iOS | B2C SaaS | 2018 - 2019

Seque - Deep Work & Focus

UX Design
UX Research
Product & UX Strategy
Case Study

Context

After experiencing the frustrations of constant"Slack attacks", interrupts, and at-times diminished self discipline, we decided to work together and create a tool that would help us counter all these.

After our initial discussions, a lot of people seemed interested in something like that as this was a pain shared across companies and continents (as we learned from our research).

Role & Team

I was the lead Designer and UX Architect of the project. My role was to find what we should build in order to help our target group improve their focus. I started by testing our hypothesis -people in tech want to improve their focus and keep out interrupts and distractions. After we got some pretty encouraging signals, I worked to design the iOS, iPad and Apple Watch parts of the Seque system

  • 1 UXer
  • 1 iOS Dev
  • 1 Copywriter

Scope

Design a seamless iOS, iPad and Apple Watch experience to help people improve their focus and get their work done.

Goals

  • Help tech workers improve and increase their focus time
  • Create a seamless system between iOS, iPad, and Apple Wattch
  • Help to reduce interrupts
  • Help to eliminate distractions and stay focused

Key Outcomes

>.2M
Over 200,000 downloads
Featured on US App Store "Apps We Love Right Now"
86
App Store feature on 86 countries
Promoted by Apple on their App Store Twitter & Facebook accounts

Overview & Background

An (simplified) overview of the process we followed

Project Process Overview

This is a simplification of the process followed in this project. The actual process was a lot more iterative, with many back and forth as we gained new understanding and we received more insights and evidence.In this short selection of steps we wont see all the steps we followed

Understand & Align

User Interviews & Contextual Inquiries

We interviewed and observed how 23 people in tech roles work.

We spent more than 35 hours learning what drives people mad, and how they cope with interrupts. This greatly improved our understanding and opened our eyes on how we could improve our solution.

Also, we got a huge confidence bump as our hypothesis was confirmed.

User Pain Points
  • Too many interrupts make it hard to focus and do the work as best as possible
  • Distractions make it hard to focus
  • At times, people didn't know how they've spent their time
  • Too many meetings make it hard to get work done, as they leave too little time to focus on work
Interview script and notes
Interview script and notes
Images of participant custom solutions and workarounds
Seque interview analysis and affinity mapping

Design, Test & Iterate

Initial sketches of the app and the main flows

Initial Sketches of the Main Flows of the App

We had discussions based on sketched flows and basic UI views. This helped a ton to move faster and iterate cheaply.

Impact

Having an overview of what happens when, and viewing all paths -instead of just the happy paths- helped us to align and make decisions on how to better handle certain situations. This helped us to move faster and avoid pitfalls.

Basic Flows and Wireframes (Wireflows)

Fully describing how the was supposed to work and what was expected, helped the discussions and development process.

Impact

This helped a lot with the communication with the developer. Each behaviour was described and this helped us avoid errors that would create frustration and delays

App Wireflows
Detailed interactions of main screens

Design System

We created a design system based on the iOS components to make sure we don't reinvent the wheel each time we needed to use something.

This increased the speed of both design and development, allowing us to iterate faster and more efficiently, minimizing consistency errors.

Impact

Improved consistency, and faster iterations and release cycles

Design system component samples

Usability Testing

We created mock apps to test the usability and understandability of the concepts.

We tested the top tasks in in-person sessions, followed by a semi-structured interview. Our goal was to extract information about the participant's experience with the app.

During these sessions, we uncovered a couple of usability issues we could immediately fix, and two paths that we could get the app going forward on future iterations.

Impact

We were abel to fix usability issues, improve on the copy on certain sections to make it more understandable, and iterate to release a better version of the app

Usability testing session
Usability testing session
Usability testing session
Main screens

Plan Screens

Here users plan the work they want to tackle. They create their tasks, and assign them time they'd like to focus on.

Seque offers the ability to link to a users calendar and enable the user to automatically create tasks based on the calendar event names and duration.

User can set a daily focus goal for the day.

Start by adding all the tasks they need to complete, and how much time they’d like to work on each one.This is the Backlog; all their focus tasks in one place.

Once they see the tasks they need to complete that day, they can prioritise and set their focus goal.

Impact

This allows users to plan quickly and set goals for themselves. They can track their progress in the Optimize section shown below

Plan illustration
Plan screen
Setting daily focus goal and creating a new task

Focus Screens

Here users begin their focus time. This helps to define a predefined session of avoiding distractions, and complete focus on the task at hand.

Users can hide all UI besides the clock counting down. We used bright colors on this screen so people that see it can take the hint and not interrupt the user working.

We also provided an option to create a calendar event for the duration of the task, so that team members can see that the user in not available.

Users can pick the task they want to get done first. And, focus on this task until it’s complete.
Let their coworkers know they’re in the zone by automatically blocking out calendar slots or displaying the countdown timer where they work.

Impact

Focusing on one task at a time, enables the users to reach a deep work, flow state and get the job done

Focus illustration
Focus screen
Creating a calendar log when starting a focus session

Optimize Screens

Data on what occurred each day, week, month, year can be viewed on this section of the app.
Visualizations show how much a user focused on their tasks each day. Patterns of behaviours can emerge, enabling them to improve their focus.

With Seque analytics, users can get an overall view of their productivity.

See how they spent their time and what tasks they’ve completed.

Find out what days and times they’re most productive so they can plan and manage time better

Impact

By keeping data on user behaviour and usage, we can provide analytics and insights on how the user can improve their focus time

Optimize illustration
Optimize screen
Viewing analytics on focus time
Seque for iOS and iPadOS

Results

Key Outcomes

>.2M
Over 200,000 downloads
Featured on US App Store "Apps We Love Right Now"
86
App Store feature on 86 countries
Promoted by Apple on their App Store Twitter & Facebook accounts

Samples from Apple Promoting Seque

We had the honour of Apple promoting Seque on multiple occasions and on multiple of their platforms. This is something that is granted to very few of mullions of apps on the App Store.

Apple promoting Seque
Apple promoting Seque
Apple promoting Seque
Apple promoting Seque
Apple promoting Seque

Want to see more?

Work Samples