time & tide

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ime & Tide

Aalto University > School of Art & DesignDepartment of Media > MA New Media programMaster’s thesis > 28/03/2011



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Time & Tide

Anusha Iyer

Aalto University, School of Art and Design

Department of Media, MA New Media Program

Master’s Thesis, 28/03/2011



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Author | Anusha IyerYear of publication | 2011Department | Department of MediaDegree programme | MA New Media

Title | Time & Tide - designing a time management systemType of work | Interaction design

Number of pages | 100

Time & Tide is a time management system that aims to solve time management problems at deeper levels. Ittries to do better what other tools do wrong in terms of interaction design and system level architecture.

Some of the problems it aims to solve are lack of focus either due to having too many tasks in one’s head ordistractions from notications, mobility related issues with planning one’s commute within a city to reachplaces on time and cumbersome interfaces to manage tasks digitally.

To suit people with different needs, Time & Tide offers a modular range of tools depending on the levelof time management help needed. It includes a mobile application for Android, a browser extension, awrist watch and the possibility to have specially designed paper planners to be digitally linked with theapplication.

This thesis shows the process of arriving at the design with ample benchmarking research done in order

to compare and learn from the aws of existing tools. The research also includes user interviews, userstories and extracting of requirements from those. The design process includes sketching, wireframes,architecture diagram and prototyping.

Keywords:productivity tool, interaction, gesture, multi-touch, Android, design, mobile app, wrist device, prototyping



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Time is faster than light.It runs out and ies!

It zips past and you don’t even realise it!



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A cknowledgemenTs

I thank you for your time to read this book.

I would like to thank Media Lab and its wonderful people for encouraging me to go ahead with my thesisalthough it always seemed like I was running behind time.

A big thank you to Rasmus Vuori for being my advisor and for sharing his tools and methods of time

management, being a hardcore planner himself. Thank you for your support, encouragement and advice.(Also for ordering the gadgets!) You had the faith in me that I would make it on time!

Thanks to Pipsa Asiala for her words of encouragement that seemed to show up in my head during times of failing courage. To Markku Reunanen for helping me with Processing and taking the time to think and helpme out even though he wasn’t my advisor. To Philip Dean for taking time out to show me the Live scribesmart pen and lending me the Nokia smart pen and digital paper notebook.

Thanks to Palash Mukhopadhyay and Dipti Sonawane for helping me out with coding and design process.It seems like my thesis is never complete without you both! To Ashwin Rajan, Irene Poutanen, BenjaminDromey, Ranjit Menon and Sampo Leino for hearing my ideas out at the beginning of this project andgiving feedback or just listening! To Pekka Hartikainen for being my opponent at the thesis seminar andgiving me an honest feedback. Also to Ramyah Gowrishankar, Liisa Tervinen and Jonathan Cremieux forfeedback and words of encouragement. Forrest Oliphant for being the model for the watch prototype.

Thanks to all the people who answered my questionnaire since their replies indicated that I was on theright track. To Elisa Schäfer for testing my geeky timer prototype and giving feedback.

Thanks to Rit Mishra, the ‘star’ interaction designer who managed to take time out and give me tips andguidance on interaction design. His advice was timely and helped me disentangle myself out of a toughdesign situation.To Julius Tuomisto for listening to my ideas, for being my interviewee and giving crazy suggestions inthe questionnaire. And most importantly for giving a timely dramatic expression of, “What?! Only 2500

words?!!” that made me jump into action and complete my thesis.Thank you Leyla Nasibova, for being a wonderful friend and companion (and interviewee). For listening tome crib, for bringing me lunch and cheering me up. For believing in me and always thinking the best aboutme! (And for sticking the ‘sunshine’ on my window!)To all my friends who I haven’t specially mentioned here for their love and encouragement.



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I would like to thank my parents for encouraging me, believing in me and giving their love and supportthrough Skype!

And nally my husband-to-be, Anant. Without his love, support and faith (and existence!) this thesis

wouldn’t have been completed or even started!



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A - Questionnaire 85

B - Comparison chart 89

C - Wireframes 90

D - Sketches 93



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1. INTRODUCTION

This thesis was formed due to certain self-observations of me over the years and my heavily futureoriented way of working which means I enjoy planning my days, sometimes to the hour. Time & Tide is anattempt at creating a personal time management system that tries to do right what other tools do wrongand would grow into becoming a person’s trusted companion. The rst two sections of this chapter set thecontext for this thesis and the last section talks of the problems and goals.

1.1 Procrastination, Daydreaming and Snail’s pace

Right from childhood, I was known for being a slow eater. As I grew up, the eating became normal on mostoccasions but my parents soon realised that I daydreamt a lot and I was slow with getting ready for schoolor getting any work done. Their only solution was to reprimand me whenever I daydreamt or pausedtentatively on my actions. It never helped. Some of my good friends would get annoyed at my pace of doingthings and on occasions took over whatever I was doing for they could not bear the slowness.

I’m in my mid-twenties now and not much has changed. I take double the time as others to pack myself for the winter outside. I’m almost always late for meetings or classes and sometimes use my Indian-ness* asan excuse for being late. No matter how early I wake up for class or work, I nd myself running to the busstop. My parents might have wondered if I suffered from a mental disorder like ADD. I was a good studentin school and never had problems paying attention in class. My simple conclusion is that it’s hard for me tofocus on certain tasks and end up having other thoughts during the tasks, which will be elaborated later.

Procrastination is another thing I know a lot of people suffer from and most happen to be involved inthe creative eld (Allen 2001, 240 - 242) (McCarthy 2011). Not surprisingly, I have the same problem. Myanalysis is that it has a connection with how designers work and think. According to Steven Johnson,author of Where good ideas come from: the natural history of innovation, ideas are usually incubating in one’shead for a very long time (River Head Books 2010). During the incubation period chances are that onedoesn’t get much work done externally. We put off work to do something else that takes our attention atthat point. When the deadline is closer we hurry to squeeze in as much work as possible within the short

time. This leads to high levels of stress and panic.

Procrastination, daydreaming and performing actions at a snail’s pace were my starting points for thisthesis. The daydreaming and the snail’s pace might not be a common problem faced by many, but I do

* Indians are known for their non-punctuality and the time of arrival is popularly termed as Indian Standard Time (IST)



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happen to know and have noticed some people who move slowly. This list can grow if one includes peoplewith ADHD/ADD and so on. But this thesis will not particularly focus on them. Forums (see Image 1) thatdiscuss annoyance towards slow people exist online. On further inspection the discussion was not centred

Image 1: Screenshot of Google search results showing forums about hating slow people

on old or intellectually disabled people, but participant’s partners and close friends too. It indicates anexistence of other people who may be slow in their actions and may need help with this issue.

1.2 Woes of the 21st century

We repeatedly hear about the effects of the digital age in the 21st century. With the advent of tabletdevices, it’s yet another digital gadget providing information in a person’s possession. 3G on smartphonesand tablets, and high speed broadband connections at work, school and home ensure a perpetually good



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connection to information 24x7. Display devices like Sony Ericsson’s LiveView (Sony Ericsson 2010) thatcan be strapped on to the wrist like a watch and connected to the mobile phone, ensures that you nevermiss a call, mail or message. With aggregation tools for social networking sites on mobiles and feeds, a(distracting) update is never amiss. Perpetual connection to the internet disconnects the thought process(White 2008). The thought process begins resembling that of a smartphone or in other words we begin toattempt multitasking (Dachis 2011).

Multitasking with information is not a possibility according to Aza Raskin (Raskin 2011). Researchers saythat two (or more) tasks that require the conscious part of the brain cannot be performed simultaneously.The brain shifts its focus from one task to another and in doing so loses effectiveness (Hougland 2010)(Bannister 2009). Only tasks that are performed by the subconscious mind can be done simultaneouslyas the ones done by the conscious mind. A recurring example cited in articles is car driving and listening

to music or the information from the radio. Listening to information requires the conscious mind, whilethe steering of the wheel and changing of gears is done by the subconscious mind. A task can be trainedto be made into a subconscious act by repetition (Raskin 2011). This cannot be true for checking socialnetwork updates while trying to solve a complicated math problem as both require information processing.Therefore using smartphones on the move may give you important information at an apt moment that willease your work, but a notication from Facebook while you’re at your workstation will disrupt your thoughtprocess and bring down productivity. This makes the perpetual connectivity of the 21st century, a double-edged sword.

Jobs increasingly require people to have multiple skills and broad knowledge. ‘Multitasking’ is sometimesmentioned as a requirement in job postings. What they mean is a person should be able to work onmore than one project at the same time. With digitalisation of things around us, many tasks are done bycomputers, therefore easing our work. This in turn means more time to do other things, thereby packingone’s day with multiple activities. Being able to do more does not necessarily mean doing the job well.Packing in activities adds stress to our lifestyle besides making us less effective.This connectedness and attempt at multi-tasking in the wired world gives rise to the following problems:

1. Lack of focus for long periods of time on process-heavy tasks2. High levels of stress3. Not being able to complete a task effectively4. AbsentmindednessAlong with the problems mentioned above and my problems of procrastination, lack of focus on certaintasks and being slow, set the context for my thesis.

1.2 Aiming towards effectiveness

Working on this thesis has had me analysing my shortcomings of being slow or my lack of focus. I havefound some answers that have helped in formulating the goals for Time & Tide. Whenever I’m requiredto perform a task that does not require an intellectual process, my mind begins to wander to other tasks



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that need to be done. I mentally plan other tasks or analyse something and tend to lose track of time.I’m capable of acting fast but only when required, like when there is little time or when I’m focused ongetting someplace on time. When I’m focused on the mindless tasks, I’m able to do them with swift rmmovements. Therefore the problem here is with having too many things on my mind at any given time.According to (Getting Things Done) GTD’s David Allen (Allen 2001), it becomes hard to focus on a task withoutthinking about other tasks because we tend to store all the tasks and reminders in our head. The questionis how to make it possible to reduce the clutter in one’s head to be able to focus on the present. A handycontainer for thoughts is required for this.

According to Maurizio Cardaci’s Mental Clock Model (Cardaci 2000), each person has an internal clock thatperceives time and when this perceived time mismatches with the ‘ofcial’ time or the clock time, theperson feels that time is moving slowly or too fast. We perceive time differently depending on our context

and actions. The person who is awaiting someone, feels that time is going too slowly; whereas the personbeing waited for, who is probably rushing to the meeting, feels like time is running out, that it is too fast.He is of the opinion that process-heavy or interesting tasks slows down our internal clock which is why welose track of time. Losing track of time is a good thing when doing process-heavy tasks, since it means thatone is focused on the task. Uninteresting actions or waiting makes our internal clock run faster makingus feel like time is slow. This had not been tested at the time of his writing, but the mental clock model isnevertheless an interesting one for this thesis.Since I’m one of the important personas to design for, I have been trying various methods of managing

time and tasks, and tools that help me stay focused. Besides trying out a bunch of mobile and web apps, Ihave used everything from a small sand timer to ticking metronomes online (E Music Institute 2009). Themetronome helped me keep up the pace of my task and create a sense of urgency. The 5 minute sand timerhelped me understand the length of 5 minutes. The electric toothbrush I was gifted beeps every minutehelping me realise what a minute feels like and I knew how many minutes I take to brush my teeth.

With these tools I realised, a subtle alert system that helps us understand the passing of time would be auseful feature. The ticking of the second hand on old clocks is a good example of this.

There is a bigger need for productivity tools today that help us manage our time and tasks, than everbefore. This is due to the nature of jobs and our activity packed days described in the previous section.There are hundreds of productivity tools of all kinds available for various platforms including iOS,Windows and Android. The reason why developers and companies continue to produce more tools isbecause not many do their job well or don’t tackle all the problems. Some reasons are:

1. Many a times, an app packs in a lot of features but fails to add the important ones that matter.2. Integration problems with 3rd party apps

3. Wrong level of complexity4. Wrong amount of customization allowed

It is tedious to plan one’s day on a digital platform as the inputting of information is cumbersomeespecially on touchscreen phones. This aspect might put off a user from using a good app otherwise. Peopleare losing touch with writing with a pen on paper. Inputting data is mostly restricted to pushing buttons



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on a keyboard, keypad or a touchscreen. Soon we might forget the act of writing. The coming generationsmay not even recognise an analog pen. I would like to preserve the act of writing with a pen on paper, asI nd it a better way of letting my mind ow and it is one of the oldest forms of human expression (AnotoGroup n.d.). Writing with a stylus like device does not have the same effect. Then there are some whoprefer planning on paper planners or calendars. But there is no way of getting reminded unless they enterthe same details into an app on their phones.

Image 2: Five minutes sand timer

This project tries to solve at least three problems with regards to personal time and task management:1. Reduce clutter inside one’s head about tasks to be done or issues that need to be tackled.2. Get appropriate reminders of tasks at the right time and place.3. Time management problems with speed and of whiling away time.

Although there are many time and task management tools trying to tackle these problems, I’m trying todesign yet another one with the following points in mind:1. The existing ones are not doing their job right and are not for everyone.

2. Extreme digitalisation of everything removes us from our natural forms of interaction such as writingwith a pen on paper.3. Time and task management tools are important due to the growing number of tasks one has toaccomplish in a short time.4. They’re also important as we tend to lose focus on an ongoing task if we try to keep all the thoughtsinside our head. We need a system to hear us and help us out.



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5. There are degrees of time and task management and people are different. There needs to be a systemthat helps people achieve the desired degree of effectiveness keeping their preferences and difference inmind.

People have different needs and therefore the aim is to have a set or a system for time management which

is modular. This way, one can choose one or all modules depending on their needs.The system involves a wrist device, a paper planner, smart pen with digital paper planner, a mobileapplication for multi-touch Android based devices and a browser extension.

Image 3: Chart showing percentage of users with Android OS; source (The Nielsen Company 2011)

I chose the Android OS for a few reasons – it can run on multiple devices unlike the iOS, it’s outselling theiPhone currently and the updates are fast (Warren 2010). Another reason is that it belongs to Google whichis a fast moving company that produces state-of-the-art technological innovations in many realms. Theyare working on speech-to-text and voice based interaction which is a key feature for my design (Cohen2011).



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This thesis is divided into introduction, research, design, analysis and conclusion. The research includesboth user research and benchmarking. The chapter on design outlines the requirements, discusses andshows the design of the system, the prototyping, process and the challenges incurred. The analysis chapteris divided into two, with the rst section analysing the current design and process while the next onediscusses the future direction. The thesis concludes with thoughts on how the design solves the problemsand personal learning from this project.



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2. RESEARCH

How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.~Zall’s Second Law

2.1 About people and time

Man has a relation with time that is sometimes unexplainable. We are the only species on earth to have

given time such precise numerical values, while the rest of life only depends on sun and the tides to learntime. We have created calendars and charts to aid the understanding of earth and its time in the universe.They help us nd ourselves in the various eras that pass by. We chase time and try to pin it down in ourman-made watches only to nd that the speed of time is constant and we’re the ones who keep changing.When I began this project, I was very keen on the way we perceive time and act on it. This interest sprangdue to my own behaviour explained in section 1.1. Studies show how our experience of an event is relatedto our perception of time during the event (Sackett 2010). According to Gibson, people only perceive eventsand locomotion but not time (Gibson 1975). When the experience is hedonic or in other words a lot of fun,we tend to perceive a shorter duration of time or we feel as if ‘time ies’.

Image 4: Csikszentmihalyi’s Challenge level vs. Skill level chart



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This has a connection with focus on tasks too, as explained in the previous chapter. When we’re engrossedin doing something that we love, we barely realise how time passes. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s conceptof ow is a good explanation of this (TED 2008). When the challenge level of a task is as high as the skill toachieve it, the person is in a state of ow such that they can ignore everything else and not be distracted.This aspect helps in solving the problem of focus amongst individuals to a certain extent. By workingon challenging tasks, a person’s focus towards it can be increased. Drawing from this, I sketched a speedand concentration graph that shows where the boring tasks currently are in my life. The mind is usuallyfocused on challenging or interesting tasks and the speed is usually moderate. If the task is important thenthe speed does not matter. But with a boring task that has no challenge, the concentration is very low inmy case and the processing power of my mind is taken up by other thoughts making me slow down and‘wasting time’. Therefore my aim is to move the position of the boring tasks to a faster and focused spot inthe graph.

Image 5, 6: Graphs showing the current position of boring tasks vs. interesting ones; where the boring tasks should be moved

In the video preview of Philip Zimbardo’s book Time Paradox, the co-author John Boyd talks about howtime is one of the most important factors inuencing our lives and decisions, but isn’t paid as much heedto (Boyd 2008). I believe he means the subject of time and its effects on our lives has not been given muchthought or researched enough. For we regularly consult a clock for the next meeting, the game on TV tothe bus timing and the calendar for the important days of the year. Some of us plan ahead, some reminiscethe past while others live for the moment. Philip Zimbardo has created an inventory of personalities based

on their time perspective called the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) (Zimbardo 2008). Accordingto it, people either fall into or have a mixture of the orientations, past-negative, past-positive, present-fatalist, present-hedonistic, short-term future and long-term future orientation. Falling completely intoone of these categories is not a good thing and most people are a combination of these. According toZimbardo, being moderately future oriented with a good measure of present-hedonistic and past-positiveattitude is the ideal situation. People who are present-hedonistic but lack future orientation, only enjoy



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life’s pleasures in the present without considering tomorrow’s consequences or long term goals. Past-positive people are ones who look back at the good things that happened in the past, while the negativeones always fear the present and the future due to the bad that happened in the past. Highly futureoriented people only think ahead, without living in the present. They resist temptation in the present thatmight jeopardise their future. They are also heavy-duty planners and task managers who are very goal-oriented. This inventory gives an overview of people’s orientation in life with regards to time.

When it comes to how human beings actually use their time on a daily basis there is considerable amountof research being conducted for it called Time-use research (Time Use Research Program at SaintMary’s University n.d.). The information gathered is used to analyse people’s behaviour with regards totransportation, IT and public spaces to name a few. For example it gives an insight into who takes thebus instead of walking and what IT is doing to how we spend time. A researcher named Dagnn Ǻs has

broken down the time spent by individuals on a daily basis into four - contracted time, committed time,necessary time, and free time (As 1978). Contracted time is the one spent on work and studies, committedtime is the one spent with near and dear ones, necessary time is spent for oneself like sleeping and eatingand free time is the rest of the hours out of 24 that does not fall into the other categories. Contractedand committed time take priority over necessary and free time in most cases. My inference from this isthat by connecting the ZTPI categories and the time-use ones, a person’s characteristics and time relatedbehaviour can be analysed with ease. For instance a future oriented person might spend more contractedtime on working than free time in partying, but enough necessary time on maintaining their health. These

parameters can prove useful in designing time related software as it gives a better understanding of thepotential users. Add to it, the connection between hedonistic experiences and perceived short duration canfurther aid the design.

This research points to the fact that people are different and their needs for time management tools vary.Lifestyle, habits, culture and value systems all play a part in the evaluation of the tools a person mightor might not use for time related needs. For this project I did not delve into a detailed user research onthe parameters mentioned above but tried to get an overall sense of how people manage time. In order

to get an overview of the tools being used by people and the extent to which they use them, I prepared aquestionnaire for some of my contacts to ll out. While choosing participants, care was taken to include amix of professionals and students, some of whom I know to be engaged in activities outside their work orstudies. It indicates a busy life with much to do and places to be. Care was also taken to include people whoare technology or IT savvy. The questions were about the tools they currently use, the purpose and natureof usage. While designing the questionnaire attention was paid to the length and relevance to the people.The full questionnaire is appended to the book.

Of the 66 recipients, a total of 27 responses were received that consisted of students, consultantsand professionals ranging from the age of 22 to 56 with a fair mix of genders. Topics covered in thequestionnaire were about to-do lists, web based calendar apps, sticky notes and alarm clocks. A summaryof the results is as follows:



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Image 7: Screenshot of charts

1. People do use tools for time and task management and need better ones50% of them replied as trying to remember things in their head besides using tools and most of them

replied that they were dissatised with the current tools in some way or the other.

2. People need help with their time management in a way that current tools don’t 41% said they try their best but don’t always manage their tasks while 30% said that they are not effective.Some people are happy being ineffective while others require robust methods.

3. Paper planners are like companions for those who use them regularly19% of the ones who use paper planners always carry them and use them for various purposes.

4. Google calendar is the most popular web based app65% use Google calendar for events and tasks. Almost all of them sync them with their phone and other appsor devices. They like its simplicity and the fact that it is independent of device and is compatible on allOS’s.



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Image 8: Screenshot of chart on calendar app

5. Some wished for features outlined in my objectiveMore than one person wished that their paper calendar would be linked to their web or mobile app. Somewished to get regular reminders all day, but did not wish to manually set them and that they would like tospeak their thoughts to their phone instead of typing.

With this questionnaire my main goal was to validate some of the needs I had forecasted while framingthe objectives of the project. It was also useful in growing aware of apps on different platforms that I wasunaware of, like Epic Win.

2.2 User Stories

Having gotten an overview of people’s requirements with time management tools from the questionnaire,I decided to understand a few of them better in order to weave my design. I had a long discussion withtwo of my friends to try and understand their problems, behaviour and needs. They have varying needsand habits, for one nds herself in many places on a busy day, while the other is perpetually late for work.I chose them with the knowledge of their time related characteristics. I used my own characteristics tocreate the third persona. The insights gathered have been formed into stories to illustrate the personas Icreated and their lives.

Julie, 25, Computer science student and freelance animator Julie studies at Aalto University whose campus happens to be spread in different locations. A person whothrives on having packed days with a lot to do, she signs up for multi-disciplinary courses that sometimespan across all campuses. Since she occasionally nds herself short on resources and enjoys the process of animation, she freelances as an animator for companies, creating stunning publicity material for them.



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This means she has more places to be besides the different campuses and work hard to meet school andwork deadlines.

Julie is present-hedonistic with some long term future orientation. Therefore she is focused on the presentbut plans for future goals too. She uses Google calendar for adding events and her mobile phone for thealarm.

Most often she has only two kinds of work days – busy and slow. Slow days with not many or any placesto go to, group meetings to attend or errands to run, makes her go about her tasks with a lethargic pace.She nds it terribly difcult to wake up on slow days. She needs deadlines, preferably ofcial, to be ableto get things done on slow days. Busy days keep her adrenaline up and her mind and body alert. Shemanages to wake up on time, be at places on time, gets work done and feels satised by the end of theday. But her complete focus to the tasks at hand makes her ignore eating regularly which in turn causesher to have ulcers that she would rather not have to deal with. Also, having an upcoming meeting on hermind does not allow her to focus on the smaller tasks during the day. She has to check the timing for thebus to the meeting before she begins her smaller tasks. While working on these tasks or going about doingother things, the bus timing is foremost on her mind to make sure she does not miss it and get late forher meeting. She stores the rest of the tasks and events for the day in her head, while referring to Googlecalendar occasionally. Dealing with emails related to a project takes a large part of the day, leaving herfeeling unsatised by the end.

Anne, 29, Designer and dancer Anne works for a design studio in Helsinki and dances with a contemporary dance group as a hobby. Anneis highly future oriented (both long term and short term). She enjoys the planning and always thinks of thefuture goals and how to go about doing things, while getting little done in the present.

She enjoys activities that involve intellectual processing, analysis and creativity. The reason she is not afull-time dancer is because it does not involve any analytical process. Therefore unless she is in a hurry she

tends to plan, ponder and think about projects or situations, while she does low-process works like doingthe dishes or getting ready for work. This makes her actions slow and thoughtful. She is also a perfectionistmaking her slow down with certain tasks and taking up a lot of time off other possibly important tasks.These qualities show their negative effects when she has to get ready for work or get to a meeting on timeor achieve many tasks in one day. She reaches her dance studio late. When she’s deep into thinking sheloses track of time and it’s only when she focuses on the tasks at hand that she is able to perform them fast,especially if there is little time.

She procrastinates with personal projects or tasks until the deadline, but always manages to meet them asshe works best under pressure. Her love for planning every hour of every day and her lack of speed withcertain tasks makes her try various applications and tools available.

Lewis, 33, Project manager and entrepreneur Lewis prides in having a creative energy at work and his unique way of working sets him apart from the



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and began looking for similar tools. Some of them are tools that helped make my design better or helpedme understand that the function that I have designed can be implemented due to their existence. Forexample, the Live scribe smart pen and digital paper were found due to my conceptualisation of being ableto connect paper and digital app, while the Time Timer was found whilst trying to look for tools that havea visual timer. On nding a tool similar to my concept, I began analysing it to nd its pros and cons thathelp in improving my design. Therefore the benchmarking and analysing of productivity tools is the mostimportant design tool and step in my design process. A chart showing the comparison of the features andtools, against the features for Time & Tide as envisioned by me, is appended to this book.

Astrid + Astrid Power Pack Astrid is a ‘simple task recording dashboard for Android’ (Todoroo Inc. 2011). To get its full capabilities, the

Power Pack add-on and another one from Locale is required. The Locale add-on reminds of tasks close totheir location. To use the Locale capabilities, the Locale app needs to be installed which is sold separately.(Paris 2010)

Images 9, 10, 11: Astrid - task adding screen, voice-to-text for titles, active tasks screen showing stop watch for tasks

Good points:Adding tasks by voice (on Android 2.2 and higher, with• Astrid Power Pack add-on)Widget on home screen to view active tasks and check them on completion•Attempt at simplifying interface with spacing and large buttons•Grouping of functions in tabs according to the level of details to be added to a task and customisation•required



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Sync with• Google Calendar Tasks Along with a Locale add-on, tasks can be reminded close to the location assigned for the taskAbility to get reminded randomly every hour (other options are standard like weekly, when the task is•due etc.)Tasks can be timed to know the duration for future reference•

Flaws:Four levels of priority for tasks•No possibility of adding details of a task by voice•Calendar is shown only on calling the ‘remind on a particular date’ function•

Remember The Milk

Image 12: Remember The Milk, Tasks screen

Remember the Milk (Remember The Milk 2011)is available for the web and integrates with a number of emailand calendar apps including Gmail, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. It is available on iOS, Android,Blackberry and Windows mobile. The bookmarklet for browsers and adding tasks from Twitter gives it aubiquity that other apps lack.



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Image 13: Remember The Milk, Locations screen showing a task on the map

Good points:Availability on a host of platforms and integration with a number of softwares makes it easy for users•to add tasks as and when it comes upSimple clean layout•

Ability to type in task details using simple words, instead of choosing from options and calendars• Includes a locations feature that shows the tasks for the day on a map•Tasks can be shared with contacts which lets them see and modify the tasks•

Flaws:The locations feature only shows the task locations but does not remind at the right place•Tasks have three levels of priority (but ‘none’ is the default value making it easy for people who do not•require prioritisation)

Lack of calendar unless used with other softwares• Includes the GTD (Allen 2001) method of ltering tasks, which adds to complications•

f d h



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Omni focus and Things

Images 14, 15, 16: Omni Focus homescreen with multiple lters, locations pointing supermarket and Things homescreen

Omni Focus (The Omni Group 2011) and Things (Cultured Code n.d.) are both applications that are based onthe GTD (Allen 2001) principle of having an Inbox and ltering tasks according to how soon they need to betackled. The iOS version was tested for benchmarking.

Good points:Things• is a simple way to add tasks devoid of complicated layers of details.Omni focus• includes the ‘nearby’ feature that shows tasks on a map. But additionally it shows locationsof businesses depending on the nature of the task. Entering grocery as a task with Errands as thecontext shows the nearest supermarket on the map.Tasks in• Things can be sent to anyone by email

Flaws:Things• does not show tasks on the home screen that have been entered in other categories unless thecategories are clicked to view tasks under themEntering of due date does not show the day of the week•

Omni focus• has too many lters for tasksOne’s nger covers the location to be pinned in• Omni focus, making it difcult to know where it is beingdropped. The pin is asked to be dragged around, which allows a very small area to ‘hold the pin’ whichsometimes conicts with the panning of the map while dragging

Ti Ti



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Time TimerTime Timer was originally an analog timer that showed the passage of time visually. It has now expandedto include an iPhone and desktop application (Time Timer 2011) . The tools have not been personallytested, only understood from online sources

Images 17, 18, 19: Clock overlayed on timer and timer of 40 minutes on iPhone app; physical product

Good points:Shows passage of time visually making it easy to quickly tell the amount of time left until the timer•goes off The analog timer comes in a small size that makes it portable and usable in various situations•The iPhone app timer can be set to repeat upto 99 times•

Option of vibration or sound alert when timer goes off on the iPhone• Analog clock overlayed on the timer•Option to set timer for hours instead of minutes which displays in a different colour to be able to•distinguish between the minute and hour timers

Flaws:

The iPhone app does not make use of multi-touch to set timers the way the analog device does. But it•

might be a matter of time when they release an upgraded versionThe red disc showing remaining time moves back clockwise which conicts with the semantics of a•clock known to us. The image of the analog timer claries the point being made, as the minutes areshown anti-clockwise

Google Calendar



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Google Calendar Google Calendar is popular for a few reasons. For one, it’s a calendar, many people have easy access to it, it isnot bound by an OS, it only requires a Gmail account and one can get it synced to their phones. The Androidversion is used for comparison here. (Google 2011)

Images 20, 21, 22: Google Calendar on Android showing pinning of tasks on map and calendar view with tasks marked on days

Good points:Having group calendars or sharing calendars allows others to see one’s schedule easing co-ordination•

Dropping pin is made very easy by allowing the map to pan freely while the pin ‘hangs in the air’ and• once the location is picked, the Done button places the pin at the right spotEach day on the calendar view shows the entries on the grey bar denoting the part of the day the event•is at, in greenA number of other apps integrate with it•Tasks list is integrated into the web calendar app•

Flaws:

The mobile app is not very different from the web app that shows a form to add details of the event The• web app at least allows for adding an event quickly unlike the mobile version that shows the form asdefault‘Task’ calendar does not show with the other calendars which would allow to see the events and tasks•simultaneously



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Images 26, 27, 28, 29: Springpad My Stuff, creating grocery list, list added on home screen and Evernote homescreen

Some other apps and tools



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Some other apps and tools

Images 30, 31: Rapid Remind and miCal

Rapid remind aims at getting timers and reminders set easily without having to type much. The app isorganised into hourly timers, reminders for Today and Tomorrow and for specic dates. (i-NOVATiONGmbH 2010)

miCal allows day, week, month and year view. It shows the month and the weather on the home screen asseen in the picture. This gives an easy context for users to add tasks with. (Entwicklungsschmiede UG & Co

KG and Elennium Gmbh 2010)The Watch Minder is a watch aimed at people with special needs like people with ADHD and children.(Image 32) It gives off vibrating alerts with an option of setting 30 alarms. The intention with which thiswatch has been designed is notable, but the interface with the buttons on the side for setting alarms makesit complex. This watch has a wide variety of uses even with patients with chronic illnesses who needreminding with intake of medicines, students writing exams and other situations where regular alerts arerequired, like in research labs. (Watchminder 2011)

Epic Win is a to-do list that is set as a role-playing-game to encourage users to complete their tasks. Thegraphics are extremely attractive and the gamication of to-do lists could motivate users to continue usingthe app and get rewards for completing tasks. There is a chance that users would cheat to get ahead inthe game. Moreover with the game overshadowing the task managing aspect of the app, there may not beroom for many important task management features to be packed into it. (Redbox and Super Mono 2011)



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Images 32, 33, 34: Watch Minder watch for special needs, Epic Win Quests and Prole for iPhone



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Images 35, 36: Tasker for Android

Tasker is a powerful application for Android mobile phones that allows users to customise functions andactions performed by the phone automatically according to situations or contexts. For example, it canswitch on Bluetooth or GPS as soon as a particular app is opened. It can turn the phone silent on enteringschool. All this and many more automations are possible only on user’s request or customisation and theinterface is far too complex for an average user to understand easily. (Purdy 2010) (Tasker n.d.)

Wakerupper is a browser based service through which users can send themselves reminder or wake-upSMS’s. This is currently available in the U.S. (Abstract Factory Inc. 2011) Kitchen Timer is a neat Andoird app for adding quick timers, but it does not have a repeat functionality andhaving to type in numbers each time isn’t user friendly. It works well as a kitchen timer that one might useoccasionally.

Alarm Clock Plus is a highly customisable Android alarm clock app that has many features packed into it, likea math problem to solve to dismiss an alarm, an hourly chime, speaking the weather before the alarm goes

off and setting a nap alarm for times ranging from 1 to 180 minutes. The most important and interestingelements of this app are the hourly chime, the nap alarm and that the snooze time can be changed within10 seconds of pressing snooze which allows short timers to be set indirectly.

Additional tools and objects looked into for this research were paper planners or notebooks like theBehance Action Runner (Behance LLC 2007) and Leuchtturm 1917 dotted notebook, the Live View extended

display for Android devices and smart pens with digital paper books like Live scribe and Nokia smart penh h h l



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with the Anoto technology.

Images 37, 38: Kitchen Timer and the other products I referred to

All the insights, information and analysis gathered from this research was useful in knowing what istechnologically possible, avoiding the aws to be repeated and taking the good points to be matched in thedesign of Time & Tide.



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3. Time+Tide: designing A Time mAnAgemenT sYsTem

Time is the longest distance between two places.~Tennessee Williams

This chapter talks about the design of Time & Tide and is divided into 5 sections. First sections deals withinterface design insights gathered from using multi-touch devices and apps discussed in the previouschapter. They would be helpful in designing the system and the multi-touch application. The second

section lists the user requirements drawn from user research that lend a framework and guideline to thedesign. They help in containing the features and functionalities of the system. The third section discussesthe design with the overall system, its features and functions that I shortlisted after thorough iterationand deliberation. This is followed by the cases that show the design in detail along with the interface andinteraction design. The next section contains the process and prototypes used for designing and nallythe changes made, features that were discarded and the challenges faced during the design process arehighlighted in the last section.

3.1 Interface Design for multi-touch

Here are some insights gained from using multi-touch devices, Android 2.2.1 on HTC Desire Z and AppleiPod Touch and all the apps that were tested for benchmarking. Most insights are related to productivitytool design.

Task Priority

Cramming in too many customisable features complicates the experience. Tasks can have two distinctimportance levels – starred and normal. If re-ordering of tasks is allowed by touch-and-drag, then a userwill order them in the order of priority. Having 3 or 4 levels of prioritising of tasks makes a user pausewhile creating the task, wondering what level of importance to assign to it. This is an unnecessary stepsince it has little relevance whilst viewing the tasks.

X - The close or delete buttonThe close and delete button should be carefully designed. In most cases these two functions are denoted

with a ‘X’ symbol. The user is unsure if by pressing the X they will close the menu or page or delete theitem just created. If the delete function is assigned to the X, then a further step needs to be added to ensureif the user meant to delete the item. This confusion can be claried by spelling out the button’s function,especially if it is delete. But this might take up precious real estate on small screen devices.



Gestures and buttonsMost applications use the standard gesture patterns like ick or swipe to scroll tap to select and certain



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Most applications use the standard gesture patterns like ick or swipe to scroll, tap to select and certainstandard gestures like double tap are a rarity at least in the apps I tested. The advantage of usingstandard gesture patterns is that people are used to them and familiarity puts users at ease with theapplication (Saffer 2009). Suzanne Ginsburg gives some important insights on gesture based interactionon the blog Touchy Talk (Ginsburg 2011). It is important to use GUI elements like buttons especially onproductivity tools, since unknown gestures may cause delays in users trying to understand the workingof the application. A balance between buttons and gestures will put people at ease whilst using a timemanagement tool. Complex gestures are best for use in contexts like games. But some apps do notstreamline the functions with gestures. For instance, in appropriate places, typing numbers can bereplaced with other gesture based interaction that increment numerical values.

Discoverability of functions

Touchscreen devices by nature are an attractive and engaging object that a user would love to interactand play with to understand its working. Therefore they might discover functions and shortcuts to themthrough play if they do not have obvious affordances. Functions and gestures once discovered can bememorised if they’re fairly new to users. Repetitive performance of actions increases muscle memory of the gesture. A noticeable difference between Android and iPhone apps is that the iPhone apps leave manyfunctions and gestures to be discovered by users whereas Android apps momentarily display instructivemessages or textual feedback as an overlay. These messages are not annoying especially when they helpdiscovering or learning hidden functions of the application. Lack of the back or menu buttons on theiPhone coupled with hidden functions and incomprehensible iconic buttons on apps makes certain appsdifcult to work with.

These insights and learning gathered on testing applications on either platform has given me guidelinesfor designing my system.

3.2 Requirements

The requirements for the design were gleaned from the user stories from section 2.2. These requirementslend a direction to the design besides providing a framework within which to do the problem solving.List of problems they have that needs solving:

Julie:1. Show me the places I have to be in a day

2. Remind me to eat food at regular intervals

Julie and Lewis:3. Alert me when I should leave so I reach the meeting on time4. Let me know how much time I have left until I leave for meeting

Lewis:5. Help me get to places or at least get me home even if I don’t have 3G on my phone



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5. Help me get to places or at least get me home even if I don t have 3G on my phone

Anne and Lewis:6. I also want my head clear of things to do and thoughts so I can focus better

Anne and Julie:7. Make sure I stay focused when I’m deep in work

Anne:8. Alert me when I begin slowing down

Julie, Lewis and Anne:9. I want to avoid typing as much as possible when using the product

These user requirements were combined with the concepts that were already generated by me. Once thecomparison and combining began, unnecessary features and functions of my initial design were discardedand importance was given to features that solve the problems above. Certain features like the timer werelimited to only being a timer. But Julie’s requirement of wanting a quiet time devoid of distractions likee-mails or updates led me to add that functionality to the timer. The possibility of muting all pings andcalls at the request of the timer was known due to checking out an application like Tasker (refer to section

2.3)

Keeping the user requirements and the personas’ characteristics in mind, it was easy to design the featuresand functionalities of Time & Tide, by tackling one problem at a time and designing the solution for it.The cases show the design solution in detail, highlighting the interaction and interface design of theapplication(s). Once the problems were tackled, another problem emerged of building the bigger pictureof the system architecture and how these modules, functions and features can be part of whole and notheterogeneous bits by themselves. The next section delves into the overall features and product ecosystem

of the design and later, the details of the interaction design.

3.3 Design solution

3.3.1 Product eco-system

Taking the 3 personas Julie, Anne and Lewis into consideration, their busy lives lled with computerscomes to focus. The computers are of at least two sizes – the mobile phone and the laptop or desktopcomputer. Since these two computing devices are the most frequently used ones in an average person’s lifethese days, it is logical to have a time management system that pans across platforms.In the design of Time & Tide, the mobile application is the core product, while the browser extension is

an add-on. The mobile phone is an object people do not leave home without in the 21st century. With 3Gon it, it makes information ubiquitous. For Time & Tide, having 3G on the phone is not taken for granted.



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, q , g p gAlthough 3G is common in the developed countries, some developing nations are gradually adopting it.Therefore to a certain extent, users without internet on their phones are considered in this design. Thecore operations take place on the mobile app while certain capabilities are extended to the browser which

would be accessed on a user’s personal computer at work or home. These are the features and functions of the mobile app and the browser extension:

The tasks can be entered either on the phone or the browser and task or event alerts can be received•on either platform.Both apps can be linked to the city’s travel time-table and weather information to receive timely•journey alerts according to set tasks (giving more walking time to bus stop during winter for example).Both would have the capacity to recognise event string (date, time, place attributes) within a webpage,•

email or image le (event poster or a bill with a due date for example), to allow users to quickly add thedetails and create an event from the information.Tasks can be sent as SMS to any phone to share details and can be saved into their own• Time & Tide app.Event or tasks can be added through the browser extension.•The information collected from the browser extension can be sent to the phone through the cloud•(internet) or for users without internet on the phone, there would be a possibility to send informationas an SMS. If the user wants the travel schedule along with the location of the bus stop on a map, theimage of the same along with the other details can be sent as an MMS for phones with that capability.

The SMS will be sent through the operator’s services and will be programmed to send only at the time• of reminding. This is important since an SMS received at other times might remain in the inbox at thetime when the user ought to be reminded.

For those who feel the need to have a handy notebook, the intention is to have a physical planner (paper)in which users like Lewis can write into and then link the data with their mobile app. This can happen intwo ways. One way is that the paper in the planner can be digital paper which would need a smart pen. Thesmart pen records the handwritten text and creates images of the page. This image can then be transferred

to the phone using Bluetooth. This technology was developed by Anoto and has been used by Live scribe.Images 41 - 43 from Anoto’s website, show how the digitisation of the handwritten text takes place. The dotmatrix on the paper aids the camera in the pen to recognise its position on the page. The infrared cameratakes between 50 and 100 images per second of the dot matrix which is then used to create the image leof the handwritten text. (Anoto Group n.d.) This technology is being applied in Time & Tide for linking thepaper planner with the mobile app. In Time & Tide, the pairing and transferring can be activated from theapplication menu without hassle.

The other way would be to take a photograph of the page through the app on the mobile phone. For bothmethods, an integrated OCR capability of the app from a company like ABBYY (ABBYY n.d.), will convertthe handwritten task details to editable digital text, which would automatically get indexed to the rightelds of the task-adding screen. The user will be notied of the data being entered into the elds, whichallows them to check for accuracy and edit if required before saving the task or event. This way, by linking



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Image 44: Time & Tide product ecosystem

Image 44 shows the product ecosystem of Time & Tide and the connections with the city’s journey planner,weather information. It also shows the partnership with local businesses, organisations and networkoperators. The details of the applications and the functions in the wrist watch will be shown in the next

section using the personas’ problems as use cases.

3.3.2 Design details

The use cases show Anne, Julie and Lewis using Time & Tide’s various modules to suit their needs and gethelped in their lives.

Case 1: Anne adds an errand on the mobile application

Since she is a compulsive planner, she enjoys adding tasks and planning her schedule. She adds an errandusing voice to her mobile app. On opening the application, she can see the month’s calendar on its homescreen, which allows her to easily choose the date for the task.



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Tapping on 18th of March takes Anne to the day that is divided into slots of hours shown on the left part of the screen below the calendar. The time slots can be pinched to zoom in or out to show 15 minutes division

f h It b ll d lik ll f t l th h t th



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of every hour. It can be scrolled like a roll of paper to reveal other hours not seen on the screen. She has to go to the bank after 14:00 on 18th March. Therefore she taps on the area between 14:00 and

15:00 which creates the task object. She adjusts the position of the task object to the right time by movingthe marker handles of the task object. Tapping on the time slots may not be intuitive to all users, thereforean overlayed textual instruction could appear momentarily letting the users know of the possibility. She taps the microphone icon to speak the title of the task, which gets converted to text. Next sheselects one of the locations or contexts stored in the app and chooses Errands. Since errands can differin nature and therefore in location, she is taken to the locations part of the app that shows the map andher whereabouts for 18th. Anne begins typing the name of her bank and the nearest branches of her bank

show up in the auto-suggest list of the search bar. Businesses can choose to be listed in the locations of Time & Tide. This allows for companies to advertise their existence and helps the user choose the location toaccomplish their errand or task. This could be a way of generating revenue for the application.

Anne picks the branch of her bank she’s most familiar with and the map auto-pans to have the pin hangover the location of her bank. The pin bobs up and down to denote that it is ‘in the air’. On tapping DropPin the location gets pinned on her day’s map with the task details she entered in the previous screen. Shecan save this location for future tasks involving her bank, by choosing the save location option from themenu that can be called by tapping the MENU button on Android enabled phones. Another way to choosethe location is by panning the map until the right location is under the overhanging pin and then tap DropPin. If the street’s name is known, it can be typed in the search bar and the auto-suggest will populate thelist with matching suggestions to choose from.

On tapping Done, Anne is taken back to the time view where the task can be seen as saved with the details.Therefore, by selecting the date from the calendar and tapping within the time slots Anne is able to inputthe date and the duration of the task very easily without having to type numbers and can visually see

what her day looks like. If her task has a deadline or due date, then she can choose to add that from theoverlayed menu that appears on long pressing the task object. On choosing to add a due date, she cansimply tap the date on the calendar. Other functions like repeating a task can be done through the Menubutton on the handset. She can get back to the homescreen by tapping the close button.



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A task can be entered without adding the location details and long pressing the task object will open anoverlayed menu from which the task can be saved. Whenever Anne wants to record some of her tasks asthey pop up in her mind, she can add them by Voice from the homescreen of the app. The unprocessed



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tasks will be notied about on the homescreen of the phone. If the details of the task are already knownat the time of adding the task by voice, they can be spoken after the title in the order of time, date,

location and nally duration. This way a task and all its details can be entered easily by speaking and theapplication will remind Anne and other users appropriately.

Case 2: Julie sets a timer to beep every 4 hours with a message that reminds her to eat food.

Unlike Anne, Julie does not want to see the entire month on her app’s homescreen, therefore she reduces

the view to the current week by dragging the bar up. She taps on Timer under Time Tools and is taken tothe Timer page. She notices that the timer can be set for hours or minutes (12 hours or 60 mins).By default the timer is selected for hours therefore she goes ahead and turns the timer hand to 4 hours.The touch blob on the handle of the timer provides the affordance for placing one’s nger there andpulling it down.

Since she wants it repeating until dinner time, she taps on repeat which takes her to the repeat settingscreen. She moves the slider to 2 (once for lunch and then for dinner) and types the message reminding her

to eat food. The repeat bar shows the option of repeating 4 times until the end of that day. The number of repeats allowed is calculated according to the number of hours set on the timer, until the end of that daywhich is 23:59. This gives the right number of options to Julie devoid of confusion and avoids a step thatnoties an error on setting a repeat that takes the timer to the next day.

Tapping on Done takes her back to the Timer screen where she taps on Start to let the timer count down 4hours. Tapping the Close button takes her to the homescreen of Time & Tide.



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Case 3: Anne sets a timer for 20 mins

Anne needs to do the dishes and she hates doing it. She’s sure she might begin daydreaming, gettingdistracted or leave it half done. She estimates that she will take 20 minutes to do the dishes and does not



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distracted or leave it half done. She estimates that she will take 20 minutes to do the dishes and does notwant to linger on it. Her Time & Tide watch is strapped on her wrist almost always. She swipes left to the

Timer and chooses Minutes mode. She drags the hand to 20 mins and taps on the Options icon, where she isshown Repeat and Buzz options.

She does not wish to repeat the timer but would like her watch to alert her at intervals while the Timercounts down. This way she would be aware of passing time intervals. She is shown a choice of 3 types of intervals – for 1, 5 or 10 mins. She taps on 05 mins and the indicator eld shows that the buzzer is ON.Swiping left to right shows the Timer face and long pressing in the centre shows the start button overlayedon the Timer face. Alternatively tapping Timer gets her back to the Timer face which then shows the

Play button overlayed on the Timer face, tapping which begins the timer. Tapping the Options icon takesAnne back to the options screen that shows the lemon green surface rising up in the time box, while thecircle next to 05 mins turns red after 5 minutes have been passed. She also feels a buzz that tells her that 5minutes are up and that she has only 15 minutes left to do the dishes.

This way even without looking at the watch, she is aware of how much time she has spent. The intervaloptions would vary depending on the number of minutes set on the timer. For example a 40 minutes timerwould show the intervals for 5, 10 and 20 minutes, whereas the 30 minutes timer would show 5, 10 and 15

as options. This way the level of customisation is limited by the application thereby avoiding getting a userconfused over which interval to choose from. The accelerometer in her watch detects a slowing down in actions and reduces the buzzing interval to2 minutes without her knowledge. This gives her the impression that 5 more minutes are up makingher quicken her pace and stay alert. This effect is similar to what some users aim to achieve by turningtheir clocks a few minutes faster. They try to fool themselves of the clock time in order to be on time.This they do consciously and at the back of their mind, they’re very well aware that the clock is running

fast. But in this case, the user not knowing the quickening of the timer interval will effectively play withtheir perception of time. Thus Anne ends up doing the dishes in less than 20 minutes and feels a sense of achievement.



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Case 4: Julie sets a focus timer when she does not want any distractions during her work time.

Being involved in multiple courses along with freelance projects, Julie gets an abundance of emails and



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Facebook notications. She would like to focus completely on the project work at hand. She knows she can

do it, only if she didn’t have to check the notications on her phone. Therefore she goes about setting atimer of 4 hours that will help her focus and not get distracted by emails or calls.

She sets a 4 hours timer on her mobile app and this time, she selects the Focus option. On tapping that sheis shown a menu that lets her choose the pings she would like to avoid during the timer. She selects all of the options, namely email, calls, messages and notications from Facebook (or other networks that she isconnected to).

This blocks pings from the above communications for the 4 hours. This way once she is done with workafter 4 hours, the phone turns its notications on as before and she doesn’t have to miss calls because sheleft the phone on silent. She turns the focus timer on even at meetings, so that the phone remains ‘silent’during the meeting. Once the meeting is done and the timer goes off, the phone is not forgotten in thesilent mode inside her bag, but allows calls and other communication.

The browser version of the Focus feature of the timer can be set to block distracting websites like Facebook or Twitter for the desired amount of time. This allows for blocking the sites only when required.



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Case 5: Lewis adds an event from the browser extension by clipping details from an email

Since Lewis doesn’t like typing and entering details into mobile phones, he installs the Time & Tide browserextension. He gets an email with the information for the upcoming brunch meeting. The time and datementioned in the email are highlighted On clicking the extension widget on the browser the highlighted



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mentioned in the email are highlighted. On clicking the extension widget on the browser, the highlighted

details appear in the elds of the New Task/Event screen that pops out. He enters the additional detailsand chooses to have the event SMS’d to his phone and then saves the item.

The SMS reaches his phone and he is able to save it in his Time & Tide tasks. He gets reminded with a subtlenotication the night before the brunch and again a little before he should leave for it.

Case 6: Lewis enters a task to his phone from his notebook

Lewis nds it easy and handy to jot down tasks and events in his planner notebook. To get reminded of thetasks entered there, he takes a picture of the page to let Time & Tide do the setting of reminders. To do this,he opens the app on his phone and long presses the icon (in this case the mic icon) in the button to Add



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he opens the app on his phone and long presses the icon (in this case the mic icon) in the button to Add

tasks or thoughts. This shows up other options to add tasks and taps the camera icon.

Doing that opens the camera application of the phone, with which he prepares to take a photograph of thepage full of tasks in his notebook. The guiding bracket markers on the page help him align the camera’sautofocus crosshair to it and take an optimum picture. Once he clicks, the OCR capability of the app beginsworking and reads his handwritten text to recognise the task/event details.

Once that is done, it shows the task indexed into the correct time slots of the day. Lewis checks if the

information read by the app is right and saves the task.



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between am to pm or times of the day.



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Image 45, 46, 47: Screenshots of timer and alert prototypes programmed on Processing

The buzzing part of the timer was initially being explored only with visual feedback of white circlesturning red at the right time interval. The blue-grey colour lling up the box as the time was nearingcompletion was also programmed on Processing. To get a quicker feedback of the prototype, seconds werecalculated instead of minutes as in the intended concept. The image 47 shows the square to be a wholeminute and the screenshot was taken when 30 seconds were up. The blue-grey surface risen half-way of the

square is a clear indication of that.The prototypes in action can be viewed at the following locations:http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=25132http://www.openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=25131



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Image 48: Teeter on HTC Desire Z, giving haptic feedback on my wrist

The buzz part of the design involves a vibrating alert at the wrist at regular intervals of time and a changein the intervals on slowing down. I wanted to experience for myself what a vibrating alert at the wrist feelslike. My questions were, will it be annoying or will I be completely oblivious to it. Therefore I kept the

game Teeter opened on the HTC Desire Z mobile phone and strapped it on my wrist with the elastic strapthat is available with the Live View device. Teeter is a game in which a lead ball should reach and fall intothe green opening and avoid the black ones. The manoeuvring is done by tilting the phone to lead the ballto the right place and make sure it doesn’t fall elsewhere. The game provides true to life haptic feedbackas if one were playing with a real box with a real lead ball inside it (HTC Corporation 2011). Every time the

ball hits a wall or the side of the phone, one gets a vibrating feedback at that spot. Also each time it fallsinto one of the black openings that need to be avoided, a vibrating feedback is received. Since the feedbackdepended on the position of my hand, I used this game to experience vibrating feedback whenever Ichanged my hand position. Also once the ball falls into one of the wrong openings, a new ball appears foranother attempt. This way at certain positions of my hand, I got a repetitive vibrating feedback almost likea metronome During that stage in the design the watch was to have a vibrating metronome instead of a



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a metronome. During that stage in the design, the watch was to have a vibrating metronome instead of avibrating alert at few minutes’ interval.The resulting conclusion was that it was not annoying but over time I grew accustomed to the feedbackand instead started playing with the game, with the phone still strapped to my wrist. This proved the pointthat a vibrating feedback on one’s wrist will be noticeable and could be used to alert the user. Althoughthe conditions cannot be matched to that of a real small wrist device, this conclusion proved that I couldcontinue designing a wrist watch.

Image 49: Photo - outline - matching of screen size to get an understanding of sizes

To understand the dimensions of a design with a web application or website, all one needs to do is blow upthe wireframe to full screen on their computers. But it is difcult to know with mobile apps unless they aretested on an emulator or better yet, tested on the device itself. Instead I took a picture of my hand on thephone, did a rough trace of it on Illustrator and tried to match the outline with the wireframe, to see if thecalendar has large enough numbers that can be tapped on to select the date. Since the Time & Tide wrist watch has an almost new way of interaction and the size is an issue if the

touchscreen has to be interacted with, I borrowed the new iPod nano from a colleague and uploaded mywireframes as images. The resolution of the nano is similar to the one I intend to have, therefore thedifference did not matter as much and I was easily able to get an understanding of the experience of havinga clock with hands that can be moved by dragging. The direct manipulation was not possible but the sizesalong with the ‘look and feel’ could denitely be understood with this prototype.



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Image 50: Experience prototyping - watch design wireframes on iPod nano to experience the look and feel

Wireframes and keyframes:Most of the designing and iterating of the application’s interface happened on paper. The sketchingseemed endless with intensive problem solving done on a randomly sketched size of the mobile phone’s

screen. When I realised I needed to see the design on screen, I began creating wireframes of the design.Wireframing is not only a documentation of the design created in one’s mind or on paper, but it is adesigning tool as well. By creating the wireframes on computer a whole new problem solving begins takingplace in deciding the interaction ow.

Sometimes an interaction needs further visual explanation, which is when keyframes come in. Keyframesillustrate major or even one moment of an interactive gesture graphically (Saffer 2009). I have illustratedthe movement performed by the user in order to get something done on screen. Very obvious gestures are

not shown though.

3.5 Changes and Challenges

Designing was complex, intensive and exhaustive without feedback and brainstorming. I began with aninitial set of objectives as outlined in the rst chapter and using them along with the aws and ndingsof the existing tools that I benchmarked, I began solving all the problems related to time management



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tools meeting people’s needs, including my own. I got into the depths of the interface design withouttackling the upper layer of the system architecture and user requirements that would lead to functionalrequirements. The ‘what happens if’ question constantly played in my mind while designing that led me tothink of all sorts of situations that a user might get into. This method is good when proong a completeddesign for user experience loopholes. But it is a trap when the requirements and system architecture arenot in place, since trying to solve the loopholes, newer requirements will be born that would need solving.This creates a seemingly never-ending problem-solution cycle. What began as a design project graduallyturned into a gesture interaction design research. I began having a bunch of interesting ways to perform

actions and call functions on a touchscreen application, but the app itself was missing. I was overwhelmedwith the complexity of the entire system I set out to design. In reality a designer hardly works aloneand creativity does not ow without brainstorming with peers or colleagues (River Head Books 2010).This thought forced me to emerge from my cocoon and consult an interaction design friend who designsinteractive apps on a daily basis. Taking my thesis advisor and this designer friend’s advice, I realised thatI needed a thread to bind my interesting interaction design bits together. The missing thread was userstories that glean from real user insights.

Image 51: ‘Bead’ option of arranging and viewing tasks

A clear example of this, is I began translating user insights into interface design solutions and begandesigning sticky note views of tasks entered. I had already decided that each task should be an object

that can be modied and the waking up and sleeping times would be recorded by the user thus creatinga ‘string’ that is the length of the waking hours and every task added to the day is in the form of a ‘bead’.Therefore a person could see their tasks either on sticky notes or as beads on a string of day.



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Image 52: Sticky note view being solved

This created more problems of editing and viewing the details of a task, that needed solving. The designiterations included the bead and sticky notes view as described above. Besides these, the wrist watchdesign included a vibrating metronome at the users’ wrist that ticked throughout a timer’s durationmaking them unmistakably aware of passing time. To rectify the person’s speed of actions, the sensor inthe watch would detect slacking or stalling of movements and increase the speed of the metronome urgingthe user to quicken their pace. Visually the watch was to show a progression of time and the user could setan alert for various time intervals.

The working prototype created on Processing was shown to a few students, teachers and friends. It provedto be a little complex for some to understand and it was not addressing any requirement fully. Thereforethe design was modied after months of incubating on the idea of playing with users’ perception of time toarrive at the current timer design explained in section 3.3.2.

The wrist watch was initially packed with all possible time tools like stopwatch and multiple alarms. Someof the functions were not addressing the requirements laid down and therefore were discarded for beingan added layer of complexity to the app.



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Images 53, 54: Old alerts (buzz) design and a discarded feature, stopwatch

The physical product for the wrist watch was also sketched out and it was to have a touchscreen displaythat was also a button, similar to the multi-touch trackpad for Mac Book Pro’s.

Image 55: Sketch of product design details of the watch

4. AnAlYsis



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4.1 Retrospection

Here are some retrospective thoughts on looking back at the design and process of Time & Tide.

1. The current design of the mobile app as shown in chapter 3.3.2 has a lack of clear affordance at themoment of saving a task or starting a timer. Having the task show up in the day’s view may not be enoughfeedback indicating a successfully saved task. Therefore a textual feedback overlaying the screen might benecessary.

2. The wrist watch timer’s playing with a user’s perception of time has not been tested. Conducting the testcould give better results and indicate if the concept is successful.

3. Concepts once implemented can have bad user experience due to lags and bad gradation of sensors.Smooth transitions and effective use will depend largely on the technology.

4. OCR technology needs to improve tremendously to recognise characters from handwritten text. Takingpictures to enter data into one’s phone may not be the easiest and pleasurable experience, but consideringthe current technological capability that is affordable, the OCR has been suggested.

5. Digital paper and smart pens have not proliferated into the market as much and not many people areaware of its existence.

6. Transferring information from the smart pen to the phone may or may not be better than taking apicture of the page.

7. Users would begin to trust the system and forget about the tasks or events and depend on it to remindthem at the right time and place. The danger in this is that if the phone runs out of battery the user mightmiss out on an alert. This can be taken care of with the wrist device if it is connected to the service cloudover 3G.

8. Since users would be saving personal information about their whereabouts and times, privacy issues

would crop up. The service should therefore not be allowed to share the details with a third party. It shouldinstead use third party information like business locations, offers, travel time tables and weather updatesto match the users’ information and give timely reminders and alerts for the users’ benet.

9. The GPS being switched on for the location detection could drain the battery of the mobile phone.

Alternatively, similar to the Bluetooth solution, the GPS could be switched on, only close to the time of reminding about a task.

4.2 Future tense

h h h h b h f d d ld k l h h h



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These are the thoughts about the future direction Time & Tide could take along with how the upcomingtechnology could shape or modify the design.

1. RFID (Radio Frequency ID) and NFC (Near Field Communication) enabled phones (Gardiner 2010) can helpin transferring data from smart pen to phone by auto activating and starting Bluetooth. Unless new waysto transfer data using NFC or other technology come up, Bluetooth will be the easiest way to transfer data.

2. In future (perhaps distant), the wrist watch could read the user’s pulse and understand if the personis slow when they ought to be faster and alert them accordingly. The current method of having theaccelerometer read a stalling or slowing down of movement is not the most effective way to detect a user‘daydreaming’ at the task. This is due to tasks that involve less movement and would be difcult for thewatch to predict a slowing down.

3. Digital paper could be replaced with electronic ink (E Ink Corporation 2010) so that the ability to writeon paper-like surface is maintained (with the same tactile feedback one gets on writing on paper) but

without the hassle of transferring any data. Reminders will be given ‘automagically’.4. The voice-to-text technology is being further developed as of this writing and could outperform thecurrent versions and make room for drastic improvements in the design of the features of Time & Tide thatuse this technology.

5. Gamifying the system could address the procrastination aspect by rewarding users points that can beredeemed at stores advertised in the ‘locations’ part of the app.

6. In future I plan to create prototypes of the applications and make them as interactive as possible. Analternative would be to create a video demonstrating the intended working of the system.

7. The name Time & Tide was chosen due to the length, easy recall value and uniqueness of it as the name of a productivity tool and nally due to its well-known implied meaning* (Cambridge University Press 2011).A thought was given on how to generate revenue with the mobile application as a service described furtherin section 3.3.2. An accumulation of such concrete thoughts could lead to creating a business model out of

it in future and have Time & Tide see the light of day.

* Time and tide wait for no man. It is said to emphasize that people cannot stop the passing of time, and therefore should not delay doing things

5. conclUsion



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Time & Tide targets both future oriented and present-hedonistic people, who would like to be efcienteither by being able to focus or by reaching places on time. By entering the tasks, events and thoughts intoTime & Tide, either on paper, the mobile or browser app, one can then forget about them and depend on thesystem to remind them. This addresses the point about lack of focus and absentmindedness due to having amind cluttered with tasks and to-do’s.

This design tries to take care of the larger picture of time management by providing a smart calendar

combining transport schedules, using positioning technologies to allow for location based services andby providing an easy and even joyous-to-use interface unlike other productivity tools. It tries to simplifytime management by making sure users do not spend more time managing the tool than their own time.The advanced timer feature in Time & Tide aims to tackle speed of actions, focus on boring tasks andmaintaining focus on challenging ones by blocking distractions. Being on time at places was not one of theobjectives in the beginning of this project, but happened to be a topic in my mind wanting to be tackledmuch before this thesis. It surfaced up again during user research, which is why it was chosen to be workedupon. Nevertheless the transport schedule connected to the app indirectly aims to reduce the stress

involved with trying to reach a place on time.

Thus the design of Time & Tide has been able to cover most of the objectives that I set out with. There isone point about procrastination that has not been directly addressed in the design so far. I had eetingthoughts of making a deadline generator that would play with the user’s perception of time (similar to thebuzzing of the timer at intervals), since people tend to be more effective with deadlines looming ahead of them. The thoughts were discarded due to the fact that unless the deadline is ofcial, users may not pay asmuch heed to a mobile application. Also, procrastination may not be such a bad tool for some people who

let ideas incubate for a long time and they come together in a rush just before deadline. Procrastinationtherefore is one objective left for people to tackle with by themselves. Time & Tide can be used in more waysthan one and the hope is that it could inuence people to set timers to give themselves short deadlines towork with thus tackling procrastination.

This thesis has been a way of exercising my learning, knowledge and skills in interaction design and relatedsubjects. Design process is a thing to be learnt no matter how many times one has undertaken a designproject, since the projects vary in nature and this project gave me another perspective on it.

I have learnt a lot, not just about design or prototyping, but about myself, time management and abouttime.About time I learnt to focus on tasks and get them donequickly.Quickly I managed to gure out which methods work for meeffectively.

Effectively I put in hours to get this thesis



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Effectively I put in hours to get this thesisdone.Done on time.

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A ppendices

A - Questionnaire

The live form and replies can be found in the following locations:

https://spreadsheets google com/viewform?formkey dGhuQjVuM3p3Y1NoUjUwVnVBcS1RaUE6MQ



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https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGhuQjVuM3p3Y1NoUjUwVnVBcS1RaUE6MQ

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ar2bm3uEu8AQdGhuQjVuM3p3Y1NoUjUwVnVBcS1RaUE&hl=en&authkey=CIzt7ZEG

Lists, Alarms and Calendars

Hello! This is for me to get an idea of the tools and methods you use in order to mange your time and tasks.I’ve tried to provide as many check-boxes and multiple options as possible, to reduce your effort. I reallyappreciate your time spent and your information is very important for my thesis. Thank you :)- Anusha

* Required

What is your age, gender and profession? *Separate using comma.

What are the tools and methods you use to plan your day and upcoming tasks/events? *Select as many as applicable and then ll out relevant sections in following pages. Thank you.

Paper calendar•Calendar application (web or desktop based)•To-do lists•Post-it notes•Alarms and timers•I just try to remember things in my head•I have my ways, but none are listed here•

How effective are you at time and task management? *I’m known for punctuality and delivering projects on time.•I try my best, but don’t always manage to keep up with tasks.•Not exactly effective, but I get by.•I’m a disaster! I miss deadlines and meetings quite often!•Honestly, who cares?! Wait, what year is it?•

If your selection included Paper calendar:

Do you always carry it with you?Yes, I cannot leave home without it•Yes, only to work/school•Well, most times, sometimes I forget•

No, I keep it at home mostly• Err I don’t know where it is!



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, p yErr, I don t know where it is!•

How often do you use it?Everytime! It’s my trusted companion, I jot down anything important that comes to my mind.•Frequently. I use it only to plan my projects.•I use it now and then, not frequently. Only when the need arises.•I sometimes forget I have a calendar!•

What do you use it for?I immediately jot down any upcoming tasks, events or notes that I should remember.•I use it for events and tasks that I need to accomplish.•I use it only for events.•I use it only for tasks.•I use it randomly. You’ll even nd a phone number and some calculation. There’s no structure to my•usage.

I don’t know why I even have it!•

Anything else about your usage that was not asked above?Use the space to write freely about your usage and habits regarding your paper calendar.

If your selection included Calendar Application:

Which application(s) do you use?iCal (Mac)•Google Calendar•Mozilla Sunbird•Microsoft Outlook•Other:•

Do you sync your phone to get reminders?If its email. Please mention.

If you use more than one, which one do you prefer the most and why?

Name the app and describe freely why you prefer it over others. Thank you.

Anything else about your usage that was not asked above?Use the space to write freely about your usage and habits regarding your calendar application.

If your selection included To-do lists:



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y

Where do you make your lists?On a special notepad that’s only meant for this.•On a web based application (eg. Remember the Milk, Google Tasks etc.)•On Post-it notes (or any other sticky notes)•On any random piece of paper available in front of me.•

If you selected web based application, which one is it?

Do you use any form of highlighting or prioritising?If yes, then please describe how you do it. Thank you.

What purpose do you use it for?Everything! From household chores to million dollar projects!•Only work/project related stuff.•I use it now and then, depending upon the importance of an upcoming project.•Only for running errands.•Other:•

If your selection included Post-it notes:

How do you use them?Make to-do lists•Write stuff on individual notes•Keywords or bullet points•Other:•

If your selection included Alarms and timers:

What device do you use to set alarms and timers?

Do you nd it easy to set alarms and timers for tasks?

If you remember things in your head:

Why don’t you use any tools available?Answer freely in the space below. Thank you.

Do you manage just ne without tools? If not how can the situation be helped?



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Do you manage just ne without tools? If not, how can the situation be helped?Answer freely in the space below. Thank you.

B - Comparison chart

A chart was created in order to compare the productivity tools against the features envisioned for Time & Tide.



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C - Wireframes

The interface design for the watch done as wireframes, both old and current are shown here.

Current watch design



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Old design for watch



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D - Sketches

Sketching was an important part of the process since the thoughts and designs needed to be put down onpaper



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time & tide

Documents