UX/UI, Interaction Design II
Reminders and Countdown
Project Summary:
This is a redesign of an original app created by Sergey Astakhov. It was quite a popular app with over 14K reviews and a 4.8 rating in the App Store. The original applications UI was outdated, as it was created 9 years ago, so this redesign was a college assignment to use our skills to improve the usability and visuals for the current era.
Main Task:
Intuitive reminders work flow that promotes structure and productivity with little effort.
Pain Points:
Content Issues
It is a listed calendar, with repeating bar elements cluttered with useless information. The information is overwhelming and not presented in an approachable way. The user is supposed to have this app as extra insurance that certain activities get done but it doesn’t. It also auto tracks every holiday to the Weeks, Days, Hours, Minutes, and Seconds. Who needs this amount of information? There is zero ability to cross off a completed task requiring you to go into Settings to delete it.
Organizational Issues
The task flow efficiency is not optimal. The interface consists of multiple bars, each featuring an icon or emoji representing an event, followed by text and a random time until the event is displayed. The date and time are positioned on the far right of the bar. This repetitive layout lacks a clear organizational structure for reminders, making the app challenging to use. One notable feature is the integration with the user's Apple Calendar and Reminders, automatically formatting the information. However, this integration led to over a hundred notifications, creating a cluttered reading experience.
The toolbar at the top has three elements: Info, All, and Plus. The Info element primarily displays ads but includes one useful feature—the ability to merge iOS applications. The All element seems redundant as it categorizes reminders into three sections: default, Holiday, and Passed Events. This categorization is unnecessary and doesn't add significant value to the taskbar. The Plus element is used for adding new reminders, but it includes elements that users should not have control over, such as emoji logos, colorful background selection, and a wide variety of fonts. These customization options should be secondary to features like a checklist button, goals count, or the ability to link phone numbers or websites related to the reminder.
Technical Issues
It may notify the user when the reminder passes, but after the notification, it moves the event all the way to bottom of the listed events, practically becoming invisible to me.
Visual Design Issues
The user interface is not the best hierarchy and it does not properly show all the information up front. Detailed information of an event is hard to get to as you need to scroll through the whole list to find a specific event. The type is all over the place as it defaults to chalkboard and semi-comic-sans, making it all blend together. It also uses all caps which doesn’t make enough difference in between the different elements. The color palette is every color you can think of. It looks like a rainbow and not in a good way.
Usability Issues
The usability of the application would be ok, as the flow and use case is easy enough to understand the purpose of the application. But, keeping it in daily use would be a different story. Also, the process to make a new reminder is not intuitive and it takes too long.
Competitor Analysis:
A competitor analysis for reminder apps involves evaluating and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of similar applications within the market. This helps you figure out what works and why certain apps do better than others.
Comparison Criteria
Reminder function
Affective UI in importance of feature
Calendar feature
Task Flow Comparison:
Shows the difference and how I stream line the function.
Original Sketches:
Quick rendition of layout.
Old UI:
Applications original look.
Final:
Final rendition of work.