Zenith
About The Challenge
Presented by Wilfrid Laurier University’s UX Design Program, Design for Change is a Canada-wide challenge where my team placed third out of over 400 participants.
The solution
Zenith turns your to-dos into doable plans with visual timelines, AI task breakdown, and tools that cut through the chaos.
My role
UX & Product Designer
Team
UX Lead, UX Researcher, UI Lead
Timeline
November 2024 - January 2025
Outcomes
88.1
Average System Usability Score
82%
Task Success Rate
Improved planning clarity and ease of starting by shifting to guided AI support
Research
20% of the world's population is estimated to be neurodivergent
To address this, I prioritized allocating the majority of our project timeline to research, setting a foundation for informed and inclusive outcomes.
1
Initial Discovery
Desk Research
Discussions with Mentors
2
Suppositions Creation
With our growing knowledge, we began brainstorming suppositions about the most critical problems we should address. We allowed ourselves to create various ideas without immediately evaluating their validity.
3
Validation
Stakeholder Interviews
Based on our suppositions, I helped the team create interview questions to pinpoint the problems our users cared about most.
Speaking to users
I interviewed 8 young adults with ADHD
Getting ranging perspectives was important because it led us to three main issues:
Key pain points
Difficulty maintaining focus on taks
Frequent distractions and transitions lead to lost momentum and unfinished work.
Challenges balancing academic and personal life
Overlapping priorities and unclear routines result in feeling overwhelmed, unsupported and unable to “do it all.”
Struggles with inflexible learning structures
They expect perfect focus, seamless task initiation and rigid routines, leaving many ADHD’ers behind.
THE CHALLENGE
Neurodivergent individuals struggle with executive functioning, making daily task management consistently difficult.
OPPORTUNITIES
I guided my team to four main feature areas for the MVP
Based on the overarching themes and market research, I mapped this to several features focused on personalization:
Visual Timer
Keeps time visible to support focus and smoother task transitions.
Adaptive Reminders
Learns user habits to send timely prompts that reduce overwhelm.
Tailored Calendar
Adjusts layout and scheduling based on user priorities and workload.
Generates step-by-step plans and time estimates for better task clarity.
Early Ai Support concept
Fully automated task planning with AI
We explored an AI-first approach that completely automated daily planning — assigning time blocks and priorities without user input.
#1
“I appreciate having support but it feels like it’s deciding everything for me, rather than working together with me. I want it to guide me, not take over my planning completely.”
Testing showed it limited autonomy. Users wanted structure and more freedom.
I shifted the strategy toward guided collaboration, this balance became the foundation for how personalization works across the product.
Design
Creating an inclusive and accessible environment
We conducted competitor UI analysis to evaluate existing task management apps and created a UI inspiration board to refine user interactions and visual style.
Colour palette was a response to research showing people with ADHD process visuals more slowly, with up to 41% more errors compared to controls on colour-based tests.
the Solution
Introducing Zenith
Onboarding
Zenith adapts to you from the start. Onboarding captures what matters most: priorities, learning needs, and accessibility.
Visual Planning
Organization works best when it’s visual. Customize views, color-code tasks and stay organized across devices.
Plan with AI
Turn thoughts into action. Zenith's AI builds step-by-step plans and estimates time for you.
Live activities
Staying on track is easier with less friction. See upcoming tasks and timers at a glance, without opening the app.
Focus Mode
Transitions are where focus is most often lost. Stay anchored in your tasks, handle transitions smoothly, and keep momentum without the stress.
Conclusion
What did I learn?
Focus on MVP
It is tempting to design more features and come up with universal solutions. But given the deadlines and amount of user feedback, priority was to speak to the users and iterate.
Go beyond expectations
It is important to empathize with users and understand their feelings and needs even if they don't understand this themselves.
We used an Impact Value Matrix, replacing "effort" with "value" to reflect stakeholder needs. This approach helped us focus on solutions that matter most and maximize impact.
Research Submission
Interested in the full process?
Hey! Thanks for going through my work. This is only the outline of my project, if you are interested in the whole process, check out the complete version on Canva, link below:
Open file in Canva
