Hourglass
Introduction
Project Name
Hourglass – Take Back Your Focus
Date
March 2024
Team Members & Roles
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| Frederic Urech | Francesca Bottazzini | Nazanin Soltan | Malina Calarco | Tristan Wang |
| Product Manager | Product Manager | UI/UX Designer | UI/UX Designer | UI/UX Designer |
Project Summary
In 10 weeks, Team Arctic Fox developed a mobile app targeting the major issue high school students face: maintaining focus amidst distractions like packed schedules and social media. The app features “awareness chimes” to prompt users to assess their focus levels and recognize distractions, allowing users to refocus their attention on the task at hand and over time, develop strategies to minimize the distractions that the app allows them to identify. We strived to create a tool that solved a specific problem in the simplest manner possible, to avoid adding clutter to the already overwhelming and saturated environment of our target users. We aimed to offer a seamless, minimalistic interface that encourages consistent use without becoming a distraction itself.
Problem Space
Literature Review
Our decision to create an app aimed at improving high school students’ focus is strongly supported by the literature, which reveals critical insights into adolescent attention challenges and intervention effectiveness. The research highlighted the negative correlation between high mobile phone usage and attention levels, pointing to the necessity of addressing digital distractions.
Slattery et al.’s critical review of interventions to enhance sustained attention revealed that while some methods like meditation and physical activity show promise, the efficacy of cognitive attention training is less clear. This insight led us to prioritize non-intrusive, supportive strategies such as periodic focus assessments over repetitive cognitive tasks, aligning with the evidence suggesting that there’s potential in alternative approaches.
Multiple studies (among them: Beland & Murphy, Rosen) also underscored the emotional factors affecting student focus, such as stress and boredom, emphasizing the importance of a supportive, engaging app environment. Evidence on the distraction potential of mobile phones and their impact on student performance reinforced our approach to use technology as a tool for enhancing focus, not as a source of distraction. Studies on the mere presence of smartphones by Skowronek et al. and on hyperfocus by Ashinoff and Abu-Akel illustrate the nuanced impact of technology on attention. These insights informed our balanced approach, recognizing the potential of smartphones as tools for enhancing focus under the right conditions.
Our literature-backed approach aims to address the complicated interplay between technology, feelings of being productive, and academic performance, offering a targeted solution to improve high school students’ focus.
Comparator Analysis
Our exploration into the productivity app landscape for high school students revealed an array of approaches, from the stringent blocking of SelfControl to the gamified motivation of Forest, yet we found an unoccupied space for an app that is minimalist, non-invasive, and deeply focused on the unique needs of our audience.
We’re so excited about the problem space because it presents the opportunity to influence the next generation’s educational and personal development positively. The app we have crafted is designed to fill the niche for high school students seeking a simple, non-distracting aid to their focus. Distinct from SelfControl’s and Freedom’s robust blocking, our app will not barricade students from content but rather enhance self-awareness through “attention chimes.” This minimalist intervention approaches the problem through mindfulness, yet unlike One Sec, for example, without the same reliance on user willpower. Unlike Forest and Flipd, which incorporate communal elements, our app doesn’t focus on social features to maintain simplicity and avoid distraction.
Our service is built from the weaknesses in the existing solutions we reviewed—such as the platform limitation of SelfControl, the potential complexity of Study Bunny’s many features, and the privacy concerns of Focusmate for high schoolers—to offer a straightforward, singular solution. The “attention chimes” are intended to periodically bring students’ focus back to their work without the need for constant interaction with the app itself and without evoking feelings of self-loathing for being distracted: rather, it’s normal to get distracted every now and then, and the idea is that the attention chimes allow us to catch it earlier rather than later, and learn over time what prompts their mind to wander, a key skill for future endeavors like university, where work might no longer be assigned in small bites, and longer-term projects need to be completed independently.
By having a clear goal and a clear target user in mind, and by voiding the complexity and potential for distraction present in other apps, we offer a focused experience that respects the student’s time and cognitive load, supporting their academic endeavors in the most seamless and unobtrusive manner possible and setting them up for present and future academic success, all without trying to make them overly reliant on our solution.
Baseline Study
Target Audience
The target user base of our project consists of high school students who face challenges in maintaining focus during their study sessions. To better understand their study patterns and needs, we observed a diverse array of high school students from various backgrounds and educational systems around the world, including high school students in Switzerland, Chile, Hong Kong, and the United States. This global perspective enriched our insights into the universal challenges faced by students, allowing us to tailor our solution more effectively to their needs.
Baseline Study
Our study consisted of a week-long diary study, in the form of twice-daily self-directed check-ins, documenting a study session. The key questions we aimed to address were: (i) How accurately can participants predict the time required to complete their study tasks, and what does this reveal about their time management skills and self-awareness? (ii) To what extent do distractions impact the duration of study sessions compared to initial time predictions, indicating the effectiveness of participants’ study habits? (iii) What are the primary sources of distraction for students during study sessions, and how do these distractions influence their ability to maintain focus? (iii) How does the study environment—including the location, noise levels, and presence of others—affect students’ focus and productivity? (iv) What role does technology play in students’ study sessions, particularly in terms of contributing to distractions, and how frequently do participants engage with digital devices and social media while studying?
To recruit participants, we distributed a screener to over 300 high school students across the world, to which we received a total of 28 responses. From these, we selected 7 participants based on their willingness to participate and commit to the full duration of the study, the extent to which they were interested in improving their focus, and a strong tendency to hop from one task to another without completion, underestimate the time required to complete tasks and become distracted by certain elements of their environment.
The diary study required that our participants fill in a check-in form before their study session and immediately after. The pre-study session form asked the participants to predict how long they expected their task to take them. The post-study session form then asked them how long the task actually took them to complete. This comparison aimed to provide a measure of the extent to which participants were getting distracted throughout their sessions and therefore taking longer than expected. It also provided insight into how self-aware the participants are about the effectiveness of their study habits and proneness to distractions. The post-study session form also included questions about the student’s (i) environment, i.e. where they were working, what the noise levels were, and whether they were working alone or with other people; (ii) the frequency and main source of distraction (iii) the impact of technology on their focus (i.e. what digital devices they were using, how frequently they went on social media).
Grounded Theory
Our baseline study allowed us to delve deep into understanding the nuances of the focus patterns of high school students and recognize the pivotal role that maintaining concentration plays in their academic achievements and overall mental health. Our baseline study employed a comprehensive approach, collecting a combination of quantitative and qualitative data from a broad demographic of high school students around the world, through daily surveys as well as a pre- and a post- study interview. This data collection shed light on the specific difficulties students encounter in achieving and sustaining focus during study sessions, the strategies they adopt to manage distractions, and how external factors such as deadlines and technology usage influence their focus.
A particularly striking insight was the widespread issue of the “activation threshold” for starting tasks. Many students reported a tendency to delay beginning their work, engaging in unrelated activities to avoid facing their assignments. This procrastination isn’t merely a matter of time management; it reflects a deeper psychological barrier that students encounter when approaching tasks perceived as challenging or time-consuming. Such behaviors underscore the need for strategies that lower this threshold, making it psychologically easier for students to initiate a work session.
The interviews also revealed that once students overcome the initial barrier and begin their work, many find it significantly easier to maintain focus and complete their tasks. One (highly focused) student’s experience, let’s call her S, would trick herself into “doing work for just 5 minutes” to get started, which then led to prolonged periods of productivity. This highlights the importance of helping students to take the first step.
Another interesting trend was the role of external pressures in shaping study behaviors. While conventional wisdom often views pressure and stress as detrimental to academic performance, our participants’ feedback, particularly from J and M, painted a more nuanced picture. The right amount of pressure, such as impending deadlines or the prospect of collaborative study sessions, was often cited as a catalyst for focus and productivity. This revelation points to the potential benefits of structured, supportive pressure in educational settings, which challenged us to rethink how we can harness this dynamic to enhance student focus without leading to burnout.
The impact of technology on focus was another critical area of insight, underscored by the unavoidable nature of digital devices in the completion of schoolwork. While these tools are integral to modern education, facilitating access to information and enabling innovative learning methods, they also represent a significant source of distraction. The experiences shared by our participants, including N’s struggle with smartphone distractions and J’s preference for printed materials over digital ones, illuminate the negative impact technology can have on focus. However, almost all students highlighted how hard it is to fully “flee” tech distractions, since computers are needed to do research and write, phones are needed to collaborate with fellow students (or even get homework help from their teacher outside of school hours in South America), and so on. These insights lead us to think about how a key goal of our intervention should be to bridge this gap between leveraging the benefits of digital resources and enabling students to retain control over their focus – currently an almost insurmountable task.
Systems Models
The mapping process from the raw data was the same for both models. We went through all the data (pre-study interview, data collected in-study, post-study interview), for each participant, and summarized findings on post-it notes. After some distilling, the insights as described above resulted.
The system models are both built on the insights from this step, and look as follows:
Model #1: Fishbone Diagram
Key insight: Lack of focus and not completing work on time have multifaceted causes beyond just an inability to concentrate. It’s highly influenced by the context, such as the task’s perceived difficulty making distractions more tempting, and starting tasks being harder if they seem overwhelming or unfamiliar.
Model #2: Iceberg Model
Insights derived: From the Iceberg Model, we discovered that while high school students aim to better organize their days and tasks, merely planning doesn’t ensure adherence to these plans. Effective focus strategies, such as reorienting attention post-distraction and recognizing distraction onset, are crucial. Techniques like using “do not disturb” on laptops or keeping phones in another room offer some help. However, the necessity of devices for academic work and communication poses a dilemma. The primary insight is that, despite the distraction potential of digital devices, students depend on them, making complete isolation from distractions impractical. Therefore, students must understand what triggers their distractions and recognize their patterns to enhance focus. Yet, many lack awareness of their focus levels or mistakenly believe stricter adherence to plans is the solution.
Proto-Personas
After reviewing our baseline study and secondary research, we crafted proto-personas for five interviewees, identifying two main productivity barriers: technology as both essential for homework and a source of distraction, and procrastination on tough tasks, mitigated only by deadline pressure.
We thus concentrated on two proto-personas, NB for technology-induced distractions and JB for procrastination, to delve into these important challenges.
Proto-persona 1
Name: NB
Role: represents high school students who struggle to separate leisure from study due to the dual use of technology for both activities. Their conflict lies in the allure of immediate gratification from leisure activities versus the delayed gratification of studying. This is exacerbated by the accessibility of distractions on the same devices needed for schoolwork.
Goal: Use their tech devices for schoolwork efficiently, minimizing distractions from social media, streaming platforms, and other digital temptations to enhance focus and academic performance.
Conflicts:
- Lacks the discipline to study before pursuing leisure activities.
- Difficulty focusing in certain environments, such as at school and on the train.
- Technologies needed for work — such as her laptop — are also sources of distraction.
- Switching between different platforms when studying is exacerbating.
- Inability to focus on key points. For example, she would try to skim an article for its main points but end up reading every word.
Attempts to solve:
- Putting her phone away before studying.
- Tried the 25-minute work / 5-minute break tactic, but stopped using it because she would rather get things done in one go.
Setting and environment: At home, NB studies in their room, in the TV room, and sometimes in the dining room. At school, she attends classes and very rarely completes an assignment as most of her homework is done after school.
Tools and skills: Uses their phone and laptop for study purposes. For example, if she has questions about schoolwork, she might take a photo and text her friends for help. She does assignments using her laptop.
Routine:
- Wake up around 6:30 AM.
- Take the train to school (which runs from 8 AM—3 PM).
- Take the train back home.
- Do homework and pursue leisure activities (with dinner around 6 PM).
- Go to bed around 9—10 PM.
Proto-persona 2
Name: JB
Role: High School Student from Chile who wants to be productive and enjoys socializing with friends and doing athletic activities. JB’s persona focuses on the conflict of needing deadline pressure to overcome procrastination. Their enjoyment of socializing and athletics competes with their academic goals, illustrating the broader challenge of balancing various interests with schoolwork
Goal: reduce friction to get started with work and reduce procrastination. Perform well in school and still have time for other activities (competitive sports, social gatherings, etc.).
Conflicts:
- Needing the pressure and stress of an imminent deadline to start and maintain focus on a task.
- Finding other things a lot more interesting than school work.
- Frustration / difficult tasks make them want to get distracted/procrastinate.
- Difficulty to work in certain places (for example, in school, as it “feels like free time”).
Attempts to solve:
- Leaving his phone on their bed while they study.
- Studying with a friend to hold each other accountable.
- Printing out worksheets to avoid using a laptop to study.
Setting and environment: Different rooms at home (he likes to change study environments frequently. E.g. his room, the dining room, his sisters’ rooms, etc.).
Tools and skills: Laptop, printer, and worksheets to study. Phone to communicate with friends and with teachers (his teacher will offer to help via WhatsApp). The ability to focus in a noisy environment, and to work well under pressure.
Routine:
- Wake up at 6:30 AM.
- Drive to school at 6:50 AM.
- Arrive at school at 7:20 AM.
- Classes start at 7:45 AM and end at 3:45 PM.
- Arrives home at 4:30 PM.
- Watch TV/ eat a snack for tea time 4:30 – 6PM.
- Homework / Study 6 – 8:30 PM.
- Dinner 8:30 – 9:30 PM.
- More homework / studying or watch a show 9:30 – 11:30 PM.
- 11:00/11:30 PM Bedtime.
Journey Maps
After crafting our proto-personas, we created journey maps to dive in further into the actions and feelings of our proto-personas. Journey mapshelp visualize the journeys our participants take throughout a given time period.
The journey map for NB is focused on a single study session, including their experience before and after they begin to work. At each phase, we describe NB’s emotional state; her actions, thoughts, and feelings; as well as the pain points relevant to her struggle to maintain focus and accomplish tasks. Key pain points include constantly switching her attention to texting, checking emails and scrolling through social media, and getting frustrated that schoolwork requires her to use the same technological devices that contain these sources of distraction. Here is NB’s journey map:
The journey map for JB walks through JB’s day, from his wake up at 6:30am to going to bed at 11:30pm. At each time chunk, it shows JB’s behavior, thoughts and feelings, pain points, and emotions. Additionally, this information is supported by quotes from JB’s pre- and post-study interview. A pain point that stands out is that JB finds it especially difficult to get focused at the beginning of a work session. In his interviews, he said, “I never want to turn off the TV and switch to doing homework” and “I procrastinate a lot”. JB’s interesting journey map is shown here:
Ultimately, creating journey maps was a vital point in the transition between our baseline and intervention study. The journey maps for NB and JB (and for our other participants) highlight the thoughts and pain points going through our personas’ minds. Understanding these pain points and where they fall in the timeline of one’s day shows us some of the places where we could introduce an intervention.
Intervention Study
Ideation
Our ideation process began by individually brainstorming solutions rapidly to three key challenges identified in our grounded theory, focusing on challenges like focus, procrastination, and technology-induced distractions among high school students. Each team member spent five minutes on each insight to generate diverse ideas.
Afterwards, we consolidated all ideas and highlighted our favorite ones, allowing us to independently identify solutions that resonated with us before group influence. In a subsequent group discussion, we evaluated the highlighted ideas based on practicality, potential effectiveness, and feasibility in a high school setting, retaining only those unanimously favored.
We then sought dark horse ideas to challenge our key theories, ultimately selecting two ideas from the first brainstorming round and one dark horse idea for further development and class presentation. These chosen interventions included: (i) a task splitter for dividing assignments into manageable sub-tasks with a gamified or social approach, (ii) a daily presentation to peers for creating artificial deadlines and external motivation, and (iii) an awareness chime or alarm to refocus users or make them aware of distractions.
Storyboards:
During class, we presented our storyboards and gathered feedback, along with the pros and cons for each intervention. For the task compartmentalization, students saw its utility in breaking down tasks but noted the difficulty of doing so accurately as a third-party. The external accountability method was seen as useful but problematic, requiring time for presentations and potentially lacking in pressure from peers. The checkpoint alarm intervention resonated with many, recognized for its effectiveness despite concerns about being disruptive.
After reviewing this feedback, our team debated the merits and drawbacks of each solution, ref lecting on the core issue we actually aimed to address (whether to ease starting work or enhancing focus during tasks?), and which intervention may be most effective at achieving this goal. Our baseline study pointed towards focusing while working as the greater need, but since productivity is so tightly related to both, we thought it’d be great if there was a simple intervention that could help with both. Analyzing the ideas further, here’s what we found:
#1 Revised Storyboard (why we did not select this solution)
#2 Revised Storyboard (why we did not select this solution)
We therefore selected a singular, targeted solution that is both simple yet manages to help both with continued work and getting started and manages to combat multiple of the symptoms that emerged in the grounded theory. Here’s the revised our storyboard for the selected solution.
#3 Revised Storyboard (12 slides)
Intervention Study
After much deliberation, we aimed to create an intervention study that is extremely simple yet informative about the feasibility and usefulness of our potential solutions. We started by defining our goal: to implement a consistent mindfulness/awareness check encouraging users to immediately reflect on their activities. While, as laid out above, the key emphasis is on sustained focus, we have chosen this solution since we think it helps on both fronts: being mindful of “what they’re supposed to be working on right now” should also instinctively lead to some goal setting and make starting easier, a slight nudge further exacerbated by a running timer (as we’ve learned from our baseline study). Also, our baseline study showed students appreciated seeing the difference between their predicted and actual task durations, a reflection that heightened awareness for future sessions.
For the intervention, we opted to use phone alarms for accessibility, asking users to set a timer for either 30 minutes or 1 hour, based on their work. Additionally, we asked them to place a new sticky note daily on their work surface to log their focus and any distractions at each timer’s end, sharing these notes with our team. This process aims to give participants daily insights into their focus levels and distractions, and be even less invasive than our baseline study, they could simply have a post-it and snap a picture for us at the end of the day.
Our baseline study uncovered varied assignments and work styles among high school students across different geographies/schooling systems. Hence, we deemed it again necessary to recruit a diverse group of students from the US, Asia, and Europe for a holistic view of high school students’ schedules and lives. Through our networks, including siblings, friends and family, and students we’ve mentored, we managed to enlist students.
The key questions we strived to address in the study include:
- Will students appreciate seeing their focus levels through work sessions?
- Will these reflections enable students to improve their focus levels and reduce distractions over time?
- Are timers effective methods to refocus or do they distract further?
- Will students focus back on their task if they become aware that they are distracted?
Synthesis
Insights
Our intervention study allowed us to gather insights from 5 individuals over 5 days. Over the course of the study, we asked participants to set consistent timers – either spanning 30-minute or 1-hour intervals – prior to starting a work session. We also asked them to place a sticky note next to their laptop or workstation. Each time the timer (with a sound/alarm) went off, we asked that the participant jotted down on the sticky note whether they were focused on their task or distracted in just a word or so.
The intervention study confirmed our belief that regular alarms effectively enhance student focus during work sessions. We observed notable improvements as students reported increased focus at each alarm, both within individual sessions and over several days. This improvement aligns with our hypothesis that repeated exposure to “awareness chimes” foster introspection on distractions, all along creating a soft sense of “being on the clock” which makes it easier to stay focused, thereby enhancing students’ awareness and study habits. Distractions reported mainly involved social media, texting, and interruptions by external factors like family and friends, indicating a significant challenge posed by digital and social distractions.
Despite these insights guiding our solution design, there are crucial considerations to note. Our solution relies on an honor code system – without monitoring work sessions, we can’t verify the accuracy of students’ self-reported focus at each alarm. Consequently, the observed progress may not fully reflect reality. Additionally, the time it takes for students to refocus after an alarm, a vital aspect of our product’s effectiveness, remains unknown.
Another insight is that those on half-hour intervals indicated more frequent focus levels than those on 1-hour intervals. It is important to note that all participants reported becoming consciously and later subconsciously aware of the alarm. They would anticipate the time it would go off and would return to work for the sake of reporting a focused state on their sticky note. This highlights how it is hard to successfully quantify the degree of success of our solution – but we think people proactively getting back to work to be “log being focused” when it comes time to do so, while not creating a 100% accurate picture for themselves, is a success on its own.
We theorized that tracking focus and distraction rates at each alarm would prompt reflection on work sessions. However, if students adjust their focus in anticipation of the alarm, our approach effectively regains their attention but may inaccurately suggest continuous focus. This discrepancy invites careful consideration in our design process. We thought about inquiring if students stayed focused throughout the entire period between alarms for a more accurate assessment. We also deliberated the honor-based self-reporting, but reaffirmed our commitment to fostering intrinsic motivation and simply giving a helping hand through our external stimulus.
System Models
System Paths
In our system path diagram (see above), we identify 2 types of users. The first is a high school student who is often distracted by technological devices. The second is a high school student who often procrastinates when overwhelmed with work and relies on time pressure to get work done. Both types of users follow the same workflow.
Users start at the home page, beginning their work session. At regular intervals, the awareness chime will sound, prompting the user to indicate whether he is focused (and what is distracting him if he isn’t); this continues until the work session ends, upon which the user is shown the statistics page and exits the workflow.
Reflection
Reflecting on our results and observations so far, the data suggests three key adjustments for our app design:
- Shorter Timer Intervals: Default to shorter intervals (30 minutes) to increase frequency of focus reports, adapting to varied attention spans and enhancing user engagement.
- Leverage Intrinsic Motivation: The success of the honor code system hints at the effectiveness of intrinsic motivation. Emphasize features that bolster this, like personalized goal setting and progress tracking, making the solution more user-centric. Also, making self-reporting as easy as possible to encourage users to use the app and log their distractions, as they appreciated the simplicity of jotting down on a PostIt.
Solution Design
Design Architecture
Story Maps
Our project aims to help high schoolers who have difficulty focusing while studying. Our story map (see above) illustrates the daily routine of a high schooler who wishes to study more effectively but faces distractions from technological devices and social media. We assemble the timeline with stickies at the top of the diagram, and identify the following critical moments along with their MVPs and ideal outcomes.
- Feeling overwhelmed by her daunting workload, the student delays starting her homework by scrolling social media.
- MVP: A function to schedule work sessions, and to clock in / clock out.
- Ideal outcome: The barrier to starting work is lowered.
- The student gets stuck on a homework problem, texts her friends for help and ends up being distracted by her phone notifications. These distractions delay her work.
- MVP: An awareness chime that goes off regularly. The student logs whether she is focused, and what distracted her (if she isn’t focused).
- Ideal outcome: The student is reminded that she is distracted, thinks about why, and re-focuses.
- At the end of the day, having failed to accomplish all the tasks she planned to complete, the student is exhausted and discouraged.
- MVP: A daily statistics page, including the level of focus throughout the day, sources of distractions, etc.
- Ideal outcome: The student reflects on when she is distracted and what commonly distracts her, and works to improve her focus and eliminate distractions.
MVP Features
As derived from the story map above, our MVP features are as follows.
- A function to schedule work sessions, and to clock in / clock out.
- An awareness chime that goes off regularly. The student logs whether she is focused, and what distracted her (if she isn’t focused).
- A daily statistics page, including the level of focus throughout the day, sources of distractions, etc.
Bubble Map
Our bubble map diagram (see above) illustrates the various components of our solution, with larger bubbles indicating greater importance. The largest bubble is the awareness chime sounding, which is our service’s most central feature. Components that are more closely related are placed closer together on the diagram.
Reflection
In revising our solution design, we’ve learned the importance of integrating our MVP features—scheduling work sessions, the awareness chime, and the daily statistics page—more cohesively to create a seamless user experience. We’re focusing on ensuring smooth transitions between scheduling, being reminded to stay focused, and reflecting on daily productivity, all without overwhelming the user. Additionally, we’re incorporating preventive measures to minimize distractions, such as a focus mode that limits notifications, and introducing motivational elements to encourage consistent use and improvement in study habits. Through these adjustments, we’re aiming to enhance the user experience, making our tool not just a study aid but a transformative part of the student’s daily routine, effectively addressing both the symptoms and sources of distractions.
Assumption Testing
Assumption Map
In light of our solution design, we compiled a list of assumptions related to our product and mapped them on a 2×2 diagram (see above), with the amount of evidence on the x-axis and the relative importance of the assumptions on the y-axis. The assumptions that are the most important and lacking in evidence will be the most crucial to our solution, and are given below.
Key assumptions:
- Students will hear the chime.
- Students will not find the chime excessively distracting.
- The chime will nudge students to re-focus on their studies if they are distracted.
- Students will accurately log what they believe distracted them if they are distracted.
Assumption Testing
Since we are basing our product around the key assumptions above, it is important to test that these assumptions are true. Therefore, we came up with a test for each of our top four assumptions.
Assumption Test 1
| We believe that… | Students will hear the chime |
| To verify that, we will… | Play chimes of varying audible volumes to a test participant, in 2 different environments: quiet & noisy |
| And measure… | Whether or not the participant hears the chime at each volume and in each environment |
| We are right if… | The participant hears every chime |
Results/Reflections
Noisy environment: At a hotel lobby. Music was playing in the background. Had a group of 5 people working at a table, each working on their on assignments. At different points in time, other friends would come around and talk to the participants working
- High Volume: All participants consistently heard the chime at its maximum volume, indicating the effectiveness of high-volume settings in overcoming background noise and social interactions.
- Intermediate Volume: The intermediate volume setting was also highly effective, with all participants hearing the chime, suggesting it strikes a balance between audibility and potential disturbance.
- Minimum Volume: Audibility at the minimum volume was less consistent, affected by personal distractions (e.g., conversations, being out of the room) and potentially the ambient noise level.
- Other Factors: The effectiveness of the chime at lower volumes was significantly more influenced by other external factors, such as whether a participant was engaged in a conversation or wearing headphones, than by the constant noise in the environment (ambient music, other people talking, and ambient noise in the lobby)
Quiet environment: Had the same participants work alone in their respective hotel rooms and report whether or not they heard the chimes.
- High and Intermediate Volume: Both high and intermediate volume chimes were effective in quiet environments, ensuring audibility and potential for attention capture without disturbance.
- Minimum Volume: Minimum volume effectiveness varied due to personal circumstances, such as using headphones or being away from the immediate vicinity, highlighting the impact of individual behaviors and choices on notification audibility.
- Other Factors: The use of headphones significantly affected the audibility of chimes, especially at lower volumes. This underscores the importance of considering personal usage habits (e.g., wearing headphones) in the design and implementation of auditory notifications.
Assumption Test 2
| We believe that… | Students will not find the chime excessively distracting |
| To verify that, we will… | Play a chime for a test participant doing homework or work, and have them simply turn the chime off |
| And measure… | The time it takes for them to return to what they were doing before (i.e an assignment) after the chime |
| We are right if… | The participant returns to work quickly (i.e < 10 seconds) |
Results/Reflections
| NA | KL | KP | IG | AS | |
| Chime 1 | 4 seconds | 8 seconds | 3 seconds | 12 seconds | 4 seconds |
| Chime 2 | 2 seconds | 5 seconds | 4 seconds | 8 seconds | 14 seconds |
| Chime 3 | ~3 minutes (She was distracted when it sounded because someone was talking to her, and she finished the conversation before returning to work) | 4 seconds | 14 seconds | 4 seconds | 13 seconds |
| Chime 4 | 8 seconds | 10 seconds | 8 seconds | 2 seconds | 5 seconds |
| Chime 5 | 4 seconds | 4 seconds | 8 seconds | 8 seconds | 8 seconds |
Assumption Test 3
| We believe that… | The chime will nudge students to re-focus on their studies if they are distracted |
| To verify that, we will… | Have a test participant use their favorite entertaining app, such as a mobile game or social media, and instruct them to start working on their assignment when they hear the chime |
| And measure… | The time it takes for them to work on their assignment after the chime |
| We are right if… | The participant starts work quickly, rather than taking excessive time to exit their app and start (i.e < 30 seconds) |
Results/Reflections
- Highly Effective in Most Scenarios: For the majority of distractions, such as using Instagram or TikTok, participants responded quickly to the chime, with most transitioning back to work within the 30-second benchmark. This indicates the chime’s strong potential to refocus attention from digital distractions.
- Variability Based on Nature of Distraction: The effectiveness of the chime varied significantly based on the nature of the distraction. Digital distractions (e.g., social media) generally saw quicker response times compared to social interactions (e.g., talking to someone or listening to conversations), suggesting that the chime is more effective against certain types of distractions.
Assumption Test 4
| We believe that… | Students will accurately log what they believe distracted them if they are distracted |
| To verify that, we will… | Have a test participant note every 30 minutes while doing homework if they were distracted and if so, what they were distracted by. Meanwhile have a researcher (someone in our group) observe the student every 2-3 minutes and note what distractions the student has. |
| And measure… | The difference between what the participant logged as distractions and what the researcher logged. |
| We are right if… | The majority of distractions logged by the researcher were also logged by the participant themself, meaning they accurately and honestly logged their distractions |
Results/Reflections
Participants’ logs closely matched the observer’s log. This indicates a level of awareness and honesty in self-reporting certain types of distractions. The difference in the frequency of logging activities between the participant and the observer shows gaps in the participant’s self-monitoring of distractions. This suggests that individuals might not fully recognize distractions that happen when the chime goes off. However, we also see that the type of distractions are repetitive, and therefore even if the chime doesn’t catch a distraction that happens during the time interval between chimes, over time the chime will coincide with these types of interruptions and help the participant become aware of what their main distractions are.
Low-fidelity Prototype
Wireflow
The wireflow goes more into detail of which screens are in the app and how to navigate between them. This is an early iteration of our app; the interactions between screens changed over time but the general premise of screens and prompts remained the same over time.
Sketchy Screens
Tristan’s Initial Sketches:
This early version outlined a main task cycle where users start a session, track time with a virtual hourglass, and log focus or distractions. Changes to the design include (i) switching to a swipeable navigation for easier access to the dashboard page, (ii) replacing the hourglass with a moving gradient for a less pressurized time indication, streamlining the “Begin Session” to a single “Start” button for simplicity, and (iii) simplifying the “Log Focus” page to just “Focused” or “Distracted” options to reduce ambiguity and maximize logging speed.
Malina’s Initial Sketches:
This initial app design featured a beach photograph background and a simple workflow where users start a work session, report focus levels, and identify distractions before choosing to restart the timer or view stats. Since then, we’ve (i) updated the design to replace the beach photo with color gradients from our style tile, to increase the simplicity of our app and reduce clutter (ii) replaced the hamburger menu with a settings menu tab that the user can easily access without being taken to a different page , and (iii) shifted from a multi-select to a single-select list for distractions to better align with the app’s goal of identifying immediate distractions at the timer’s end and minimize the time it takes the user to input their distractions.
Current Sketches for Focus Prompt + Insights Screen
After observing and critiquing the initial sketches of each group member, we created updated sketchy screens of the “are you focused?” prompt and the insights screen. (We directly modified Francesca’s initial sketches, hence why she does not have the copy of her initial sketches anymore).
To create this current sketch, we carefully thought about the importance of UX writing and using understandable, clear words and phrases. As a group, we reworded the questions, words, and phrases found in our initial sketches to be more clear to the user. We also made sure to emphasize to users how the focus prompt is about what users are distracted by in the current moment when the chime sounds—not what they were distracted by during the whole timed period. Finally, we thought of some of the main statistics we want to be featured in the Insights page.
Nazanin’s & Frederic’s Sketches
This is an early version of the task flow for setting up the timer. Users begin on the homepage, and then swipe left to view the settings, which are displayed not as a full page but rather as an expanding dynamic modal. The user can then set the duration of their work timer, enable or disable breaks, set a break duration, and set whether they would want breaks on a scale of rarely to often. When they return back to the home page by swiping right, they will see that the timer has been set with those same settings. Throughout the design process, we implemented key changes to enhance user experience. (i) Initially, we considered an always-visible settings icon on the timer screen but removed it to minimize distractions and reduce interface complexity. (ii) we opted to manage settings through a modal instead of a separate full page to maintain simplicity and avoid overwhelming users. (iii) Initially, the design only allowed for setting a timer without breaks; however, recognizing the value of breaks in productivity, we integrated this feature. (iv)We also contemplated adding multiple timers for various work sessions but decided against it to keep the app streamlined and focused, prioritizing simplicity to aid user concentration.
Medium-fidelity Prototype
Link
Flows
Basic Flows:
- Start the Work Session: Focus on Keeping it Simple and Settings Readily Accessible
- Passing Time: Simple Animation Softly Reminds Users of Time Passing
- Distraction Screen: Enables User to Log Distractions, with Minimal Distractions
For more information, please see the entire flow yourself on Figma.
Usability Testing
Task Design
Our usability test aimed for users to complete three main tasks: adjust the focus session settings, engage with the timer during a work session, and interact with the insights and statistics page to reflect on their focus and distractions.
Results – 3 Biggest Issues and Solutions
- Settings Clarity and Usability: Users found adjusting settings, especially for break frequency and interval time, unclear. We simplified this by introducing clearer terminology (“Reminder Frequency” instead of “Work Interval”) and making break intervals explicit (e.g., breaks after every 3 reminders). The settings interface was made both clickable and draggable for ease of use.
- Navigation to Insights Page: Users struggled to navigate to the insights page due to unintuitive indicators. We addressed this by adding clearer navigation cues, such as a more prominent “Insights >” button and moving navigation dots to a more conventional location at the bottom of the screen. We also introduced headers and subheaders (“My Insights”, “Timeline”) to better organize information.
- Session Management and Feedback Mechanism: The timer’s gradient was not universally understood as a time passage indicator, and the mechanism for logging distractions wasn’t clear. We revamped the timer to more closely resemble a progress bar with explicit visual cues. Additionally, we streamlined the feedback mechanism to allow users to more easily report distractions in the moment, adding a snooze option for extending sessions.
Reflections & Future Considerations
Several aspects that we would take into consideration moving forward
- Personalization and Customization: Offering users more tailored settings options to match their study habits and preferences could enhance the app’s effectiveness. This includes customizable reminder frequencies and break schedules.
- Long-term Insight Tracking: Developing a more robust insights page that tracks user progress over longer periods (e.g., weekly, monthly) could provide valuable feedback to users on their focus and productivity trends.
- Increasing focus on high school students: potentially through the integration with academic calendars for planning and scheduling study sessions around key dates (exams, assignments due) could further enhance the app’s utility for students.
Final Prototype
Branding
Final Moodboard
Our final moodboard is centered around four words: focused, flowing, mindful, and encouraging. As a group, we decided to draw most heavily from Nazanin’s, Francesca’s, and Frederic’s original moodboards by presenting the beach motif throughout. High schoolers are a broad target audience, but we decided that the beach is universally known to represent mindfulness and flow. We also found new images for our moodboard to fit our four words. We specifically found images that contributed to a muted, calm color scheme, as we enjoyed the attention towards calm colors in Tristan’s moodboard, and darker colors in Malina’s. Ultimately, we settled on this final moodboard, which demonstrates focus well.
Style Tile
Hi-Fidelity Prototype
Link
Flows
Basic Flows:
- Welcome to the Work Session: New Addition after Starting a Work Session to Get into the Groove
- Distraction Screen: Enables User to Log Distractions, Now With More Options for Better Insights
- Stay Focused Screen: Now with a New Animation to Encourage Users to Click resume
The other screens (that already existed in Medium-Fi prototype) are largely the same, with some minor design tweaks in response to feedback/more love going into it. For more, please see the entire flow yourself on Figma.
Conclusion
Ethics Creative Project (Link)
Our project is an app that reminds high schoolers to stay focused using periodic “attention chimes”. Our design fiction, presented through a TikTok reel, shows a world where this app is widely adopted and embedded in everyday routine. People are so reliant on the app to stay focused that they cannot stay on task without it. Consequently, in spaces both public and private, everyone has the app active on a phone beside them, and attention chimes are constantly sounding and being reset instantly as people work.
In a dystopian twist, their routines become obsessions as they begin to use the app to regulate not only their work, but also their leisure time and private lives, such as time spent chatting and consoling friends. Our goal is to explore some of the potential negative effects of being too dependent on our service. The ethical implication is that, while practical in moderation, relying on the app too much compartmentalizes and stifles peoples’ lives.
Our app design, with its hourglass screen not showing the timer by default, and with it allowing for scheduling only certain work “blocks” every day ahead of time tries to thoughtfully mitigate some of the potential downsides as identified by our Ethics creative project.
Reflection
Takeaways & Reflection
We all learned a ton on how today’s high schoolers focus, about our own focus, and on how to collaborate effectively and move fast. In the spirit of moving fast (and not extending this already long report too much more), here are just the key takeaways:
On Teamwork: We became better at teamwork. The first meetings often felt tedious and not everyone took initiative. But over the quarter we became better at doing things in smaller sub-groups and working ahead independently here and there, and knowing who would work on what.
We also became much faster. Knowing each other and each other’s preferences better meant as time went on, our meetings got shorter – a real collaboration learning curve.
On Focus: We learnt a lot about high schooler’s ways of getting work done, and how – while the modes of work are so varied between different people – so many of them face the exact same challenges. Of course this is to some extent driven by the people who opted in, but it was still eye-opening. A challenge faced by so many people is perhaps not purely their fault, and may warrant further attention.
We also learnt a lot about how many high-schoolers are self-aware and painfully aware their devices are bad for them and that they crave distractions in the moment, and that they would like to build habits of not bringing their phone with them, etc. but can’t because their phones are necessary for so many things: communication, research, two-step verification, etc.
We were astonished at the mental model mismatch between “I don’t focus hard enough” and “maybe the situation doesn’t allow me to focus.” It was really quite revelatory to see how often we blame ourselves for lapses in concentration without considering the context, when the environment makes it so hard.
We’re quite proud of having come up with a simple yet effective way to make it easier to start work (scheduled focus sessions), softly keep people on track (“oh the timer is running”), and gently guiding people’s focus back to what they want to work towards if they get distracted (attention chimes).
Our Next Behavior Design Effort: This quarter was incredibly rewarding and we learned so much by building this app. In our next behavior design effort, we’d like to recruit earlier so we can screen out more generously and isolate our target demographic more precisely. Also, we’d like to keep the interviewees in the loop more: instead of choosing different people every time, why not keep them along on the journey and find some way to make it rewarding enough for them to give continued feedback – esp. if a problem is solved which is salient for a certain target demographic, people may well like to be kept in the loop, see what the latest thinking is and how the “solution to their problem” is coming along. One of our participants even reached out to hear updates.
Next Steps
We’re proud of what we’ve built this quarter – especially since we had never worked together and all came in with different interests, differing experience levels and different priorities in the project. As a next step, we’d nonetheless love to bring this project to life by implementing all the features that are not yet functional in the prototype, like scheduling recurring work sessions with their corresponding attention chimes (to further ease starting), an Apple Watch app (less chance to get distracted when the attention chime rings, always with you, and with a screen still big enough to log what distracted you), and more detailed insights deliver right to your inbox: instead of having to go look at your data, we think it would be valuable to have your weekly insights delivered as a text message or email to make it more actionable. Such a step would also make it easier to share – with friends, teachers, or anyone also on the journey.
Find the final write-up here!
