Soft Start

Situation

Soft Start is a gentle productivity app for students who struggle to start tasks. It focuses on emotional support, small steps, and simple motivation.

I worked as the UX Designer and Researcher. I used Figma and Google Form.

Problem Statement: Overwhelmed students who struggle with procrastination want a gentle way to organize and break down their tasks so they can feel calm and motivated when starting big projects.

Through interviews, I learned that many students don't struggle with time—they struggle with emotional resistance. They feel pressure, guilt, or fear before starting a task. I created the problem statement from 3 interviews, informal conversations, 10+ survey responses, and my own experience with procrastination.

Task

Starting tasks often feels scary or heavy. If an app can lower that pressure, students can feel calmer and more in control.

Pain points:

• Fear of starting
• Tasks that feel too big
• Unclear hierarchy
• Apps that feel strict

Objectives:

• Make starting easier
• Break tasks into micro-steps
• Give small emotional wins

I created one main persona, Eric, a student who wants clarity and emotional reassurance. I also made a user journey map to understand his daily highs and lows.

Actions

I designed a soft purple palette with gentle spacing, simple icons, and warm tones. The goal was to remove pressure and help users feel safe enough to begin tasks.

Lo-fi Wireframes

From my classmates and my instructor, I learned to improve hierarchy and clarity. I added dropdowns for subtasks, clearer theme previews, a simplified Matrix View, and bigger visual differences between big tasks and micro-steps.

Hi-fi Wireframes

Results and Reflection

After revisiting the PRD, I made the main flow more focused: gentle start, clear hierarchy, and simple progress indicators. I removed features that added noise.

I learned that productivity is emotional. A calm design system can truly help users feel more capable. Building simple micro-steps and supportive feedback helped me understand how design can reduce pressure, not add more.