Work in Progress:
AFLOAT
AFLOAT is a productivity and mental wellness app created to help students overcome procrastination through emotional support and structured planning. It goes beyond simple to-do lists by offering personalized affirmations, adaptive scheduling features, and a calming, intuitive interface that encourages consistent use. The goal was to address the emotional causes of procrastination while keeping the user experience stress-free.
Role:
Lead Research, Designer
Course:
ATCM 3336.002 | Spring 2024
Team Size:
5 Designers
Tools Used:
Figma, Google Forms
Procrastination remains a common and persistent challenge for students, often driven by stress, perfectionism, and mental fatigue. Despite the wide range of productivity tools available, many focus purely on structure without addressing the emotional barriers that prevent students from starting in the first place. When tools feel rigid or impersonal, they can increase pressure rather than offer support. A more thoughtful approach was needed, one that encourages progress through positive reinforcement and makes productivity feel approachable, not overwhelming.
From the start, the project aimed to create a tool students could rely on when procrastination felt heavy. AFLOAT was intended to be intuitive, supportive, and low pressure — a space that reduced mental friction rather than added to it. The focus was on gentle structure, emotional reinforcement, and features that could help students build momentum without feeling overwhelmed.
To better understand how students experience procrastination, we combined academic research with direct user feedback. We looked at existing tools on the market and gathered insights from a survey with 24 students and five interviews. This helped us identify emotional patterns, tool preferences, and opportunities to design a more supportive experience.
Emotional Encouragement
Our research revealed that procrastination is often emotional, not just a time management issue. Students described stress, guilt, and avoidance that made it harder to begin tasks. This insight pushed us to prioritize emotional encouragement as a core design goal. We aimed to create a sense of safety and support, helping users feel guided rather than pressured.
Structured Flexibility
Many students said that rigid tools added pressure rather than helping. While they wanted structure, they needed it to be flexible and low-friction. We focused on creating light, adaptable systems that offered just enough guidance to keep momentum going without becoming overwhelming. The goal was to support progress, not enforce routines.
Personalization
Procrastination looks different for everyone. Through our research, it became clear that students valued tools that could adapt to their pace and needs. We prioritized personalization not for complexity, but for relevance. A tailored experience could make the app feel more intuitive, respectful, and emotionally in sync with the user.
Our research showed that while many students used timers to stay focused, they often abandoned them when the experience felt too strict or overwhelming. We chose to design a timer that offers gentle structure, helping students stay on track without added pressure.
Students can set custom session and break times to match their pace, and choose a floaty companion before starting. This subtle touch of personalization softens the experience. With calm visuals and a friendly tone, the timer encourages progress without perfection and makes it easier to begin.
Students often described planners and task tools as cluttered, demanding, or easy to ignore when things got overwhelming. We designed AFLOAT’s calendar to bring clarity and calm to the planning process by creating a centralized space for managing tasks and deadlines.
Instead of switching between multiple platforms, students can view and track their assignments in one place. Synced deadlines appear in the calendar, and each task includes an in-app link to the submission page, reducing friction and helping students stay on top of their work. A visual urgency system with color-coded dots highlights what’s most time-sensitive, while a streamlined task form makes it easy to add new items without overcomplicating the process.
This feature supports our goal to make academic planning feel manageable, intuitive, and easier to keep up with, especially during high-pressure weeks.