This 10-week, solo research project used design thinking to find a balance between the effects of constraints on creativity while managing active procrastination as a design student.
Problem
Design students may be prone to active procrastination tendencies and have to work within the pre-determined constraints of the institution in which they are enrolled. It is the students’ responsibility to figure out how to work with the constraints rather than against them in a way that will not suppress their creativity. Since the limitations within an educational setting are integral in structuring the motivations of design students, those who procrastinate may be faced with a predicament to either work to simply get a passing grade or position themselves to learn the design process.
Solution
Through observation, interviews and surveys, it was found that students, particularly design students, could utilize their procrastination tendencies to grow their creativity and find inspiration. Ignite connects users with other like-minded individuals to motivate each other and collaborate. In addition, Ignite provides a calendar that will allow users to input their preferences and displays deadline pressures through a heatmap and ideal times to procrastinate vs when to buckle down and get to work.
Process
Secondary research included industry and competitor analyses, a popular media scan, and extensive publications research. Primary research involved observations, a survey, expert interviews, and both primary and secondary audience interviews.
Insights
Deliverable
This website is intended to encourage, motivate, and offer time and stress management techniques. It is a positive space that includes interaction, idea sharing, words of wisdom and more. The ideal user interaction is as a management driver, a constant reference, and a place to come to for inspiration.
The site is sorted into a private, individual calendar and goal setting area. Since Ignite requires a log in, uses connect their social media or email address to create an account. They are then able to contribute to the community, save their data on the calendar, and track their habits.
The calendar lets users input their preferences including a heat map to visualize working under pressure and ideal times to procrastinate and grow creativity vs time to work. The hope is to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed and maintain a positive state of mind for its users.
