SPACE
Make space for your mind. Unleash your potential
Introducing SPACE—the ultimate app designed to support students in achieving balance and success both inside and outside the classroom. In today’s fast-paced world, it's easy for students to overlook essential self-care habits, such as when to sleep, when to eat, and when to focus on study time. SPACE steps in to remind you that wellness is key to thriving academically and creates the space you need to succeed.
Role
UX/UI Design
Tool Used
Figma
Time
3 days
Project Overview
SPACE is a mobile app designed to help students manage their time while juggling meals, sleep, study, and time to winding down. The product targets students, but people of all ages are welcome to use it. I am the sole designer of the project, responsible for the user experience and interface. The other team members participated in ideation and are responsible for the backend database and front-end development of the product.
Problem
Like many other students, I often felt overwhelmed by the numerous assignments due around the same time and the clash of exam schedules. In situations like this, we struggle with time management, focus, and maintaining healthy study habits, which can lead to stress, poor academic performance, and compromised well-being. I believe there should be a tool for students to better incorporate time management and well-being, especially for those with ADHD or similar attention-related challenges.
Solution
To help students better incorporate time management and well-being, we developed a time management and reminder application focused on enhancing study habits and health routines. Our goal is to create a product that assists students in allocating their time for various tasks and rest periods.
Research
To better understand the needs of students, I interviewed our teammate and had them summarize the wellness issues encountered by fellow BCIT students, their struggles with time management, and the reminders they would find helpful when using a time management product.
Before we began designing anything, I asked our teammates:
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What struggles did you have when you were a student?
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What are your current struggles with time management during your studies?
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What aspects would you like to be reminded of when using a time management app?
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Our teammates sums up their biggest struggle as a student:
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Exam and assignment schedule clashes
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Not enough time to sleep
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Skipping meals
Ideation
Based on the struggles experienced by my teammates, we came up with the idea of focusing our product on three aspects of student wellness: Exam Schedule Organizer, Sleep Time Reminder, and Meal Reminder. The primary function of this product is to help students organize their assignments and exam schedules within one app, giving them a clearer idea of how to arrange their study time. We also included a timer function to remind students when to eat and when to sleep. With project time limited to 72 hours, we try to keep our product simple but effective.
User Workflow
We started by designing the user workflow of the product, simulating how users would resolve the struggles mentioned in the previous section. The workflow served as the foundation for mapping out the key functions that should be included in the product. In our product workflow, we illustrate how users interact with the essential functions, such as adding and making changes to their wellness schedules.
Content Objects
The user flow serves as a guide for determining which key features should be placed on each screen, and each of these features is translated into content objects. The content objects contain key pieces of information or functionality necessary to fulfill user tasks. They are designed to show what information is required at each layer of the objects to carry out functions such as viewing service cards, managing the task calendar, and setting task alarms.
Wireframing
Wireframing was done based on the existing user workflow and content objects. We created wireframes for the home page, the task scheduling page, and the subsequent objects for the key functions of the product. The wireframes were assessed to determine if they effectively supported their intended functionality.
Features
Goal Setting
We designed the goal-setting page to allow users to select a goal they want to work on. We aimed to keep the onboarding screens clean and simple, avoiding overwhelming users with too many clickable options on one screen. To achieve this, we limited the available options per screen to three and grouped sleep, meals, and hydration under one umbrella—the wellness category. Users can further select which wellness goal they want to work on when they click on the wellness category.
Alarm Function
The purpose of this product is to remind users to take good care of themselves and not forget to eat, sleep, and know when to study. The alarm function is the key feature designed to remind users of the wellness and study goals they have set for themselves.
Exam and Assignment Schedule Planner
Another purpose of this product is to help users allocate time for studying. The exam and assignment schedule planner provides users with a clear overview of upcoming exams and assignments on a single page, enabling them to prepare for potential scheduling conflicts and manage their study time more effectively.
Prototype
The key functional wireframes were compiled into a prototype and passed it on to the front-end and back-end developers to create a working product.
Retrospective
The challenge for this project was setting the scope correctly under such a tight deadline. We experienced scope creep and attempted to incorporate a secondary function into our MVP while still developing the product's core functionality. The backend developer took too long to finalize the database, leaving the frontend developer with insufficient time to integrate all the components. In the end, we had to scrap the original plan and downsize the project to include only the most basic functions.
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The key takeaway from this project is that the team must prioritize effectively and focus on developing the core functionality first. Team members also need to communicate clearly about their progress so others can better manage their time to deliver the final product on schedule.