A purpose-built minimal productivity timer, the first of it’s kind.
The project log is a comprehensive record, meticulously documenting each action and modification throughout the project’s lifecycle. It serves as an invaluable resource, offering clear insights into our decision-making process and the evolution of the project from concept to final product.
We weren’t too happy with the icons that we used in our original design as we felt it was too big and the line weight was a bit thick. We had our graphics designer, Doori, redesign all our icons and centered the focus around the “infinity” symbol.
We felt like the infinity symbol matched the theme of the “flow” timer where the end-user could go from focus to rest to focus and achieve a flow state that will allow them to be their most productive self.
We also had to design a stand-alone logo for this project since we wanted it to have a bit of uniqueness as it’s our first flag ship kickstarter project. We wanted to include the infinity symbol into the design as well to make it meaningful.
To ensure the feel of using the device matches our expectation, we 3D printed the design again to validate the size of it.
It felt good to use, the screen was big enough to view from different angles and the kickstand made the device very versatile.
We were very satisfied with the design and proceeded forward with producing the final CMF (color, materials and finish) specifications for the manufacturers.
After going back and forth with the manufacturer, we settled on this final design of the back – we weren’t able to center the speaker grills due to the battery taking up a lot of the space. It’s a compromise but we can definitely make use of the empty space on the right to balance the design.
The survey helped us lock in the front face design that we wanted and now its time to start on adding in components for the back of the new timer. We needed to make sure there were speaker grills, a kickstand and an USB Type-c port. We had already confirmed the location of these with our supplier as they are helping us with the electronic components of our project.
The new design was ready and Damien dropped a reel to present to everyone what we had done. Have a quick watch ->
The moment we got home, we got to work with validating our design and making sure people liked it. We sent off a survey through our instagram and email list to anyone would owned our existing pomodoro timer.
We received an overwhelming number of responses. 413 responses in 48 hours. We couldn’t have been more thankful. However, that also meant we had a mountain of feedback to combthrough. So Damien, Kenny and I got to work and went through each piece of feedback and categorising them into similar themes.
The gist of feedback was everyone liked the designs, but the settings switches were a bit confusing. There were too many switches to control the brightness, volume and tone. In addition, people felt that it wouldn’t be very egonomic to use as you wouldnt be able to operate it with one hand.
With this feedback, we had something to improve on.
The project was put on hold as we conducted our yearly visits to our suppliers in China. We had our focus around a supplier in Shen Zhen that was actually the key to this project. Since we had worked with them to improve the firmware of the first pomodoro timer, we were sure that they could help on this project.
We were right. As we brought up this project and several of our initial 3D printed prototypes, they were very interested in becoming our manufacturer for this product.
They gave us some tips on how to optimise the design for the electronics so that it would fit better. We told them that we would work on the design a bit more before sending it to them to see if they any advice for design for manufacturing (DFM).
Picture 1 – Button Press Testing Machine – Used for testing max button press before failure
Picture 2 – Long Term Testing Room – Used for testing devices for 6 month to 1 year ensuring long term performance
Picture 3 – Assembly Line
Kenny came back to use with several concepts and we choose some that looked good and we 3D printed the designs just to get a feeling of scale and hand feel. Here they are.
Design 1 – The verticle design was an interesting idea, but using it was a bit difficult as setting the time you would need to pick it up
Design 2 – It was going in the right direction but it seemed a bit messy with the amount of buttons and switches there were.
Design 3 – It looked too much like a chess timer, which wasn’t a bad thing – but just did not fit the aesthetic
Design 4 – It looked too similiar to our original timer. We wanted something a bit different
We came up with a few new ideas on how to improve the design
We started the project by reviewing the feedback on our pomodoro timer version 1. It seemed like there were numerous diffiencies, namely, poor material quality and lack of functionality. People liked the design, but it lacked a variety of qualities to make it a true flag ship product.
We put together a massive excel file and grouped the feedback together into 4 themes. Design, functionality, experience and quality.
From here, we began brainstorming solutions that addressing the feedback from the reviews we were given. We wrote down a few key criterion and sent Kenny off to come up with a few preliminary concepts. The focus centered around:
1/ Easier to use
2/ Better functionality
3/ Rechargeable
4/ Better user experience (better tones and customisability and less complexity in the functions)
The discussion of functionality determined that we would make the ‘pomodoro mode’, the core mode in the new timer as it is the core function that people were using,
The price of this product for early bird supporters is estimated to be 49 USD.
We’re looking to launch the kickstarter in november and it will last for 30 days.
If all goes well, it will start shipping mid-Q1 and hopefully arrive at your doorstep near the end of Q1.
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