Timely
My team and I designed a scheduling app for students and professors to book meetings, appointments and see their teams’ schedules
Overview
The goal was to create an app that lets a user efficiently book meetings without constant communication needed. It is hard to find a time that aligns with everyone's schedule, especially when you are a full-time professor or student. We wanted to create a platform that generates availability and meeting times for the user.
Problem
It is time-consuming for students and professors to schedule meetings. There’s a lack of awareness of availability which leads to back and forth communication, making it frustrating and difficult to manage and schedule meetings. For a student or a professor, it is painful to navigate what time will work for every single person within a group.
Solution
We created a platform that is easy to use, UI-friendly, and accessible with the tap of a finger. We provided students/professors with a one-stop-shop for easy scheduling and managing meetings/appointments. Not only can you arrange a meeting on the go, but also send out invitations and see schedules all on your phone.
Role
Human-Centered Research, Product Design
Timeline
4 months (Summer 2020)
Lily Lee, Taylor Mcpherson
Team
Design Process
To fully satisfy the client and potential users, we dived into detailed background research to understand what users we are targeting and discover new ways to solve the complexities of current day scheduling applications.
#1
User Research
#2
Creative Brief
#3
Wireframes & Mockups
To identify a solution, we had to define the problem and recognize the demographics. Who would use this application and why does it need to be created when there are many scheduling platforms already made. We gathered this information by relying on the client's expectations as well as a thorough analysis of users who use similar platforms for scheduling.
User Personas
In order to design a solution, we outlined the case and organize what exactly looking for while incorporating basic mental models of popular scheduling applications. Overall, we needed to dive into a user’s expectations of this application. The WHO, WHAT, HOW, and WHY.
lead
professor
student
manager
What does the user need?
Needs to see others’ availabilities
Needs to be able to manage multiple schedules and groups
Create project group despite class size being too big or too small.
David
Competitive Research
After creating some user personas based on our target audience, students, and professors at a University, we researched different platforms that already had scheduling applications.
We conducted a simple survey that asked users about their experiences using competitors’ applications such as Omnipointment and When2Meet. In summary, about 90% of users responses' indicated that the user flows of both Omnipointment and When2Meet were not user-friendly or intuitive.
Omnipointment
User Flow is confusing, having to re-input entire schedules
Selection process is more convienent
Schedules are not saved, multiple inputs saved for one person
UI lacked creativity and appeal to the user
Inputting entire schedule instead of individual set times
No privacy, “only the organizer should see peoples’ schedules”
When2Meet
Creative Brief
To summarize our findings, we developed a brief that defines the product in its entirety with its goal, agenda, tone, and target audience.
Illustration Process
In order to create a seamless flow, there were multiple rounds of iterations, back and forths to solidify the best experience a user can have when interacting with the application.
#1
Wireframes
#2
Low Fidelity
#3
High Fidelity
The First Brainstorm
With knowledge of competing apps, we created these sketches of what we thought the user flow would look like. If we were the user, what would we like to see in this application?
3 Features
2 User Flows
1 Application
Filter
The filter feature allows the user to see individual responses to the scheduling calendar and makes it easier for the user to decide on what schedules should appear on the calendar.
Toggle
The toggle feature allows a user to switch between their availability and their groups' availability. We added this feature to enhance transparency and control for the user when showcasing their availability.
Numerical View
This feature changes the scheduling calendar to a numerical view of how many people are available each day and time to make it efficient for users to decide what meeting time would be ideal. The different shades would indicate how many people are unavailable and to what extent.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
After some brainstorming sketching, we took our sketches to the board and created some low-fidelity wireframes (where the back and forth took place).
ITERATION #1
Key Features
1. CLASS API
2. TOGGLE SWITCH
3. FILTER
4. NUMERICAL VIEW
Final Iteration
In our final iteration, we cleaned up the features to make it easier for the user. After several iterations, we condensed the features and even adjusted how each feature would work overall in the application. Here is a breakdown of the changes we implemented:
Expand on participant flow and break down schedule input into individual steps as well as implementing toggle as a review user flow
Key feature, “Numerical View,” is switched to looking at a person’s individual schedule to minimize communications and allow creator to see all schedules individually
Filter feature includes a pop-up window that lets a user see peoples’ response OR classes to enhance experience and differences between viewing availability of people and classes users are taking.
Style Guide
#6080F8
#F5F5F5
#86FF93
#A3A3A3
#1
Creator Flow
The creator of the meeting picks a couple dates that works for them
A calendar is organized for the creator to see when the members of their scheduled meeting are free and can copy a link for their members to enter their availability
#2
Participant Flow
After receiving the link, participants input their schedules and also any other time they will not be free.
After putting their schedules in, they also get to see the group calendar with everyone’s responses and input.
#3
Filter & Responses
Users and especially creators can see the group and individual responses. They can also see availability regarding people or their classes’.
It gives the creator an organized compilation of all responses in order to create a meeting fast and easy.
Conclusion
Throughout the process, it was interesting to see how to implement features from competitors and organize it on a mobile device.
The struggles were compiling user flows on a mobile interface because most and popular scheduling applications take place on the desktop verison. It was challenging, but also refreshing to create something different.
If time didn't exist...
