Designing Todo Mobile App for managing work tasks 

Team and Duration: This real project was a agile-collaborative effort involving a product owner, a team of programmers, QA and one designer (myself, Elina Karamova). The project lasted 2 year (2022-2024).

Business Challenges:

• Differentiation: The challenge was the high number of ToDo apps already available in the market. It was necessary to determine our ToDo app's unique position through user-research of different segments: our internal company employees and the business.
• User Acquisition and Retention: Attracting new users and retaining them by offering superior features and a better user experience.

Limitation: The presence of authorization using two servers that have different functions required the correct combination of functionality. 

Design Goals: Implement features that enable users to easily create, edit, and organize tasks and projects, with options for setting priorities, deadlines, reminders and sharing option. Core Features:

• Task creation and management (with priority levels and due dates).
• Project grouping to organize related tasks.
• Notifications and reminders.
• Collaboration lists with tasks for team-based projects.

Users: Company employees managing self-creating working tasks, groups collaborating on projects.

Case content: 

• Design process:
  1. Research
  2. UX/UI
  3. Analytics
  4. Plans for future
• Results of the project

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Design procces

1. Research 

Goals: Learn about user requirements for a task management tool and use Job To Be Done framework to highlight the most priority functionality. 

Respondents experience: 

• Amount: 13
• Work with typical tasks/processes/activities of varying duration (from several days to several months) both independently and (preferably) as part of a working group;
• Use any means or tools to manage personal work tasks (in addition to a task tracker, if the organization has one) a tool with lists, lists of tasks, and the ability to record information on tasks, examples of services: Google Tasks, Google keep, Tick Tick, Todoist, Notion, Microsoft ToDo, Any.do, Minimalist, Apple Notes, Calendar or other;
• Not engaged in software development. 

Method: Deep interviews + Usability tests of Lo-fi concept of interface. Duration = 1 hour. 

Results: Based on research was highlighted the most important Jobs using framework Job To Be Done, here they are:  

• When I learn new information from colleagues and highlight activities related to me
  I want to quickly write down the keywords, what needs to be done, in the relevant direction
  To:
  - do not waste time on data entry and take them into account in your plans
  - unload from memory and not be distracted from current affairs
• When I received an urgent request or task
  I want to do it right away and not put it off, since she can’t wait
  To: not to waste time entering it into the tracker, and then not remembering about it
• When I complete a task
  I want explicit confirmation
  To:
  - I was pleased that the task was completed (note - psychological encouragement)
  - I clearly saw that the task was closed among other tasks in the list
• When I have
  - there is background activity
  - an idea has appeared that requires processing in the future
  - something urgent that needs to be dealt with quickly
  I want to start it without a deadline, in the form of an idea/note
  To: 
  - just see the task and remember it
  - notifications about being overdue didn’t demotivate me
• When I have a large task (and it has sub-items) or I need to request status from colleagues in related activities
  I want to mark to myself that work on it has begun
  To: see it in its current status
• When I plan my employment for the future
  I want to spread out tasks for the coming days, with a horizon of 1-2 weeks
  To understand immediate activities and employment, but not plan too far ahead. 
  
  

2. UX/UI 

Features description	Hi-Fi
1. Navigation between lists of tasks Switching between lists with tasks is possible in the drawer or swiping:  Aggregating lists (installed by de:  All tasks Due today Upcoming Overdue  Users lists with name and sharing.
2. List of tasks  Groups by dates in every list: Overdue, Pending, Completed, Canceled.  Making task completed with tap to task. Shared lists and watching people in the list.
3. Creating and editing tasks  Tap to FAB-button in the lists of tasks creates a new task.  Every task consists:  Max and min fields occupancy fields:  Title  Description Date and Time Pickers Priority  Status Reminder Location Author Assignees List  Fields interaction and limitations.  Deleting created task.

3. Analytics

User Acquisition:

• Goal: Achieve 600 app downloads and installations in the first year.
• Current Status: Successfully reached the goal of 600 users.

Active Users:

• Goal: Maintain a 40% active user rate (at least 240 active users).
• Current Status: Currently, 238 out of 600 users are active, achieving a 39.7% active user rate.

Retention Rate:

• Goal: Achieve a monthly retention rate of 60% or higher.
• Current Status: The retention rate of the ToDo app is approximately 39.67%. 

Engagement Metrics:

• Goal: Users to create and complete an average of 5 tasks per week.
• Current Status: Tracking shows an average of 3 tasks completed per week per active user.

4. Plans for future 

• Release of the application to the Android and iOS mobile stores. 
• Make usability-tests based on users feedback and improve features. 
• Use analytics for increasing Retention Rate metric.

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result of the project

The ToDo mobile app project aimed to deliver an efficient and user-friendly tool for managing tasks. 

Spanning from 2022 to 2024, the project involved a cross-functional team and we achieved the following results: 

Design Goals:

• Task Management: Implement features for creating, editing, and organizing tasks with priority levels, deadlines, and reminders.
• Project Organization: Enable users to group tasks into projects for better management and tracking.
• Collaboration: Facilitate team collaboration with shared lists and task assignments.
• User Experience: Ensure a seamless and intuitive interface for efficient task handling and minimal disruption.

Business Achievements:

• User Acquisition: Successfully reached the target of 600 downloads.
• Active Users: Achieved a 39.7% active user rate, near the 40% goal.  
• Retention Rate: Attained a 39.67% retention rate, slightly below the 60% target.
• Engagement: Users completed an average of 3 tasks per week, aiming for 5.
  
  

  Future plans include expanding to Android and iOS stores, refining features based on usability tests, and using analytics to enhance user retention and engagement.

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