The idea of working smarter and not harder is something that we as human being are always looking to make it happen.
But how we can make it happen?!
By managing our lives.
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​Life management doesn’t need to be boring. In fact, it can feel like one big game and how we manage our life is how we manage our time, money, weight, relationships, work-life balance, and more. It's all connected.
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DreamLife is here to help you make it happen!
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Overview
As millions of workers around the world start telecommuting for the first time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to beware of its challenges. One of them is managing our own schedule and time.
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DreamLife is a web application where at-home workers can manage their life so they can stay on top of their tasks and get more done and at the same time maintain their work-life balance.
Role & Duration
Product designer
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Product strategy, User research, Interaction, Visual design & Prototyping
Personal project
June 2020 - July 2020
Challenge
No more setting the alarm for 6am. No more sitting in your cubicle all day. You can set your own hours and work when you feel like it. Freedom is yours!
Except it doesn't work that way!
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Without time management, many at-home workers find themselves in big trouble. They sleep in, they procrastinate, and they tell themselves they’ll knock it out later on.
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The challenge is how to help professionals who are working from home to plan their time in all area of life so they can reach to their goals in life and work.
Process
Empathise
Define the problem
Affinity mapping
Empathy map
Wireframes
Prototyping
Personas
Strategy
Research
Analysis
Ideation
Design
User Testing
One-on-one interviews
Competitive analysis
Sketching
User experience journey
User flow
Features
MVP Matrix
Research
I conducted user interview with professional who are working from home to learn how they maintain their work-life balance when working from home, and what kind of interruptions there are to lead to overtime working, and what are the factors that are causing more stress in work and life?
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Questions:
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How is been experience of working from home for long time?
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What differences can you see between working from home and working at office in terms of working hours and quality of work?
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How do you manage you time to get the work done during working hours? And if it will not be done what do you do?
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Could you tell me about your hobbies when you were working at office and now that you`re working from home?
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What are the most important factors that are causing a more stressed environment for you when you're working from home?
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How do you manage your stress during work from home?
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What kind of exercises do you like to do when you are at home?
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What kind of activities do you like to do when you`re not working?
Interview Insights
I gathered the information and organised them into groups, it helped me to develop new and deeper insights in order to define the problem and develop potential ideas for solutions.
Work-life balance
Most of the users think when they are working from home they can be more flexible in terms of working hour
Social isolation
Most activities when they are working at home are indoor activities and they`re not motivated to go out
Time management
they don't have set hours so they
work through the evening or just procrastinate further
Motivation and long term vision
They believe because they’re not surrounded by the career-driven energy of ambitious colleagues every day losing sight of their long-term career goals
Empathy map
To creating an effective solution I needed to understand the true problem and the person who is experiencing it so I created an empathy map to better understand users`s needs, behaviours and attitudes.
Hear
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Calendar full of meetings
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Running out of space on his desk (papers, 2 computers, sticky notes
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house chores
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scrolling on facebook and seeing ppl complaining about time management when working from home
See
Say
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I don't have time
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I'm bored
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I'm so busy
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I need to go out and do some exercises
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I'm working over time
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I'm gaining weight
Do
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Feeling stressed
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You are working overtime most of the days
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dishes need to be washed
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How to manage my time
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I need a holiday
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Are you available for another meeting?
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A lot of tasks on their to do list
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We're saving the time and money when working at home
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I need to increase my productivity
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Working overtime
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We can't get the work done during working hours most of the times
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It is not convenient working at home
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Not socialising
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Not going out
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Finding a management time tool
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Doesn't leave the desk
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Not doing exercices
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We can't manage our time
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It is more flexible working at home
Who
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Watching news
Goals
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Online shopping
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You looks bored these days
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There is an urgent meeting at 6pm, can you join it?
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Martin
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40 yrs old
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Software developer
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Enjoys outdoor activities
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he likes to do exercises regularly
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gamer - board games specifically
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married (no children)
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works at home
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Managing work time
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Separate personal life and business life
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Doing more exercises
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Caring for his mental health
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Increase productivity
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Spending more time with friends and family
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Reading unrelated articles
Pains
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No time for family and friends
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inactive
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more stressed because of not being able to manage the time
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over time working
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gets angry/less social
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gets frustrated and no patiences
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less productivity
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No exercising
Gains
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Manage time to get the work done during working hours
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Keep socialising with friends
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Separate family and business life
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spend more time exercising
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spending more time with friends and wife
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more productivity at work and get more stuff done
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get a promotion (snr/lead role)
User Experience Journey
This is Martin`s daily work from home routine. I created it to have a better understanding of my user`s behaviours and feelings in a day.
DOING
STORY
BOARD
TOUGHTS
FEELINGS
SCENARIO
Martin is 40 years old, he is a software developer who is working from home and he is married. He works overtime and he doesn't have time for self care and He easily gets frustrated and he thinks he`s recently been less productive.
GOAL
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Increase productivity and maintain work-life balance while working from home
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Doing more exercises
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Care for his mental health
Waking up, taking a shower and making breakfast
It's cool! there is no rush. I have plenty of time for breakfast!
Working time
Such a busy day! I`ve a lot to do. First let`s do a surfing on Linkedin. I`ve got the whole day!
Break time
Let's spend some more time with my wife!
Working time
It's around 7pm and I haven't get my work done!
Exercise time
it's bedtime and I haven't even done my daily exercises!
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Excited not to be forced to commute to work
Happy to not be forced to have set hours
Happy
Tired and Frustrated
Exhausted
Ideation
Now the problem is clear: lack of a regular schedule to help at-home workers to manage their time and life in all areas.
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In the ideation phase I sketched all the features that I had in my mind for my product and I extracted three value propositions for the product :
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The users will be able to set a goal in all area of their life and track their progress.
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The users will be able to set daily tasks and set a reminder.
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The user will be able to Build habits.
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User flow
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Low-fi Wireframes
Dashboard : At a glance users can see their major goal target, the tasks they need to do for the day and the habits they want to keep.
Create a goal : Users can Fill in the goal form and they can make sure their goal is specific, measurable, achievable and they can create a goal in different time frames or they can add a goal from premade templates.
Task management : Users can add and complete tasks toward their goal and they can add the tasks to calendar.
Build a habit: Users can build and track the habits they want to keep in their life.
Create vision board: Users can add the pictures that help them to visualise their goals and dreams to inspire and motivate them.
Create a journal: Users can have a record of their progress towards their goal to motivate them when they feel down
High-fi Wireframes and Prototype
Usability testing
Sign up
Disliked the long sign up process
Disliked the long sign up process
User Pain Points
Create Goal
Users like to have description for goals
There is no cancel button in add goal form
Users find it useful to have time frames for goals
invite members to monitor their progress
Create Task
Adding single tasks
Integrate the calendar with other calendars
Description for tasks
Adding achievable label for tasks
Create Habit
Adding reminder for daily habits
The days are shown in habit details are confusing
They are confused about the subgoal section
Next steps
What I've planned for the next steps of my product is designing a platform specifically for helping remote teams to set and achieve their career goals so they will be able to plan projects, coordinate work remotely, and hit their goals.
Project learning
UX Research
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I learnt how important UX research is in design process. Before thinking about the problem, having some assumptions and going through making some wireframes I need to focus on learning about project requirements from stakeholders, and learning about the needs and goals of the end users through UX research methods unless my design would be a waste of time. This project gave me the opportunity to view a problem from a different perspective.