2. TechStop is an app which aims to monitor social media use in order to
increase motivation for students.
Following a week long trial, users can see how long they typically
spend on social media sites, particularly Facebook, and from there
can change their settings and allocate certain time limits so as to get
the most out of their study time.
When their time limit is nearly up, a warning will appear, telling them
they have ten minutes left etc
3. TARGET GROUP
Our chosen target group is students. We are aware that there is a lot
of technology readily available to students, this easy access to the
internet can inhibit other areas of a student’s life.
Extensive use of Facebook by students with extraverted personalities
can lead to poor academic performance (Rouis, Limayem and SalehiSangari, 2011).
Our particular focus is on assisting students in identifying the amount
of time they spend on social networking sites and if necessary, helping
them to reduce this habit.
4. MOTIVATION
We intend to incorporate psychological theories of motivation, goal
setting and the quantified self.
Locke (1999) says challenging but attainable goals promote
motivation. TechStop will include tips for goal setting.
The app will employ self-tracking (the collection of personal data in
order to better identify and understand one’s health status) a popular
online phenomenon.
The use of self-tracking will allow users to gain autonomy over their
time, another useful motivational tool. It will also enable selfregulation.
5. RESCUE TIME
Rescue Time is an existing solution to the problem of online
distraction. It tracks the amount of time spent on apps and websites
and collects data based on your activity.
It allows you to set up alerts, blocks and other features.
Through feedback from our survey and our own use of RescueTime
we found that while it succesfully enables an understanding of how
your online time is spent, the app itself can be complicated.
This difficulty may be due to the general nature of the app, as it tracks
time spent on any website.
6. RESCUE TIME VS TECHSTOP
Due to this limitation of existing solutions, our proposed app will
maintain a more simplistic design and approach, with a few immediate
and useful functions, specific to Facebook usage.
Online Usage report (2013), based on college students in 5 world
regions, stated that 75% said they use Facebook "all the time”.
This informs our decision to narrow our focus primarily on Facebook in
the context of college students.
7.
We felt more adept using Illustrator
and Axure rather than Flash.
This is the registration screen, which
has been broken down using the rule
of thirds.
We employed a very minimalistic
design and chose to use icons rather
than words for the various social media
sites.
For the purpose of our prototype we
will just be tracking Facebook usage,
although if we were to take the app
further it would ideally track a number
social media sites.
8. REMINDER OPTIONS
These are some options we
have designed using Axure of
how users will be alerted that
their time is nearly up.
We used vibrant colours so it
will be difficult to ignore but
decided against a pop up screen
telling users how much longer
they have left.
10. 1 WEEK OF USAGE VERSUS MULTIPLE WEEKS OF USAGE
Results of a user during the week long
trial where no time limits had been set
Results of a user after time limits had
been set, showing how much time they
saved etc
11. OUR TEAM
The workload has been assigned to our team members, based on our
strengths and weaknesses.
Megan Furlong and Lauren Christophers: Psychology and Practice.
Focused on the psychological background research related to
our area of interest (motivation, self-regulation, online usage,
distraction).
Lucy Johnson and Stuart Doheny: Psychology and Design.
Focused on the design aspect of the proposal utilizing their
knowledge of Design Principles and their practical experience
of Axure.
