Lifestyle Tracker App, 夜-Planet
Overview
We designed a mobile app for international students who were forced to return home due to COVID-19 in 2020. Their biggest pain point was sleep deprivation caused by time zone differences, so the app aimed to help them manage their health while staying on top of classes and assignments. To accurately understand their needs, we conducted interviews, observed YouTube vlogs, performed diary studies, and carried out online research.
Check out the prototype of 夜-Planet
- SNU Fall 2020
- User-Centered Design
- Team Project
- User Research
- UX Design
- Presentation Slide Design
- Project Report Writing
Sujin Han
Jisoo Kim
Nayoon Park
Siyoon Park
Yujin Park
Donghoon Shin
2020. 10 - 2020. 12
Figma
Miro
Notion
PowerPoint
夜-Planet
Your Healthy At-Home Study Abroad Life Companion夜 means "night" in Chinese characters, and when combined as 夜-planet in Korean, it conveys the meaning of "Nocturnal."
These students attend classes virtually, but they must follow the time zone of the country where they were supposed to study.
This often results in attending classes in the middle of the night, creating significant challenges.
Introducing 夜-Planet(Night Planet)—a solution designed to help those living in Korea but following foreign time zones manage their daily routines efficiently!
Challenges Faced by International Students Forced to Return Home
Struggling with a chaotic schedule caused by attending live video lectures in the middle of the night due to time zone differences
💊 Deteriorating Health
Facing worsening health conditions as days go by, with some even relying on vitamin injections to keep going
🤦🏻♀️ Loss of Motivation
Lacking classmates to study with and spending the semester alone at home, leading to a loss of motivation and constant procrastination
Three Features to Solve These Challenges
01
Through a few simple questions, the app suggests healthy lifestyle habits tailored to the user.
Using these habits, along with the user’s inputted class schedule and minimum sleep requirements, the app recommends an optimized sleep and daily routine.
The user can then follow this routine for two weeks to see improvements in their lifestyle.
02
Users can track their adherence to the chosen lifestyle pattern and evaluate how much progress they’ve made over time.
Worried about forgetting to track? No problem!
夜-Planet sends push notifications to remind you to stay on top of your goals.
03
For those who find it hard to stick to routines alone, we’ve added the Mate feature to provide stronger motivation.
A Mate is a partner who helps you stay on track with your routine, and you can invite anyone to join.
If your Mate isn’t following their routine, you can press the "Get It Done!" button. This will make an image of your face float annoyingly across their phone screen in the shape of a sun to nudge them back into action. Once they’re back on track, you can deactivate the "Get It Done!" mode.
Design Question
How can we help students taking foreign university courses from Korea
manage their daily routines effectively?
manage their daily routines effectively?
User Research
Research Question
01
Are you getting enough sleep? What is your sleep pattern like? How often do you interact with others?
02
How is time managed, and how are teams organized?
03
Are you facing any difficulties? Does the school accommodate the time difference?
04
05
part-time jobs, tutoring, personal study, etc.
Research Methods
Due to COVID-19, we were unable to conduct user research methods like face-to-face interviews or in-person observations. This required us to explore and implement new approaches. We conducted user research using the following four methodologies:
1 Semi-structured Interview
Because it allows for more in-depth questions and answers related to personal experiences.
Returned to Korea during CMU studies
Eastern Time Zone (U.S.)
"I often have headaches and feel completely drained."
"My sleep cycle is completely messed up, which has made me feel really frail."
Accepted to UC Berkeley but had to stay in Korea
Pacific Time Zone (U.S.)
"On days with a 1AM class, I can’t make late-night plans or drink with friends. Also, on days with a 7AM meeting, waking up so early can be inconvenient."
- Even among U.S.-based students, a two-hour difference between the East and West Coast can significantly impact daily routines.
- Whether a class is pre-recorded or live is a critical factor.
- Both prefer to maintain a routine aligned as closely as possible to Korean time rather than U.S. time.
-
They struggle with adjusting their schedules due to time zone differences.
2 Vlog Analysis
Chosen for its ability to provide real, contextual insights into user behavior and to observe a wider range of users without requiring direct interaction.
A total of 9 YouTubers who are students taking foreign university courses from Korea were selected, and 12 videos were analyzed.
3 Diary Studies
To closely examine the daily routines of international students, we aimed to collect detailed records of their daily activities. Due to the challenges of direct observation during the COVID-19 pandemic, we determined that self-documentation would be the most suitable method.
Returned to Korea during studies in Las Vegas
“For team projects, video calls are scheduled according to U.S. time, and the recorded sessions are submitted. Since I’m the only one in Korea, I have to adjust to the majority’s convenience, which means waking up at dawn or extremely early hours regardless of the time.”
“In the U.S., daylight saving time usually ends in November. Before, assignments had to be submitted by 4PM Korean time (12AM U.S. time), but after daylight saving time ended, the deadline was pushed back by an hour to 5PM Korean time, which feels much more manageable.”
4 Survey
For it is the only quantitative data that can be collected and can produce statistically significant results.
Data Analysis and Insights
Participants’ Common Pain Points
01
While each individual manages to resolve the issues in their own way to some extent, additional effort is required from students to find suitable solutions.
02
Daily routines need to be adjusted to accommodate unique lifestyle patterns, including the need to reschedule appointment times.
03
It is necessary to adjust communication times with other students to account for time zone differences in academic activities.
04
There is a need for triggers to motivate academic engagement.
For a Satisfying Study-From-Home Experience :
Users must be able to easily coordinate and organize their schedules without confusion caused by time zone differences. Based on this, they should be able to re-establish a stable daily routine.
Personas
This is a summarized version of the persona. The full version is available on our project’s Notion page25, Male
A 3rd-year undergraduate student majoring in Statistics with a Business minor at UPenn, located in Pennsylvania on the U.S. East Coast.
After returning to Korea for military service, he completed his service and went back to the U.S. However, when COVID-19 escalated and his university went into lockdown, he returned to Korea for a safer environment and has been attending classes remotely ever since.
With an overwhelming amount of assignments and the challenge of time differences, most of his day is spent on classes or coursework. While he used to be socially active and met many friends, his social life has nearly ceased since remote learning began. Furthermore, his lifestyle differs from his family’s, making it difficult to share activities like meals or walks with them.
Having spent his high school and college years in the U.S., he is closest to Korean students studying abroad and stays in touch primarily with Korean friends from high school, even while in Korea.
Life Goal
- As always, overcoming challenges together with the people around him.
- Amidst his hectic and disrupted routine, he wants to use his "last hours," or spare time, efficiently for social activities.
- Automatically compare schedules with others in different time zones and receive reminders of the little time he can dedicate to them.
23, Female
A 4th-year undergraduate student majoring in Journalism at UCLA, located in California, U.S.
Due to the worsening COVID-19 situation in the U.S., she returned to Korea at the urging of her concerned family and now attends classes through live video lectures. Coincidentally, all the professors of her registered courses insist on live sessions. With her college friends scattered across different countries, attending classes alone feels even lonelier and harder. Exhausted by the isolation and fatigue, she’s seriously considering taking a leave of absence.
The 16-hour time difference has been a major struggle, as she endures sleepless nights to attend classes. She once tried flipping her daily routine to match LA time but quickly gave up because her light sleeping made it impossible to rest with the household noise during the day. As a result, she often takes short naps whenever possible, leading to a wildly inconsistent sleep schedule.
She often fails to calculate time differences quickly and is forgetful, which has caused her to miss several class sessions and assignment deadlines. So far, she’s missed four classes and one assignment.
After graduation, she plans to pursue graduate studies in the U.S., but with the ongoing COVID-19 situation, that goal seems increasingly difficult. She’s now exploring alternative paths in Korea.
Life Goal
- To become someone who can freely do what she loves in life.
- To avoid having to manually calculate time zone differences for her often chaotic schedule and ensure nothing gets forgotten.
- To receive comprehensive time management and reminders related to time zone differences.
Ideation
Affinity Diagram
Sketches
Storyboard
You can find more detailed records on our project’s Notion page
Takeaways
Designing a service for a user group facing unprecedented challenges during the unique circumstances of COVID-19 was both incredibly challenging and deeply meaningful. With in-person observation and interviews not being an option, I had to actively explore alternative methods to replace traditional user research methodologies. This process taught me the importance of relentlessly striving to understand users, no matter the circumstances, and crafting a service that genuinely addresses their needs.
It was also my first time working on a team project entirely remotely. Spending over 12 hours a day on Zoom in front of a screen was exhausting, but it was incredibly rewarding to see the great results we achieved together. By the end of the project, we even made a promise to each other to bring this app to life with a real launch. This experience reinforced my resilience and teamwork skills, as well as the value of adaptability in challenging environments.