Jointly.
A mobile app prototype that aims to help students/working professionals increase their productivity by utilizing accountability partners.
8 min read
Visual Design
Mobile
UX Research
My Role
Team Leader, UX Designer, and UX Researcher.
Duration
8 weeks
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Problem
Students struggle with procrastination 🕰️
Many young adults struggle with procrastination and lack of accountability for personal goals, leading to low productivity and difficulty in achieving milestones. Existing productivity apps do not effectively address this issue, resulting in low user retention and limited success in goal achievement.
Solution
Accountability Partners bridge the gap 🤝
Jointly aims to fill this gap with accountability partners to encourage consistent progress and goal attainment among collegesstudents. By leveraging the support and motivation from peers, Jointly aims to increase productivity and help users achieve their goals effectively.
Find your accountability partner 🔍
Having an accountability partner increases your chances of success in achieving a goal by 95%.
Organized hub for note taking 🗒️
Take notes and keep track of short and long-term goals. You can also share your notes and progress with your accountability partner.
Check-in with your partner 🤝
Regular check-ins with your partner keep you focused and on track, creating a supportive system that reinforces your commitment, motivation, and keeps you on track toward your goals.
Keep track of your tasks. ✍🏼
Customize your daily, weekly, or monthly calendar to ensure that you have a place to manage and track all of your tasks at a quick glance.
Idea Synthesis
Why do we procrastinate?
Everyone procrastinates from time to time, and college students are no exception. During my freshman year orientation, I asked upperclassmen if they could go back in time and do something different during their time in college in relation to academics; what would it be? Almost everyone said, “managing my time better and not procrastinating on school assignments.”
Literature Review
That got me thinking about how common procrastination is among college students….
I wanted to do some more whitepaper research and synthesize academic sources to help define the product’s vision and niche and also explore the prevalence of procrastination. We focused on researching goal setting, accountability, and procrastination topics.
50% of undergraduates procrastinate
Procrastination is a significant issue for working adults and college students, and it is estimated that about “20-25% of all men and women procrastinate". This statistic continues to grow when looking at college students. It is estimated that ”50% of undergraduate students“ procrastinate their work in some capacity.
95% of people meet their goal with an accountability partner
Accountability partners help people achieve their goals because people are 65% more likely to meet a goal after making their goals public. But their chances of success increase to 95% when they have a specific accountability partner to report to". The article states that many prioritize work tasks over personal goals since individuals rarely have accountability for their personal goals, unlike professional goals.
Only 19% of people stick to their long-term goals
It is incredibly difficult for people to set actionable goals for themselves to accomplish. In fact, “one week into the new year, 77% of participants had maintained their resolutions; the number decreased to 55% after one month, 43% after three months, 40% after six months, and 19% at the two-year follow-up" (Oscarsson et al.2020)
Literature Review
So, what is the solution?
It is pretty clear that procrastination, especially among college students, is very prevalent, and most people also don’t set realistic and achievable goals. However, I found that people prioritize work tasks over personal tasks because they have due dates and accountability. That got me thinking about how people would be more likely to achieve their personal goals if they had some form of accountability.
Initial Problem Discovery
Jointly 🤝 Paired Accountability
The current state of productivity and the goal-setting app space has focused primarily on adding features that help users organize and schedule their impending goals or tasks. Existing products/services fail to address the long-term retention of user interest and do not use other features, such as accountability partners, to increase retention. Jointly will address this gap by utilizing accountability partners, which will serve as a form of external motivation.
Competitive Audit
The competition had no accountability aspect
We analyzed four major productivity apps during our competitive audit, assessed their strengths, weaknesses, and user feedback, and documented our findings. We selected a few specific competitors and examined and tested these apps before creating a competitive analysis table to record our observations.
Research Insights
88% said accountability partners would be helpful
Although each interviewee had a different experience using productivity apps and had different intrinsic motivation levels, we ultimately found shared patterns across all interviewees.
Most interviewees wanted a minimalistic and intuitive interface and some way to keep track of their goals, mainly through a calendar or a to-do list.
We also found that all of our interviewees were interested in the idea of accountability partners but were hesitant to reach out to someone they didn’t know, which left us with a problem we needed to solve.
Research Report
After 25 pages of research…
Our comprehensive research report synthesizes our team's findings regarding the utilization of accountability partners concerning productivity.
Opportunity
How might we make connecting with an accountability partner with the same goals and motivations easier for students?
Visual Design Iterations
The ideal social media card layout…
The layout of the social media posts went through the most iterations since it is the main way users engage with their accountability partners. I took inspiration from different sources like LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit, and Quora and devised a few iterations. After doing usability testing, we found that users cared more about the content/caption being on the top, the picture being on the underneath, and the reactions on the bottom.
Visual Design Exploration
Crafting an optimal digital notebook
The notes page also went through a few different iterations. The main thing that is missing are the accountability partner stories at the top and I decided to not include them in the notes page because it felt too distracting and users said that they wouldn’t need it on the notes page since they can navigate back home instead.
Visual Design Exploration
Navigation and iconography changes
I was trying to go for a very “light” and modern interface but I noticed that the iconography and some of the touch targets were too small. I decided to make the stories on top bigger to create more of an emphasis and I redesigned some aspects of Jointly’s brand to adhere better to the vision we had initially for the app.
Finalized Designs
Introducing Jointly!
A mobile app prototype that aims to help students/working professionals increase their productivity by utilizing accountability partners.
Conclusion + Learnings
What would I do differently?
Jointly was my first ever project and my first time being a team leader. And collaborating with a highly motivated team throughout the entire process, from conducting research to creating prototypes, was an incredibly rewarding experience that made all the challenges and obstacles we encountered along the way worthwhile.
Team Leadership is challenging - As a first-time team leader, I had to learn how to manage the strengths and weaknesses of every team member so that they were comfortable and confident with the development process Jointly.
Building out a Design System - It is extremely important to build out a design system and utilize components and frames instead of groups. This ensures that our designs are standardized and cohesive even if different people work on different aspects of the design.
Consider different end users - Although we interviewed a wide range of people from different backgrounds during our user interviews, all of our interviewees were highly motivated and had more self-discipline in hindsight we should have also interviewed people who had less intrinsic motivation to ensure that Jointly also catered to their needs.
View Other Projects
Gen AI Search
Making eCom search easier using GenAI
Design Systems
A collection of my UI Design and Prototyping projects
Internship
Interaction Design
Product Design
UX Research
Prototyping
Visual Design