PROJECT TYPE
Capstone
MY ROLE
Design Lead
PLATFORM
iOS
TOOLS
Figma, FigJam, Miro, Paper
What is focused?
Staying motivated is hard—especially when you're your own boss. Whether you're working remotely, switching careers, or striving toward personal goals, maintaining focus and structure can feel overwhelming. The rise of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic only amplified these challenges, leading to widespread burnout and a lack of motivation—issues that still persist today.
Enter focused—a startup dedicated to helping individuals reclaim their productivity and stay accountable. By combining daily wake-up calls, community co-working sessions, and structured weekly planning, Focused provides the support system solo workers need to build better habits and achieve their goals—whether professional or personal.
Currently, these sessions take place via Google Meet, with user communication handled through email and text. To create a more seamless and engaging experience, Focused partnered with my capstone team to explore how a dedicated app could better support their services and meet user needs. Our goal was to design a solution that enhances accountability, motivation, and structure—while keeping simplicity and ease of use at the core.
DESIGN QUESTION
How might we design social features that foster engagement and accountability in focused’s app, empowering users to achieve their personal and professional goals?
Our Approach
To design an app that truly supports focused’s users, we took a research-driven and collaborative approach. We began by conducting interviews with Focused users and facilitators, gaining firsthand insights into their experiences with the service and identifying key considerations for the application design.
Building on these insights, we facilitated a co-design session with our team, users, and facilitators to collaboratively generate and refine feature ideas. This participatory approach ensured that the app would align with real user needs.
From there, we translated the most impactful ideas into a prototype, iterating from low-fidelity wireframes to high-fidelity designs, shaping a solution that enhances accountability, motivation, and engagement.
What’s Holding Users Back?
Our research revealed a key challenge for focused users: a lack of centralized communication within the community outside of daily group meetings. While the group sessions were helpful, users expressed a strong desire for a space where they could connect and engage with others throughout the day.
This lack of ongoing interaction was seen as a barrier to accountability, as users felt disconnected from their peers between meetings. To address this, participants highlighted the need for social features, such as messaging, personal profiles, and the ability to share goals and progress with others.
By creating a centralized platform for communication and connection, Focused could foster a stronger sense of community, motivating users to stay on track with their goals. The ability to interact regularly and hold each other accountable could make all the difference in maintaining focus and achieving long-term success.
Generating Ideas
Our co-design session involved two activities to generate ideas for the user profile and community discussion group features:
Activity 1: Rapid Ideation
Participants listed key features for each design area using sticky notes, then marked their top priorities with stars.
Activity 2: Crazy 8s Sketching
Participants quickly sketched eight ideas—four for user profiles and four for community discussion groups—in one minute per sketch, sharing their thoughts afterward.
These activities led to the following list of prioritized features:
USER PROFILE FEATURES
Picture and Name
Status (online/offline) and meeting attendance (optional)
Answers to reflection questions (optional visibility)
Goals (big and small)
Biography and Background
Contact info
COMMUNITY DISCUSSION GROUP FEATURES
General messaging and group info
Support for users stuck on a project
Fun encouragement and celebration methods
Goal sharing
Discussion tracking tools
Polling features
These ideas became the foundation for designing the app’s core social features. View the Miro board from our co-design session here.
Design Foundation
To ensure the app’s structure aligns with user needs and supports seamless navigation, we created an Information Architecture (IA) map. This map outlines the app’s key features and content in a clear hierarchy, helping us visualize the relationships between different sections and how users will interact with them. It serves as the backbone for our design, ensuring a logical, intuitive flow for a smooth user experience.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
After defining the app's core features, we created low-fidelity wireframes to map out the basic layout and functionality of key screens. These wireframes served as a starting point for the design, focusing on structure and user flow without detailed visuals. We then shared these initial wireframes with participants from the co-design session, gathering valuable feedback on usability and clarity. This feedback guided our iterations and informed the development of a more refined high-fidelity prototype.
High-Fidelity Prototype
With feedback from the low-fidelity wireframes in hand, we refined our design into a high-fidelity prototype. This version incorporated detailed visuals, including color schemes, typography, and refined layouts, bringing the app to life in a way that closely resembled the final product. We focused on creating an intuitive and engaging user interface, ensuring smooth interactions and a seamless experience. The high-fidelity prototype allowed us to test the design's functionality and flow in greater detail, setting the stage for further refinement and eventual development.
User Profiles
Community Discussion Groups
Direct Messages
Scheduling and Goal Setting
Next Steps
Conduct comprehensive usability testing
Gather a group of focused users to test ability to complete tasks in the prototype
Interview users about layout and design of the application
Discuss additional features that would support users
Iterate upon current designs given testing findings
Implement more features or remove some that are not necessary
Expand prototypes for tablet and desktop viewports
Conduct more testing and iterate until satisfied with feedback
Package design components and screens for easy development
Begin developing the application
