Task Ease Project

UI/UX Case Study

Empowering your daily routine with Task Ease

A productivity mobile app, designed to help users manage their daily tasks efficiently with an intuitive and clean interface.

Participatory Design

University Project with Real Users

Project Overview

My Role

UI/UX Designer

Timeline

4 months (Aug - Nov 2023)

Team

UI/UX Designers

Tools Used

Figma

Miro

Discord

Adobe Photoshop

Project Overview

How do you make household chores feel less like a burden and more like a win? Our team set out to answer that question and built a playful, user-driven prototype that transforms daily tasks into a motivating challenge.

The primary objective of this project was to gain insight into and provide solutions for the challenges individuals face when it comes to organizing and overseeing household tasks, a pervasive issue in our everyday existence.

This project was executed utilizing a Participatory Design methodology, which entails the active engagement of end-users at every stage of the project. This engagement consisted of an online survey, the facilitation of a Future Workshop, the conduct of co-design sessions and the collection of feedback on design sketches.

2.5h

Future Workshop

Qualitative Survery Responses

Design Process Steps

Design Process

01. Explore

Designers meet the users and immerse themselves in daily routines to understand how people work together, uncovering needs, habits, and pain points.

Observation

Survey

Interviews

02. Discover

Designers and users collaborate to analyze current work practices, define shared goals, and plan future possibilities that support the evolving workplace.

Future Workshop

Sketch Feedback

03. Analyse

Designers carefully review and synthesize the insights gathered in Stages 1 & 2, revealing key themes and opportunities that shape the design direction.

Thematic Analysis

04. Prototype

Designers and users iteratively create and refine technological artifacts, testing solutions that bring the envisioned workplace from concept to reality.

Advanced Prototype

What are the users saying?

01. Exploration Phase

Survey

The initial step was to identify the challenges users encounter with tasks and understand the general aversion towards completing them. We opted for a survey as it is an efficient method of data collection that allows us to gather a broad spectrum of opinions without significantly encroaching on either our time or that of the respondents.

Our questionnaire included 17 qualitative questions aimed at various facets of the problem statement, primarily utilizing open-ended questions to support our exploratory research methodology.

We received a total of 16 responses. Selected direct quotes from these responses are displayed on the right.

Quotes from users

😠 “I hate doing it, and it feels never-ending”

☺️ “I might reward myself with some more relaxing things, maybe a movie or an extra episode of a show i'm watching”

😐 “I try to think what bad things will happen if I don’t do household chores”

😎 “There are more fun things to do"

🤔 “The problem often lies in the way that we, people, think about doing chores, maybe something that would change my way of thinking about doing them”

What is the plan for the future?

02. Discovery

Future workshop

The Future Workshop (FW) is a method employed within Participatory Design for the purpose of planning and conceptualizing a future vision. This approach comprises three distinct phases, namely critique, fantasy, and implementation.

In the case of our project, the Future Workshop was conducted remotely via Discord, utilizing the visualization tool Miro. Participants actively engaged by expressing their ideas through the use of digital sticky notes. This session extended over a duration of 2.5 hours and featured the involvement of five facilitators and five participants.

Sketching

Following the Future Workshop, we moved directly into sketching sessions to translate the group’s ideas into tangible screens. Each session paired a facilitator with a participant, and together they shaped rough interface sketches while the facilitator handled the actual drawing. This collaborative approach kept the pace quick and allowed participants to focus on features and flow rather than artistic detail.

These sessions surfaced several key directions early on. Participants emphasized a need for digital rewards to boost motivation, a shared family view to track everyone’s contributions, and optional automated planning to make chores feel less overwhelming. The sketches became an immediate bridge between the workshop insights and the next stage of design, giving us a visual foundation for the first set of wireframes and a reference point for all later iterations.

Keep in mind that this was done after the data analysis, however I included it in this section as the whole process is iterative.

Sketch made by me and one user, it ended up being the one users liked the most!

What does this data mean?

03. Analysis

Thematical Analysis

Subsequently, the data collected from both the online survey and the Future Workshop was carefully examined using a method called thematic analysis. If you are unfamiliar with that term, think of it like sorting a giant box of colorful LEGO bricks. You group similar pieces together to see the bigger picture they can build. In research, this means spotting patterns and grouping similar ideas or comments to discover common themes. The themes we identified are presented below.

Themes

Lack of time due to external factors

Participants repeatedly described chores as time consuming and hard to fit around work, family, and other commitments. Typical remarks included “There is not enough time” and “It takes too long time,” which matched survey comments such as “it takes too long and I have other things to do.” This pattern framed time pressure as a consistent blocker across contexts

Appliances/equipment are needed to effectively complete chores

Many tasks became harder without the right tools. People mentioned dishwashers, washing machines, and robot vacuums as difference makers. One participant was “stuck” doing dishes by hand due to budget limits for a fitting dishwasher, while another described the friction of booking a communal laundry room that others did not respect. These small frictions added up and discouraged timely completion.

Better structure and/or planning is needed to complete chores

Respondents described a lack of routines and asked for easier ways to plan. Half had not tried any strategies to manage time for chores, and 62.5 percent rated their current planning methods as middle or lower on a five point scale. This signaled a clear opportunity for features that help people see their week and turn big jobs into smaller steps.

Distractions that make it difficult to complete chores

Digital and basic physiological distractions often derailed progress. Seventy five percent said social media, TV, or phone use hindered their ability to finish chores, and workshop notes frequently cited being too hungry or too tired. Distraction was not a rare edge case but a routine obstacle.

Completing chores is not motivating enough

Low motivation sat beneath other issues and often triggered postponement. People admitted “There are more fun things to do,” and described chores as “never done,” which felt exhausting. Workshop participants echoed that many activities give more dopamine than cleaning, so they drifted to more rewarding alternatives. This pointed directly to the need for clear rewards and visible progress.

Key insights from research

Together these insights tell a bigger story. When chores lack structure they quickly spill into every corner of daily life, adding stress and draining energy. That drop in energy makes motivation slip, and without small wins or friendly rivalry there is little reason to get started. Participants described how even a simple reward or the chance to outscore a family member could turn cleaning from a dreaded duty into something almost game-like. These discoveries shaped the TaskEase prototype into a tool that offers clear planning, visible progress, and playful incentives so everyday tasks feel easier, faster, and more rewarding.

Rewards are important

Users expressed their need of some kind of reward in order to keep them motivated to complete household chores. Without that, they would keep neglecting them.

Structure and planning

Better structure and planning would help users in effectively completing their chores. Without a proper plan, the tasks would intervene with their daily lives, resulting in stress and anxiety.

Competition

Competing with others is another way to gain motivation. The users felt the need to see how well other individuals perform compared to them, in order to keep them motivated to complete tasks.

Motivation

Users often lacked the desire to begin or finish chores. They explained that without clear goals or small incentives, it was easy to delay or avoid tasks, making it hard to stay engaged and productive.

How do we design the app?

04. Prototyping

Wireframes

Using the data and feedback from the sketching sessions, we iterated and produced a refined set of screens that focused on motivation and planning. We added subtasks to make big chores feel manageable, introduced weekly and monthly schedule views with simple day indicators, and made rewards more tangible with points per task and progress bars under each reward. We also reviewed layout, labels, and hierarchy to keep the experience clear and consistent with the research themes. This round was evaluated within the team to validate structure and information architecture

Our intention was to present these wireframes to users for additional feedback. However, time constraints prevented us from doing so, compelling us to proceed directly to the creation of the visual profile. In future endeavors, incorporating more user engagement in the design process would be beneficial

High-Fidelity Prototype

After completing the refined wireframes, the team focused on turning the chosen design into a polished, interactive prototype. We began by defining a graphic profile that would reflect the positive emotions users said they wanted to feel while handling chores. Light blue became the primary color for its calming quality, supported by black and dark gray for balance and readability. Rounded buttons and icons were selected to give the interface a friendly, low-stress character, and Nunito Sans provided a clean, highly readable typeface.

The refined wireframes were then adapted into high-fidelity mockups in Figma. Every key feature drawn from earlier user feedback was incorporated: subtasks to break down large chores, weekly and monthly schedule views, and a points system with visible progress bars to keep motivation high. Once the visual language was in place, we built an interactive prototype that let users add and complete tasks, move between task lists, rewards, and the scoreboard, and create custom rewards.

This stage marked the transition from concept to a near-real product experience. Although participants did not review these final wireframes before the mockups were created, each design decision stayed grounded in the insights from the sketching sessions and wireframe evaluations, ensuring that the finished prototype remained true to what users had envisioned earlier in the process.

What I learned

This project sharpened my ability to uncover the real problem behind what users say. I learned to dig past surface comments, spot patterns in behavior, and turn those insights into design choices that actually motivate action. I became more confident facilitating workshops and guiding discussions so every voice is heard, while keeping the team focused on outcomes. Most of all, I grew as a designer who can translate complex, human challenges into clear, engaging solutions that drive results.

Thank you so much for taking your time to read this case study! :)

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