Switch-it App

Switch-it is a task management app to help users organize their work and personal life. The goal was to design a user-centered product for daily commuters.

Responsibilities

This is a personal project. I craft UX/UI experiences end-to-end, from concept, research, wireframes high-fidelity player flows to the prototypes

Project Type

Personal project

Timeframe

2020

Category

Task management app

Deliverable

iOS app prototype

Research

To uncover the needs and frustrations of commuters, I conducted interviews with NJ Transit passengers at New York Penn Station.

Intercept discussion guide:

The interview responses revealed the following needs and frustrations:

Needs

Commuters want commuting to be more enjoyable

Commuters want themselves to be more productive while commuting

Frustration

Commuting is troublesome

Ideation

Everyone commutes. In the US, the average one-way commute time is 27 minutes which may add up to 4.5 hours for 5 weekdays and over 200 hours (nearly 9 days) per year.

Meanwhile, people get different social roles to play and compatible demands to resolve. Some have issues organizing different aspects of life which is what we call the work-life conflict. Long commutes can make the conflict worse. Researches keep revealing that the commute time is closely related to the reduction in job satisfaction, leisure time satisfaction and mental health.

(Source: U.S. Census Bureau)

Research from Harvard Business School shows that people who get mentally prepared for the transition into their next roles has less work-life conflict and suffer less from the negative impacts of a long commute.

To explore the best solution, I generated 20 different ideas in response to the prompt.

Winning Solution

Switch-it is a task management app designed to help users seamlessly switch between different roles and better balance work and personal life.

Persona

I synthesized insights from interview participants to create a research-based persona.

User Journey

Based on the persona, I created a user journey to serve as a reference for the design process in the following steps.

Wireframes

UI Iterations

To balance the visual distinction between work and personal modes while maintaining a clear information hierarchy, I explored three UI design variations and narrowed them down to the strongest direction.