This document describes two prototypes for helping a student manage their time between studies and part-time work. The first prototype involves using calendars, to-do lists, and scheduling apps to organize and prioritize tasks. Testing showed this approach made the student's life simpler and helped them meet deadlines. The second prototype uses a time management grid to categorize tasks as important/urgent vs. not. Testing also showed this approach helped the student better understand how they spend their time. Feedback from the student will be used to improve automatic task integration and customization of the approaches.

1. DESIGN THINKING ACTION
LAB
Prototype & Test
Submitted By:
Shubham Singhal,
India

2. Problem Statement
A smart, intelligent, hard working student at
a reputed B-school needs a way to
manage time between studies and work
(doing projects and part time work)

3. Idea 1- for prototyping
Use calendars and to do list to
keep a track of meetings in the
office and assignments in the
college and prioritize the work
accordingly.

4. The tools used in prototype

5. Working of the prototype
 The student can use the tools as mentioned in the previous slide to his aid
for:
 Better organizing his work
 Keep a track of his deliverables
 These can be
 Online (like Google docs)
 Offline like physical diaries and making notes with pen/pencils
 Software based- using apps like Any.Do, Google Calender, Reminders,
Schedulers
 The student in this way can keep a track of his office work and the B-school
studies and assignments and thus complete all his deliverables in time by
prioritizing the work based on their importance and urgency

6. Testing the prototype
 Who?
 A smart, intelligent, hard working student at a reputed B-school
also doing part time work
 Process:- The student was explained the prototype, its
working and how he can benefit from it. A demo was
given of all these applications and software which can be
used even from his smartphone on the go keeping him
always updated and track and plan his work.
 The Required apps and softwares were installed on his laptop and his
mobile phone.
 After a few days his responses on the this new system were noted, asking
his valuable feedback

7. Space used
College’s Discussion Room After explanation of prototype

8. Observations
What Worked?
- He felt nice.
- He was surprised
- It was interesting to use the technology for daily
tasks
- Has made his life a lot simpler
- He can now prioritize and meet all the deadlines
What could be improved?
- Integration of the apps and his calendar with
automatic reminders at the right time
- Usability ease for the stakeholder
- Automatic putting up of tasks and categorize them as
per their nature of work
Questions
- How much will this be effective in meeting the need?
Ideas
- Make separate entries/calendars for separate work,
and have a way to even view the combined calendar/to-
do list

9. Idea 2- for prototyping
Use time management tools

10. Working of the prototype
 The grid showing how to do time management can be used as a tool
 The 4 quadrants can be used to categorize one’s tasks into
 Important
 Urgent
 Based on their importance they can be categorized into
 Important
 Not important
 This model can actually help a person to know where his time is getting
wasted and where he should be putting more time and when those tasks
have to be done

11. Testing the prototype
 Who?
 A smart, intelligent, hard working student at a reputed B-school
also doing part time work
 Process:- The student was explained the prototype, its
working and how he can benefit from it. All the 4
quadrants were explained to him, with even creating a
mock time management table categorizing his tasks so as
to help him and give him a demo of how to go about it.
 After a few days his responses on the this new system were noted, asking
his valuable feedback

12. Observations
What Worked?
- He felt nice.
- He was surprised
- It was interesting to such a simple looking tool to
categorize his daily tasks
- Has made his life a lot simpler
- He can now prioritize and meet all the deadlines
What could be improved?
- Further divide the 4 quadrants into smaller segments
to get more insight and capture the data in a better and
more precise way
- Automatic putting up of tasks and categorize them as
per their nature of work
Questions
- How much will this be effective in meeting the need?
Ideas
- Make separate entries for separate work based on
the nature like:
- Personal work
- Office work
- Assignments
- Teem meetings

13. Reflection
 Since the idea as well as the prototype were well
received by my stakeholder, I would stick with the idea
and try to incorporate his ideas and suggestions.
 The next step would be to have a clearer understanding
about the different parts within the tools mentioned. I
would prototype each part and test it with my
stakeholder(s).
 Usually when I have ideas that I really like and present
them I am a bit disappointed by a lot of criticism. This
time, I saw it as something neutral for me which is
designed for my stakeholder. I felt more professional
about it.