Productive Pets: gamified academic tool

Skills

UI Design

Illustrative Design

Overview

Designed an app for college students to help schedule time blocks with assignments and encourage visiting a library. In addition, this app establishes taking care of a virtual pet by scheduling study sessions, interacting with the animal, and buying items.

Problem

What are some ways college students who have a limited schedule, anxiety, burnout, or ADHD feel motivated to work on an assignment without feeling anxious?

Solution

Design an app that encourages students to create a routine in-app agenda and use a pomodoro timer while having a virtual pet that promotes happiness and confidence .

Personas/ audience for app

Information from surveys

From my research survey for college students, this guided me regarding the primary audience and what people would be interested in most for a productivity app.

Inspiration/references for app

From my research, productivity apps like Plantie, Habit Rabbit, Study Bunny, and Study Time With Rain are widely mentioned. With the reviews for each app, multiple users enjoy the gaming aspect with each app and simple playful designs that engage with the user.

Difference with Productive Pets

Compared to apps like Bunny Study and Habbit Rabbit, there’s only one animal species a user can select. With this, creating an app with diverse animal species would make a difference from previous productivity apps. The choice of designing multiple animals instead of one was favored by a few students testing the selection screen. In addition, the agenda/ calendar feature allows students to schedule study rooms/capsules via app.

Illustrations

Animals (full body)

Faces of animals

Background (for parrot)

App Icon

Icon with background

Background

Items for In-app store

Icon png

Icon on homescreen

User Flow

https://www.figma.com/board/BVeatbW1pgyDuhD425Awn6/UX-Final-userflow?node-id=0-1&t=OsqIEqsfoXNZ5uy3-1

Wireframes

App content

Pet Selection

MyRoom area to interact with pet and access shop

Scheduling screen from the calendar

Pomodoro timer screen

App Features

In the application, there are a few functions the user would interact with before accessing the Pomodoro timer.

These features include:

  • Naming the selected pet

  • MyRoom area for users to interact with their pet

  • Calendar scheduling for an open study space to complete an assignment

  • Notification directing the user to their check-in screen before the pomodoro timer

Pomodoro Timer Feature

After a user completed their check in, the screen would automatically switch from vertical to horizontal screen. Within the Pomodoro timer, there’s two different screens a user can select for personal preference. One features a circular timer and another shows a horizontal timer. With each screen, the user’s pet would say positive affirmations encouraging the user not to feel anxious or unmotivated. Each animal has a different affirmation associated with their species. In addition, there’s a in-app music function for user’s to have lo-fi music while completing their assignment. This feature can also be turned off within the settings tab on the top right corner.

In-app store Feature

When a task is completed, the user is rewarded 100 gems to exchange for pet clothes. In the in-app store, a user could select clothing for their pet from glasses to ties. This feature was suggested by a few college students interacting with the app and suggested several ways to encourage a user to use Productive Pets frequently.

Take Away

After researching and designing this app, I’ve realized there’s no productivity apps for college students to feel mentally motivated while completing assignments. Usually daily routine app such as Fabulous has features that motivate a user to complete a task. With the previous productivity apps listed above, there isn’t a feature that displays quotes for a user to feel positive. In addition, this project was a challenge regarding what to include without overshadowing the Pomodoro timer, animal designs, and design choices. Overall, there should be an app for college students to encourage motivation and completing assignments in different places.

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