Calendar App - Pratyush

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For a better reading experience, view the original document here at notion

Design a calendar for a meetings app.

Problem statement:

The user has to manage multiple meetings, create meetings, check if there is any available slot in their schedule and see the meetings lined up daily, weekly, and monthly.

Assessment

We would like your assignment to reflect design thinking, problem-solving ability, ability to identify probable use-cases and understanding of usability.

Deliverables may include

Artifacts: assumptions, process document, personas, benchmarking etc

Approach/design process

Ideas

Low-fidelity mockup/wireframe

Discover

To begin my study, I looked for other apps in this domain. This included Google Calendar, Outlook, Teams, Webex, and other secondary competitors such as Calendaly, Any.do, and Vimcal, etc. Surprisingly, many of the desirable features were present in one but absent in the other.

Here's a rundown of all the app's strengths and weaknesses that I looked into.

Name	Strengths	Weaknesses
Google Calendar(Primary)	1- The ability to create multiple calendars 2- A variety of views, such as daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and four days, are available, each with their own shortcuts for easy navigation. 3- Drag between two slots to schedule a meeting.	1- A little clogged due to a plethora of features that can be overwhelming for some users 2- There is no easy way to share our calendar with people 3- There is no way to communicate with other attendees without using the gmail application.
Microsoft Teams(Primary)	1- A very basic user interface with a limited feature set 2- Adding a new meeting is very straightforward, with only a few options.	1- The feature set is limited, but some features are missing. 2- After scheduling the meeting, the app go to Google Calendar to complete the process, which takes time. There is no option for sending out direct mail or adding attendees to the meeting direct from the app (Not available in free plan)
Cisco Webex(Primary)	1- Clean list view to navigate through all of the meetings. 2- Attendees can be added directly from the app.	1- There is no monthly calendar view available. 2- To schedule a meeting, there is no need to drag between slots. 3- The collapsible menu does not appear to offer anything unique.
Calendaly(Secondary)	1- One off Meeting - Can send invite link to someone to pick a time for meet 2- The ability to view past and pending meetings, as well as the ability to export all meeting dates

Survey

After conducting my preliminary market research, I created a short survey with a few questions that I believe will aid me in learning more about calendar apps (This was not focused on Calendar for a meeting app but calendar as a whole to know what extra I can give via Calendar app).

Here are the key findings:

Calendars are used almost every day by 43.8% of the people. That's a lot of people. As a result, I believe it is critical to give such a tool the attention it requires.

This was a general question about calendar apps to see what other features people want in their app for better productivity aside from the standard features.

Shortcuts boost productivity significantly, and I adore having them in every app. I inquired how many of them desired something similar on their calendar apps to confirm my suspicions.

I also gave them a list of features that I had discovered to be highly beneficial in other competitor apps and asked them to check the ones they wanted in their calendar app.

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After conducting all of this research, I compiled all of my findings and attempted to identify some key points that users would want to see in the app. - A simple UI with meetings organised by category and a list view to see all of them at once. - Before attending any meeting, may interact with other participants and see the total number of attendees on the calendar app itself. - Additional features like a To-Do List, Habit Tracker, Multiple Accounts, and so on. - For appointments, share your personal calendar with someone. - A straightforward procedure for scheduling a call that includes the adding of guests, mailing, and other details.

Define

Following my research, I came up with a number of ideas and features that could be included in the calendar app. Because the calendar was designed to be used in a meeting app, I gathered all of the features and distributed them according to MoSCoW to gain a better understanding of all of the features.

Must

Calendar view

Ability to schedule a meeting

Switch between different calendar views

Ability to read about and join a meeting

Should

List view for upcoming meeting

Tags and category on meeting

Number of attendees before joining a call

Could

Share your calendar feature

Shortcuts for different actions

Chat with attendees

Wont

To do list and habit tracker(This could work on a native calendar app but not for meeting app)

Design

After defining all the features, I proceeded to create a Low-Fidelity Design. This consumed a significant amount of my time. Although the design was simple, creating different components and iterating quickly took a long time. This is also where I gathered all of the features and turned them into a calendar app.

Here's a rundown of every design, along with the reasons for their selection.

Prototype

Thank you

This was both enjoyable and challenging at the same time because the time limit was limited. I attempted to include all of the necessary design elements for a calendar. I learned a lot about the calendar app, including how it works, what users' pain points are, and how we can make this hell a fun app for everyone. I hope you enjoy my project.