Plan Well
Reach goals by strengthening motivation and re-enforcing a happier work-life balance.
Timeline
6 Weeks
Role
UX Designer
What is the problem?
Motivation fades any time in the journey to achieve goals
Overthinking, pressure, and exhaustion are some of the reasons why we face a lack of motivation. This leads to procrastination and discouragement, which may cause failed goal attainment.
What is the solution?
Plan healthier and engage with inspiring people
Creating goal plans with breaks/resting practice helps refresh the brain and increase productivity and creativity. Engaging with the community who have the same purpose boosts faith and confidence.
Research + Synthesize
Interview
Motivation drives us to take action; before starting interviews, I generated questions about their experiences with motivation, goals, successes, and failures. I was able to interview seven participants: students and career individuals.
Some of the questions that gave me insightful answers were:
Tell me about a difficult goal that you accomplished, and what was your process?
What are your good and bad habits/routines that helped and did not help your progress?
What/When/How/Why/Who inspires and motivates you to keep going?
During the interview phase, I recognized the participants who achieved and did not achieve goals. I questioned the groups’ differences.
○ What does Group A do and don’t do that cause them to unsuccessfully achieve their goals?
○ What does Group B do and don’t do that allows them to achieve their goals?
Synthesize
Key Findings:
Majority of the players do planning and scheduling. However, a few are doing it ineffectively.
All players are not motivated enough due to their insufficient amount of supporters.
Majority of the players are overworked due to procrastination. Overworking caused them to not perform at their best.
Majority of the players are extrinsically motivated.
Few players are able to fight overthinking and are not discouraged
Few players spare time to exercise, sports, or self-care
Research Studies
To support these findings, I’ve read multiple pieces of research about goal achievement, motivation, and work-life balance. I was able to fill in the missing points in my journey map.
Based on my findings, numerous studies mentioned productivity and creativity are higher when people take frequent breaks. To activate motivation, a great way to hack this is to increase our feel-good hormones.
When we spend self-care activities, our brains are refreshed, which allows us to study or perform better at work. “Happy people are more motivated and productive. Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin and Endorphins are the quartet responsible for your happiness.”
This article summarized these studies in one reading: “Unplugging can also increase happiness, reduce stress….”
Journey Map
To get a full picture of all the players’ experiences, I created a user journey map.
Players tend to approach fatigue and discouragement despite all the planning, consistency, and progressive actions taken.
To understand the map:
Red represents their concerns. Green represents their good habits. Blue represents the causes of lacking motivation.
Persona
Low-Fi + Hi-Fi
After various feedback from my participants and new testers, I’ve iterated my designs three times within three weeks.
Elements were rearranged, some words were changed, and some features were added: Challenges, Notes, and Following.
Plan Well : Prototype
Approval
My design solution was approved by my participants and three new testers. They were able to use my interactive prototype and had shown great enthusiasm for Plan Well app. My participants and new testers have quite similar goals and had shown different ways of using the prototype. They loved how different tasks are categorized and the purpose of the app. Some loved the support section as they liked the idea of being able to express themselves in a helpful community. Most of them were curious about how much impact they could get from using the inspiration section. The Well-being tab excites them as they read the activities and challenges that they would like to try. Lastly, being able to track the progress motivated them to use the Plan Well app.
After-thoughts
As an avid self-improver, I enjoy finding ways that will help improve me as an individual as this improves my performance at any activity. This UX Case study has been interesting, knowing how different types of young adults approach challenges to achieve their goals. Self-care activities and Support Systems seem to be the effective key to boosting productivity while creating balance for work and leisure.
If I were to improve my Plan Well project, I would focus on educating and encouraging the users why they should spend time on self-care activities. I would research more about happy hormones to further this study.