CASE STUDY
inSync
Focus, together — a social focus app for students.
2026 · Shipped · AI, Mobile · Purdue Capstone
Best Semester Project
ROLE
Lead Designer, Researcher & Builder
TIMELINE
Spring 2026
CONTEXT
Social Productivity App
PLATFORM
iOS + Web
Most focus apps treat focus as something you do alone. inSync starts with the people and places already in a student’s day.
In a Nutshell
01
Overview
Most focus apps fight distraction. inSync uses the people and places already in a student’s life to make focus easier. Every app on the market assumes focus is something you do alone, and the fix is to gamify it or block your phone. inSync is built on the opposite: your location and the people around you actively help you lock in.
Students interviewed
Usability Testing
Figma screens
Design system components
02
Problem
Students don’t study in isolation. Where you are and who’s around you shapes how well you focus yet every app in the category treats focus as something you do alone, to be gamified or locked away. By ignoring the social context students actually work in, these apps lose people the moment motivation dips: they stop opening them, or quietly lose interest after a week.
Freedom
Forest
Opal
One Sec
Brick
Pomofocus
03
User Research
To understand why solo focus tools miss the mark, I surveyed students on how they study, what breaks concentration, and what existing apps ignore about place and presence.
KEY FINDINGS ↓
(01) Place shapes focus
Students already map rooms to task types — library for group work, a quiet corner for deadlines — but no focus app tracks where focus actually happens.
(02) Presence helps — when it’s ambient
Millions watch Study With Me for hours. Seeing others work nearby signals work time without requiring collaboration — digital or physical presence both count.
(03) Solo tools ignore both
“I wouldn’t go join, but I’d still like to see everyone”. Every app gamifies discipline or blocks the phone. Neither accounts for where you are or who’s around you.
Place and presence already shape how students work yet it remains invisible
04
Solution
inSync stands on three pillars: Focus, Location, People. You pick a task, start a timer, and see friends doing the same. It’s autonomy first by design. No rigid blocking, no focus score, no leaderboard. Just enough presence to help you start, and none of the pressure that makes you quit.
Momentum over perfection · Reflection over tracking · Social proof without pressure · No shame, no guilt
THE FULL STORY
User Research
Is focus a solo act or does your setting have a say in it?
I combined survey data, semi-structured interviews, field observations, and secondary research to understand how students actually study — not which app they say they prefer.
Survey
A structured survey captured how students study, what distracts them, and what they wish existing tools did differently.
KEY FINDINGS ↓
(01) Distraction load
Most rated distractions as a real barrier — phone, tabs, and social feeds — none tied to where they were or who was around.
(02) Procrastination
Starting was harder than sustaining. Many said getting into the right headspace took longer than staying there.
(03) Environment map
Students already matched places to tasks, but no tool helped them pick the right setting before they began.
→ Students weren’t failing at focus. They were failing at starting in the right setting.
User interviews
I ran semi-structured interviews with six students — same opening questions, then open conversation. Behavior-focused, not tool-focused. Each finding below shaped a specific design decision later.
8 STUDENTS
4 UNDERGRADS
4 GRADUATES
FINDING
01
Location matters. A lot.
Students pair places with types of work, solo at home for deadlines, shared spaces for everything else.
P1-P7
FINDING
02
Study patterns are flexible.
People shift between alone, with friends, or just near others depending on the task.
P2,P5
FINDING
03
Presence motivates
Seeing others is often a significant motivator to focus and lock in.
P3,P5,P6,P7
Observations
Before interviews, I watched where students actually end up — and what runs in the background while they work.
It started by watching. I spent time in library stacks, commons between classes, and tables people drift to without thinking. Rooftop corners for tight deadlines. Common rooms for group projects. On another screen, Study With Me runs for hours — presence without conversation. The same picture kept repeating: solo tools, social settings.
People work in social space
Study With Me — presence on a different screen
Literature review
Social Facilitation Theory
Presence sharpens.
The presence of others nudges you toward your dominant response and narrows your attention to the task in front of you.
Zajonc (1965); Huguet et al. (1999)
Self-Determination Theory
Motivation needs connection.
Lasting motivation runs on autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Most focus apps chase the first two and forget the third.
Ryan & Deci (2000)
Goal-Setting
A start beats an intention.
Specific, time-bound goals beat vague ones. Naming a task and starting a timer turns \”I should study\” into a commitment.
Locke & Latham (2002); Gollwitzer (1999)
07
In the following sections, I walk through how the product was designed across different stages — structure first, then flow validation, then build and test.
You will see these ↓
Information architecture · Lo-fi prototype · The build · Usability testing
(01) Information architecture
I mapped the information architecture from onboarding through timer, feed, and analytics — so every screen had a job before pixels.
(02) Lo-fi & whiteboarding
Paper prototypes and whiteboarding sessions validated the core loop — timer, task pick, join flow, and reflection — before hi-fi.
(03) Build
I designed 30 screens in Figma, then used Claude Code with the Figma MCP to generate a 24-component design system and ship a working React Native app on Firebase — testing under real settings, not just prototype clicks.
Primary
#5C2BC7
Light
#7C4DFF
Contrast
#2DD4BF
Background
#F8F7FF
Surface
#F0ECFF
Text / Ink
#1A1A2E
Typography
Aa
Poppins
Display & headings · 500 / 600
Aa
Lato
Body & UI · 400 · tabular numerics in timer
(04) Usability testing
Eighteen students tested the prototype. SUS scores and task completion shaped what shipped.
18
Participants tested
4.1
Avg. SUS score
3.8
Task clarity rating
72%
Task completion
Design Decisions
I ran usability sessions with 10 students, then reworked the app around what they struggled with. Three changes mattered most. Each one moved inSync further from surveillance and closer to something students actually wanted to keep open.
CHANGED
Location optional
Location Toggle
I shipped location as always-on at first. Some students wanted control over what they shared, so I made it a toggle they own.
REFRAMED
Weekly Analytics
Not surveillance
Instead of shaming you with an avatar or a score, the analytics show where and how well you focused, so you can make better calls about your own study habits.
ADDED
Matching time
Time plus breaks
Letting friends match timers meant they could break together and focus together, staying locked in for longer.
REMOVED
Leaderboard
Ranking cut
Leaderboard pressure was added pressure most students did not want. We cut ranking entirely and kept reflection over tracking.
“This way I can automatically match break time.”
06
The Experience
Lock into the task you’ve been avoiding.
Pick the task, set a duration, optionally lock your phone, and start. A few taps and you’re focused — ending early is a pivot, not a failure.
Join a session already in progress.
See who’s studying around you, tap to join, and match their timer — or set your own pace. No invites, no pressure.
Reflect on how the week actually went.
Instead of overwhelming students with data, inSync shows where, when, and with whom they focused best.
09
Reflection
Shipping, not just designing
This project pushed me out of my comfort zone by building the entire app in React Native — not just designing screens.
The work wasn’t only polish and UI. It was making sure the design translated into code exactly as intended — hours of debugging, fixing node packages, and wrestling with implementation until the product matched the intent.
Key learning
Designers today can do more than ideate and prototype. We can ship — and seeing how a design behaves as a real product changes how you design. Knowing constraints up front, and baking them into decisions early, matters more than chasing impact on a slide.
Build fast, research slow
I could mock up designs and assemble an app quickly. The hard part wasn’t speed.
It was landing on the right idea after rounds of observation, brainstorming, and interviews — then shaping user flows that solve a real problem for the widest range of students. The goal was never one more focus app. It was one that actually earns its place.
Key learning
Speed in execution only pays off once the problem is right. Research, observation, and synthesis are where the real design work happens.