t offer a good user experience. Users want practical and efficient productivity apps. That’s also the other problem. Why do you need multiple productivity apps? No one wants three half-baked productivity apps when you only need one in the first place.

OBJECTIVE

Design a productivity app that allows for the highest levels of practicality and efficiency.

DELIVERABLES

Competitor analysis
Information architecture
Wireframes

Prototype
Usability Testing
Final mockups

THE DISCOVERY

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

My colleague and I really wanted to make SmartPlanner something special – something people would actually use on a daily basis. With that, we took to the app store and downloaded some of the top productivity apps. We ended up downloading Google Calendar, Microsoft To-Do, and Any.do.

After playing around with these three apps and extensively reading user reviews on the app stores, it was clear that users wanted something more sophisticated, when it came to the features, which ultimately would make the app less restrictive. Another thing that we and the other users touched on was that some user flows were confusing and lacked attention. As users ourselves, we highly agreed with those statements and took immediate action. Also, as a kicker, we found out that users want and rely heavily on home screen widgets.

THE FRAMEWORK

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

SmartPlanner is a very sophisticated app; however, the information architecture is not. The sitemap is actually super concise. As a UX Designer, of course I’ve heard the famous phrase: “Keep it simple, stupid.” SmartPlanner is literally that – simple, which ultimately results in the practicality and efficiency we aimed for.

SKETCHES, WIREFRAMES, & PROTOTYPES

It only took two sketches to get SmartPlanner going. From just those two sketch, mid-fidelity wireframes were created for the MVP. The app practically designed itself. After very few iterations, we started designing high fidelity mockups, which crafted our prototype for our first round of usability testing.

THE REFINEMENT

USABILITY TESTING

My colleague and I conducted a moderated-remote test. We created a Google Form with steps, guiding our testers through the MVP prototype. The form also consisted of some preference tests to finalize some various design choices (some shown below).

Overall, the first round of usability testing went super well. We received significantly more compliments than constructive remarks, which resulted in very few and minimal iterations. People loved it so much that they were already asking for release dates. SmartPlanner was in a solid state.

CONCLUSION

PROJECT WINDUP

SmartPlanner is by far my best work. I’m very proud of it. I truly believe it will change the way people plan and organize their lives and hopefully it will be in the hands of many one day. SmartPlanner took about four months to casually make.

FUTURE IDEAS

Add a category or tags feature
Upon development, add Google and Apple calendar synchronization

WHAT I'VE LEARNED

Listen to your users, because all it takes is one upcoming competitor to overthrow you, with your own research. UX is fairly black and white sometimes.