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The GitHub account for student Juan Felipe Camelo (jcamelob) was suspended and as such will be using the account margarita1509. This matter was already discussed with Professor Mario Linares, who gave both the authorization to use this account and the instruction to write this clarification.
University students often spend excessive amounts of time on their phones, particularly on distracting applications such as social media and entertainment platforms. Although students are generally aware of their screen-time habits, existing solutions such as app limits, blocking features, and self-imposed restrictions can be easily bypassed and are often difficult to maintain over time. Interviews also identified boredom and unstructured time as important triggers for excessive phone use. At the same time, students still need their phones for studying, communication, organization, and entertainment, meaning that completely avoiding smartphone use is not a realistic solution.
Therefore, the problem is not simply the amount of time students spend on their phones, but their difficulty maintaining intentional control over when and why they use them. The project focuses on university students who experience more than five hours of daily screen time and aims to help them reduce this usage by 20% as a project target. This target will provide a measurable benchmark for evaluating whether the proposed solution can help users develop more intentional and sustainable phone-use habits.
The proporsal is an adaptive mobile application that helps university students gain greater control over their screen time by combining gamification, personalized goals, challenges before accessing distracting applications, Focus Mode and Pomodoro sessions, and personalized offline activity recommendations. Users will be able to track their phone usage, identify applications they consider distracting, and complete short challenges before accessing them. The application will also use elements such as a virtual pet, points, streaks, achievements, and progress to motivate users to maintain healthier habits.
Rather than completely restricting smartphone use, the application focuses on helping users make more intentional decisions about when and why they use their phones. When boredom or unstructured time may lead users to return to distracting applications, the application can suggest offline alternatives based on their interests, available time, and potentially their location or context. These alternatives could include activities such as walking, exercising, reading, or other non-technology-related activities, allowing the application to address not only the behavior of excessive phone use but also some of the situations that trigger it.
The proposed application would follow a freemium revenue model. The basic version would provide the core functionality necessary to help users manage their screen time, such as basic usage tracking, Focus Mode, Pomodoro sessions, application challenges, and a selection of offline activity recommendations. Users could subscribe to a premium version to unlock additional functionality, such as more advanced personalization, detailed usage analytics, additional challenges and customization options for the virtual pet, and more adaptive recommendations.
A second source of revenue could come from partnerships and agreements with organizations that provide offline activities or services. For example, if the application recommends going for a walk, exercising, visiting a recreational space, or participating in another offline activity, it could prioritize activities offered by partner organizations. These partnerships could provide promotional or commercial opportunities for businesses while giving users relevant alternatives to screen use. Importantly, recommendations would be presented according to the user's interests and context rather than simply functioning as advertisements, allowing partnerships to complement the app's main purpose of encouraging healthier and more intentional use of technology.
The main value proposition of the application is to help university students reduce excessive screen time without requiring them to completely disconnect from their phones. Unlike traditional screen-time tools that primarily show users how much time they have spent on their devices or impose limits that can be easily bypassed, the proposed solution combines intentional access mechanisms, personalization, gamification, and alternative activities. Challenges before accessing distracting applications encourage users to stop and consciously decide whether they actually want to use the application, while goals, streaks, achievements, and the virtual pet provide motivation to maintain these behaviors over time.
The solution also addresses an important aspect of excessive phone use: what users do instead of using their phones. By providing personalized offline activity recommendations, the application can help users replace periods of boredom or unstructured time with meaningful alternatives. The potential integration with partner organizations can further increase the value of these recommendations by connecting users with real world activities that match their interests. In this way, the application does not simply tell users to “use their phone less,” but provides them with motivation, intentionality, and practical alternatives to help them achieve that goal.
| # | Problems (P) | Alternatives (A) | Solutions (S) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | She already knows her screen time is high and has actively tried built-in tools such as app timers, screen-time reports, and application limits. | She sets app timers and screen-time limits through her phone's built-in tools, but when she hits the limit she overrides it in a single tap or ignores the warning entirely. She has also tried deleting distracting apps outright, only to reinstall them later, and she checks screen-time reports, but only after the time is already lost. | A system that inserts a real decision point before granting extra time, rather than a single dismissible prompt. • Challenge Gate: Require completing a short task (a quiz, a breathing exercise, a brief physical activity) before unlocking a flagged app once the limit is reached. • Escalating Friction: Increase the difficulty or length of the challenge each additional time the same limit is bypassed within a day. |
| 2 | She reaches for her phone specifically during boredom or unstructured time (between classes, during breaks, before bed) not because she consciously chooses entertainment over rest, but because nothing else is readily available to fill that gap. | She defaults to picking up her phone whenever she has idle time, since it is the lowest-effort option within reach. She has occasionally tried planning offline activities on her own, but without any reminder or support system these attempts rarely last more than a few days, and she otherwise relies on willpower alone, with no external prompt at the moment boredom actually occurs. | A recommendation system that offers something to do instead of the phone, right at the moment idle time appears. • Offline Break Suggestion: Once she reaches her daily limit for a flagged app, offer a short, personalized offline activity as an alternative before letting her continue. • Interest Profile: Let her select her interests upfront so suggestions actually match what she enjoys instead of generic filler activities. • Activity Streaks: Track consecutive times she chooses a suggested offline activity over her phone, reinforcing the alternative the same way a habit streak would. |
| 3 | She needs a way to stop feeling like her phone is vibrating or receiving notifications when it actually isn't | She checks her phone repeatedly to make sure she hasn't received anything. Sometimes she turns notifications off or puts her phone away, but she still feels the urge to check. | • A system that helps users recognize and manage phantom notification sensations, providing reassurance when there are no new notifications and helping them gradually reduce compulsive checking. • Check Counter: Track how many times users check their phone without receiving a notification. • Delayed Notifications: Group notifications together and deliver them at specific times. |
| 4 | She needs a way to disconnect from social media without feeling like she is missing something important. | She keeps checking social media throughout the day, even when she doesn't have anything specific to look for. She sometimes leaves notifications on or checks apps before going to sleep because she doesn't want to miss anything. | • A tool that summarizes important social updates after a period of disconnection, allowing users to stay informed without constantly checking their apps. • FOMO Journal: Ask users what they thought they were missing and compare it with what actually happened. |
| 5 | She needs a way to reduce her screen time without immediately reinstalling the apps she deleted. | She deletes social media apps when she realizes she is spending too much time on them, but after a few hours or days she feels the need to use them again and reinstall them. | • A gradual disconnection system that helps users manage the urge to reinstall an app by providing alternative activities, tracking their progress, and creating a temporary barrier before reinstalling. • Reinstallation Cooldown: Make users wait a certain amount of time before reinstalling an app. |
| 6 | She needs a way to stay focused during study sessions without losing access to important communication. | She puts her phone away, turns on Do Not Disturb, silences notifications, or checks her phone between study periods to make sure she hasn't missed anything important. | A focused communication mode that filters non-urgent notifications while allowing important contacts or messages to reach her. • Priority Contacts: Allow notifications from selected people during study sessions. • Focus Summary: Show non-urgent notifications in a summary after the session. |
| 7 | She needs a way to stay motivated to reduce her screen time over the long term. | She sets screen-time limits, checks her daily screen-time reports, deletes apps, or tries to manually reduce the amount of time she spends on her phone. | A long-term progress system that helps her build sustainable screen-time habits instead of relying only on daily limits. • Progress Streaks: Track consecutive days meeting personalized screen-time goals. • Weekly Goals: Set gradual goals based on her previous usage and adjust them over time. |
| 8 | She feels sad after uninstalling apps because she loses her dopamine dose | She reinstalls the apps, replaces them with another app, watches videos, listens to music, or looks for another quick source of entertainment. | A transition system that provides rewarding alternatives when she removes an app, helping her replace the habit instead of simply taking it away. • Replacement Activities: Suggest short activities based on her interests and available time. • Reward System: Give progress points or achievements for choosing offline or intentional activities instead of reinstalling the app. |
| 9 | She needs a way to use her phone for studying without being exposed to distracting content along the way. | She searches for academic information on her phone but encounters social media, entertainment, recommendations, or unrelated content. She uses a laptop instead, uses printed or previously downloaded material, or creates a separate academic environment on her phone. |
A distraction free academic mode that allows access to academic resources while hiding or removing non-academic content. • Study Only Mode: Temporarily restrict the phone to selected academic apps, websites, files, and tools. • Clean Search: Open academic searches in an interface that removes distracting recommendations, feeds, and unrelated content. • Academic Whitelist: Let the student select the specific resources they need before beginning a study session. |
| 10 | She needs a way to quickly regain focus after becoming distracted by her phone instead of losing a large portion of her study session. | She tries to return to studying on her own, restarts her study timer, takes a break, or simply tells herself to focus again. However, after switching to stimulating content, returning to a demanding academic task can be difficult. | A focus recovery system that helps the student transition back into studying immediately after a distraction. • After leaving a distracting activity, immediately show the student the task they were working on and their next planned action. • Save the exact study activity the student was doing before the distraction and reopen it when they return. • Quizzes the student on what they were doing before leaving. |
| 11 | She needs a way to protect her sleep routine from late-night phone use. | She uses her phone in bed, often intending to scroll for only a few minutes before sleeping. She may set a bedtime reminder or use Night Mode, but these features do not prevent her from continuing to use the phone. | A bedtime routine that gradually encourages the user to disconnect rather than simply notifying them that it is time to sleep. • Wind-Down Mode: Begin reducing stimulating interactions before the user's target bedtime. • Bedtime Goal: Reward completing a phone-free period before sleeping. • Wind-Down Activities: Suggest offline activities such as reading, preparing for the next day, or listening to relaxing audio. |
| 12 | She needs a way to become aware of when she is picking up her phone out of habit rather than because she has a specific reason to use it. | She usually picks up her phone automatically when it is nearby or when she experiences a moment of boredom, without first deciding what she wants to do. She could rely on manually tracking these moments, keeping her phone out of reach, or reminding herself to question why she is using it, but these approaches require her to notice the behavior herself. | A system that introduces a brief moment of awareness before habitual phone use, helping her distinguish intentional use from automatic checking. • Intent Prompt: Before opening frequently used distracting apps, ask the user to briefly select why they are opening the app (specific task, checking messages, just browsing). • Habit Pattern Feedback: Identify repeated unintentional checks and show the user when and under what circumstances they tend to occur. • Usage Intent History: Let the user compare the reasons they intended to use an app with how long they actually spent using it. |
Juliana is a 22-year-old undergraduate student who is currently completing her bachelor's degree and preparing for her exams. She is comfortable with technology and relies on her smartphone and laptop for communication, entertainment, and university work. Although she values the convenience of staying connected with her friends and having immediate access to information, her constant access to digital content makes it difficult for her to maintain focus while studying.
Juliana's primary goals are to successfully prepare for and pass her exams and to develop the ability to study for longer periods without being constantly distracted by her phone. She expects to be able to concentrate while still having access to the digital resources she needs for university. At the same time, she does not want to completely give up her phone because it provides social connection, entertainment, information, and a sense of being up to date with what is happening around her.
Her main motivations come from wanting to perform well academically while maintaining control over her phone use. She wants to avoid feeling that she is missing something important when she is away from her phone and feels accomplished when she manages to complete productive study sessions. However, this creates a conflict between her academic responsibilities and the immediate rewards provided by her phone.
Juliana's main pain points are the frequency with which she checks her phone while studying, the amount of study time she loses without realizing it, and her difficulty maintaining strategies intended to reduce her phone usage. She can also become distracted while using her phone for legitimate study related purposes, making it difficult to simply avoid the device altogether. Furthermore, boredom and exhaustion during long study sessions can make the phone even more appealing.
Overall, Juliana represents a student who recognizes that her phone is interfering with her academic performance but struggles to consistently control its use. Her problem is therefore not a lack of awareness or motivation to study, but the difficulty of balancing a device that is both necessary for her university life and a major source of distraction. This suggests an opportunity for a solution that helps her regulate and control her phone use during study sessions without requiring her to completely disconnect from the digital resources and social connections she values.
Juan is a highly ambitious, 26 year old professional, juggling a full-time job and an evening master's degree in computer science. Having been deeply immersed in technology for over a decade, his life is defined by a constant stream of tasks that mostly involve working on his laptop. Additionally, he's also very aware of his phone, as it's a tool to communicate with colleagues who may require him to attend to meetings or respond to emails. Overall, Juan is driven by a need to maintain high productivity across both his career and his studies, but he recognizes the need to develop healthier working habits given that they do not force him to sacrifice his output.
His main motivations to achieve a better balance between his working and resting times are to regain control over his responsibilities and to improve some health conditions that have arisen from the lack of limits towards his duties. He expects to be able to have enough time for both his work and his studies, all the while he performs appropriate breaks to prevent burn out related symptoms due to the amount of work he has to deal with. He desires to fulfill this without compromising his productivity and thus preventing the feeling of falling behind.
The main pain points that Juan has are related to putting his duties above everything else, including his physical, mental and emotional well being. Regarding the first, he has started experiencing some chronic pains such as sore eyes and muscle stiffness due to the lack of intentional rest from prolonged device usage and, perhaps, having a bad posture throughout. Regarding the second, he feels a lose of control over his time, allowing for work to permeate his routine outside of it. And regarding the third, he's under the constant fear of falling behind, diminishing his own self worth.
Overall, this persona highlights a user who needs wellness interventions that work with his ambition, not against it. Traditional, intrusive break alerts will fail because he views them as a threat to his workflow. An effective solution must help him reclaim a sense of control and address his physical discomfort quietly, allowing him to recover without triggering his anxiety about losing productivity.
Mateo is a 20-year-old second-year engineering student who is comfortable with technology and relies on his smartphone and laptop for both academic work and entertainment. Although he values staying connected and having constant access to content, this same access makes it difficult for him to sustain focus during lectures and study sessions, and increasingly spills over into his sleep and overall wellbeing.
Mateo's primary goals are to improve his academic performance and to feel more rested and in control of his daily habits. He wants to be able to follow his classes without losing track of what's being explained, and he wants to get enough quality sleep to feel alert during the day. At the same time, he doesn't want to give up the immediate stimulation and connection his phone provides, since checking it has become an automatic response to boredom, downtime, or the moments right before falling asleep.
His main motivations come from wanting to keep up with the pace of his classes and avoid the extra hours he ends up spending re-learning material on his own after missing key explanations. He also wants to feel physically and mentally recovered rather than simply making it through the day on insufficient sleep. However, this creates a conflict, in that the same phone that helps him feel entertained and socially connected is also what keeps him up late and pulls his attention away during the hours he intends to study.
Mateo's main pain points extend beyond the classroom. He frequently checks his phone during lectures and while studying, often has to rewatch lecture recordings because he missed parts the first time, and struggles to fall asleep because he keeps scrolling before bed. This lack of quality sleep leaves him anxious and unfocused the next day, which feeds back into his difficulty concentrating in class. As a result, his grades have started to drop, and he has trouble sustaining any strategy to limit his phone use for more than a few days at a time.
Overall, Mateo represents a student whose phone habits are affecting not just his academic performance but his broader quality of life, through poor sleep, persistent tiredness, and a cycle of stress that reinforces the same distraction it stems from. His problem is not a lack of awareness or desire to change, but the difficulty of breaking a pattern that affects him at multiple levels at once: attention, rest, and academic outcomes. This suggests an opportunity for a solution that addresses not only in-the-moment distraction during study, but also the habits around phone use at night that are undermining his sleep and, in turn, his ability to focus the next day.
Camila is a 27-year-old data analyst on the product team who is comfortable working with analytics tools and relies on usage dashboards, logs, and reports rather than the app itself to understand how students behave. Unlike a prospective user, she doesn't experience the app's screen-time features firsthand. Instead, her relationship with the product is entirely data-driven, filtered through metrics like session frequency, feature engagement, and drop-off points.
Camila's primary goals are to understand how students actually use the app's focus and accountability features in practice and to identify which mechanisms genuinely drive behavior change versus which are underused or ignored. She wants access to reliable, well-structured data that lets her segment users by behavior pattern, distinguishing, for example, students who consistently engage with limits from those who frequently override them. At the same time, she knows that raw usage numbers don't always tell the full story, which pushes her to look for context beyond the dashboards.
Her main motivations come from wanting product decisions to be grounded in evidence rather than assumptions, and from the satisfaction of seeing a data insight translate into a concrete product improvement. She is particularly focused on catching shifts in usage patterns early, since spotting behavioral changes as they emerge lets the team intervene with design changes before those users disengage entirely. However, this creates a challenge, in that behavioral data can show what users are doing without explaining why, which means she often has to combine quantitative findings with qualitative research to get a complete picture.
Camila's main pain points stem from the limitations of the data itself rather than from using the app. Usage logs are sometimes incomplete or inconsistent across app versions, making trends harder to trust. It's often difficult to tell whether a feature is being ignored because it doesn't work or simply because users never discovered it. She also faces pressure to deliver insights quickly, sometimes before enough data has accumulated to draw statistically meaningful conclusions, and struggles to tell whether an observed improvement reflects lasting behavior change or just a short-term novelty effect that fades over the semester. On top of that, she finds it hard to separate meaningful trends from noise, since changes in usage could stem from external factors like holidays, exam periods, or app outages rather than the product itself.
Overall, Camila represents the internal, data-facing side of the product. Someone whose job is not to change her own habits, but to understand how well the app is changing habits for its actual users. Her problem is not a lack of technical skill or curiosity, but the difficulty of turning imperfect, partial usage data into confident, actionable recommendations for the team. This suggests an opportunity for the product to be designed with better instrumentation from the start, so that the events and signals Camila needs to evaluate engagement are captured reliably rather than reconstructed after the fact.
The Empathy Map represents a user who is aware that she spends a significant amount of time on her phone and has already tried different strategies to reduce her screen time. However, she has difficulty maintaining these strategies because her phone is an important part of her daily life and the existing tools are easy to bypass.
In Thinks, the user is aware that her phone usage is higher than she would like. She knows that she should probably spend less time on her phone and recognizes that the current limits are not very effective because they are easy to ignore or bypass. At the same time, she thinks that completely avoiding her phone is not realistic because she needs it for different activities during the day. This creates a conflict between wanting to reduce her screen time and still needing her phone for work, communication, music, entertainment, and other activities. Because of this, she would benefit from a solution that provides more support without completely preventing her from using her phone.
In Sees, the user is constantly exposed to things that encourage her to use her phone. She sees notifications, screen-time reminders, and applications that can easily become distractions. Social media and entertainment applications are especially relevant because they can lead to unplanned or longer periods of use. At the same time, she also sees her phone as a necessary tool for communication and other daily activities, which makes it difficult to simply stop using it. Her environment therefore contains both reasons to use her phone and reasons to try to reduce that use.
In Feels, the user experiences some frustration because she knows she wants to reduce her screen time but does not always manage to do so. She feels distracted by her phone and experiences anxiety related to spending too much time on it. She can also feel somewhat resigned because she considers the phone necessary for many aspects of her daily life. Despite these difficulties, she is still motivated to make a change because she wants to feel calmer, more focused, and more in control of her phone usage.
In Does, the user actively tries different strategies to control her screen time. She checks her screen-time statistics to understand how much she uses her phone, sets limits for specific applications, and has tried deleting applications that she uses frequently. However, when she reaches a limit, she can extend or bypass it, which reduces the effectiveness of these strategies. She continues to use her phone throughout the day for activities such as work, communication, music, news, and entertainment. As a result, she has tried to change her behavior several times but has difficulty maintaining these changes over time.
Overall, the Empathy Map shows that the main challenge is not that the user is unaware of her screen time or unwilling to change. She already recognizes the problem and has made several attempts to control her usage. The main difficulty is maintaining the change while still having access to the functions of the phone that she needs in her everyday life. This suggests an opportunity for a solution that goes beyond simply showing screen-time statistics or setting basic limits, and instead provides motivation, support, and more effective ways to help the user maintain healthier habits.
One prospective user may be a full-time employee who struggles to take breaks, spending most of his day working continuously and blurring the lines between work and rest.
The employee is aware of his physical needs but constantly rationalizes ignoring them. He knows he should move around more and acknowledges his tired eyes, but he convinces himself to push through by promising to take a break just as soon as the current task is finished. A fear he has is that stopping will cause him to lose his focus, revealing that his continuous work habit is heavily driven by a desire to protect his momentum.
The employee's environment reflects a constant loop of pressure and physical toll. He faces a large list of tasks and spends a large portion of his day looking at screens, making it incredibly easy to lose track of time. This continuous toll has had undeniable physical consequences, like sore eyes and slouched posture, as well as relational consequences, as he seems to be absent from his relatives.
This user experiences a strong tension between the psychological toll of productivity and the physical cost of maintaining it. He feels highly focused and accomplished when completing a large amount of work, which makes him deeply reluctant to stop. However, this is countered by feeling tired from prolonged screen use and frustrated when physical discomfort eventually makes it harder to continue.
The employee remains seated for extended periods without changing position and frequently postpones breaks until a task is completely done. His digital habits spill over entirely into his personal life, as he checks emails right before sleep and immediately upon waking, and continues using devices through meals and well after the official workday has finished.
Overall, this empathy map shows that the core problem isn't a lack of awareness about the need for rest, but an ingrained fear that taking a break equates to losing productivity and focus. An effective solution should focus less on forcing him to stop working, which would only cause frustration and friction, and more on integrating seamless, low effort physical recovery moments directly into his workflow, allowing him to sustain his momentum without sacrificing his wellbeing.
The empathy map represents a university student who struggles to stay focused during academic activities such as lectures and homework.
In Thinks, the student is aware of the problem and knows what she should be doing, which is putting the phone away, closing distracting tabs, and focusing only on class. She also notices that when the lecture slows down, her mind starts to wander, showing that the distraction is not purely external but also tied to moments of low engagement.
In Sees, her environment normalizes distraction. Classmates also check their phones, notifications appear while she takes notes, and the clock reveals less time remains than she thought. The end-of-week screen time report surprises her, showing that the scale of the problem is only visible in hindsight.
In Feels, she experiences frustration, guilt, and a sense of being overwhelmed. She feels unable to sustain focus, frustrated when she misses something important, and guilty for prioritizing her phone over class. This shows she is not indifferent to the problem, but the constant awareness of it adds an emotional cost.
In Does, the pattern becomes concrete: she checks her phone every 8-10 minutes during class and opens social media several times an hour while doing homework, studying in short 15-minute bursts interrupted by phone checks. When she misses something, she rewatches the lecture segment, adding time to an already fragmented process.
Overall, the map shows that the core problem isn't a lack of awareness, but the difficulty of sustaining attention when the environment constantly offers low-effort alternatives to focus. An effective solution should focus less on making her aware of the problem, since she already is, and more on reducing the friction of staying focused at the exact moments attention is most likely to slip.
5.4 Empathy Map 4 - A university student studying for exams but struggling to balance academic focus with constant phone distractions
The empathy map represents a university student who is preparing for exams and struggles to maintain focus because of frequent phone distractions.
In Thinks, the student recognizes the importance of studying and understands that excessive phone use can negatively affect their academic performance. They want to concentrate for longer periods, but at the same time feel the need to keep their phone nearby because they do not want to miss important information, social activity, or updates from their friends. This reveals that the student is aware of the problem but does not find it easy to simply disconnect from their phone.
In Sees, the student's environment is filled with stimuli that competes for their attention. Notifications, new posts, videos, messages, and activity from friends are constantly visible on their phone. Even when the phone is initially used for academic purposes, the student can encounter unrelated content and become distracted. Therefore, the phone is not only a tool for communication and entertainment, but also an easily accessible source of competing stimuli during study sessions.
In Feels, the student experiences a mixture of frustration, boredom, exhaustion, and uneasiness. They become frustrated when they realize that they have lost control of their phone use or have spent time distracted instead of studying. At the same time, they may feel uneasy when their phone is not nearby, demonstrating an emotional dependence on having access to it. However, successfully spending a long period without using the phone gives them a sense of accomplishment, showing that they are motivated to improve their habits rather than simply accepting the situation.
Finally, in Does, the student repeatedly checks their phone while studying, finds opportunities to use it, and can lose long periods of study time without noticing. They may even become distracted while using their phone to search for academic information. Although they have attempted strategies to reduce their phone usage and sometimes leave the phone far away when studying is especially important, these strategies are difficult to maintain consistently.
Overall, the empathy map shows that the problem is not simply that the student uses their phone excessively. The deeper problem is the conflict between their need for the phone and their need to concentrate. The phone provides social connection, information, entertainment, and immediate stimulation, while studying requires sustained attention and delayed rewards. As a result, the student understands that their phone is interfering with their academic goals but continues to return to it despite this awareness. This suggests that an effective solution should not necessarily aim to eliminate phone use altogether but rather help the student maintain control over when and why they use their phone while preserving the functions they genuinely need during studying.
Sofia is a university student whose relationship with her phone reveals a clear pattern: her excessive phone use is strongly driven by stress. In Thinks, Sofia knows that her phone is necessary in her daily life, but she recognizes that she often turns to it when she feels overwhelmed or has too many responsibilities. She thinks about how much productive time she loses on her phone and wishes she could spend less time scrolling because she has many things to accomplish. In Sees, her environment constantly exposes her to distractions, with notifications from work and studies appearing throughout the day and social media always being easily accessible. She also notices other people around her turning to their phones when they experience stressful situations, reinforcing this behavior. In Feels, Sofia experiences anxiety and frustration when she realizes that her phone is taking time away from her responsibilities and affecting her concentration. At the same time, she feels justified in using her phone because it provides a temporary break from stress and helps her escape difficult situations. Finally, in Does, Sofia uses her phone several times during study sessions, frequently checks notifications, and opens social media when she encounters something difficult or feels overwhelmed. Overall, the empathy map shows that Sofia's main challenge is not simply excessive phone use, but the connection between stress and her tendency to use her phone as an escape or coping mechanism. Therefore, an effective solution should not rely only on restrictions, but should help her recognize these moments of stress, interrupt the habit of reaching for her phone, and provide healthier alternatives for managing stressful situations.
Kristy is a university student whose relationship with her phone reveals a clear pattern, that she's not driven by restriction but from connection.In Thinks, Kristy knows her phone is nevessary and can't be fully removed from her life, so she's looking for something external to help motivate her. She's noticed that when she's genuinely engaged in an interesting class, she doesn't feel the urge to check her phone, the same goes when she's with her friends. This has led her yo reflect on everything she could accomplish instead of doomscrolling, and wonder whether her friends struggle with the same pull.
In sees, her environment works against her, with her phone always within reach, notifications never stop, and platforms like TikTok and Instagram are engineered to keep her from looking away. She also sees the people around her, friends and classmates, checking their phones constantly while others manage to stay productive without that need. Her own screen time report is a recurring, uncomfortable reminder of just how high her usage really is.
Emotionally, Kristy swings between two extremes. Boredom makes her open her phone almost without thinking, and she often feels overwhelmed by her workload when she senses she has less time to get things done. The excessive use leaves her anxious and unfocused, and she feels guilty once she realizes how much time she's lost scrolling. But when she's truly present with friends, she feels calm and happy, thus being a proof that real connection is her most effective antidote.
Finally, Kristy is already taking action, even if imperfectly. She sets screen time limits but sometimes extends them once she hits the cap. She's deleted a few apps to reduce temptation, and she reaches for her phone especially when bored or alone, or during transitions between classes. Notably, she uses her phone far less during social activities, and she's found that video calls with friends, being motivating each other to finish pending tasks, help her stay on track.
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BQ1: What percentage of active users have devices without an accelerometer, and which device models and operating systems are affected?
- Justification: This is related to device-specific statistics and helps the development team understand the compatibility and availability of the Check Counter feature across the user base.
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BQ2: Which device models experience the highest battery consumption while running BreakLoop?
- Justification: The information helps the development team detect device-specific battery consumption patterns and prioritize optimizations.
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BQ3: How much does users' weekly screen time decrease after using the app's interventions?
- Justification: This directly measures whether the app helps users achieve its primary goal of reducing excessive screen time.
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BQ4: How much does Focus Mode help users maintain uninterrupted study or work sessions?
- Justification: This measures the direct benefit of the focus feature by evaluating whether users are able to remain focused for longer periods.
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BQ5: What information about their Pomodoro session completion can users see to track their focus consistency?
- Justification: The app can display completed sessions, incomplete sessions, and completion history to help users understand their consistency when using the Pomodoro feature.
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BQ6: How much screen time does the user avoid after accepting a personalized offline activity recommendation?
- Justification: The answer provides users with direct information about the potential impact of accepted offline activities on their screen-time habits.
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BQ7: Do users who have used Check Counter for more than four weeks show a greater reduction in weekly phone pickups than users who have used it for less than one week?
- Justification: This question helps determine whether the Check Counter feature should be maintained, modified, or further developed by comparing user behavior before and after extended use.
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BQ8: Do users with an active virtual pet complete longer uninterrupted Focus Mode/Pomodoro sessions than users without an active virtual pet?
- Justification: This question evaluates whether the virtual pet contributes to the intended behavior change. The results can help the business decide whether the gamification feature should be maintained or modified.
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BQ9: How does unlock-challenge difficulty affect the rate at which users successfully access flagged applications?
- Justification: This question helps determine the appropriate difficulty level for the Challenge Gate feature and whether its current implementation should be adjusted to better achieve the desired behavior.
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BQ10: How does the use of personalized offline activity recommendations affect the time users spend on flagged applications?
- Justification: This question evaluates the effectiveness of the offline activity recommendation feature in supporting the app's goal of reducing excessive use of distracting applications. The results can help the business determine whether the feature should be maintained, modified, or further developed based on its relationship with users' app usage behavior.
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BQ11: Which categories of suggested offline activities have the highest acceptance rate among users?
- Justification: This question identifies aggregated user preferences that could provide value beyond the direct operation of the app. Privacy-preserving insights about popular activity categories could be relevant to businesses or organizations offering related products or services.
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BQ12: What times and locations are associated with the highest acceptance of different categories of offline activities?
- Justification: Aggregated and privacy-preserving behavioral patterns could provide valuable insights to businesses or organizations offering activities at specific times or locations, creating potential opportunities for partnerships.
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BQ13: Do users who accept offline activity suggestions maintain longer streaks of meeting their screen-time goals than users who do not accept them?
- Justification: This question combines user behavior, feature usage, and behavioral outcomes. It therefore requires information from more than one of the other question types rather than focusing on a single aspect of the application.
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BQ14: Is there a relationship between users' phone-checking frequency, time spent on flagged applications, and their completion of Focus Mode sessions?
- Justification: This question combines multiple types of user interaction and behavioral data, including phone-checking behavior, application usage, and Focus Mode feature usage. Analyzing these variables together can reveal broader patterns that would not be identified by examining each feature or behavior independently.
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I have saved the Pomodoro methodology as my preferred study method, want to be able to select a study session with a specific duration and start it directly from the main screen, so I can structure my study time into focused periods and better manage the time I spend on my tasks.(Select “Study Session” from the app’s main screen, choose the desired Pomodoro duration, and start the session.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I'm preparing to sleep, want to be able to schedule a wind-down mode for a specific hour that reduces screen brightness and minimizes unnecessary stimuli such as social media or games notifications, so I can limit my interaction with my phone and establish a healthier bedtime routine. (Set a desired activation time from the app’s main screen. Shortly before the scheduled time, the app sends a small reminder, and at the configured time, Wind-Down Mode automatically activates by reducing screen brightness and minimizing unnecessary notifications and other stimuli.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I have flagged Instagram as one of my distracting applications, want to be able to complete a short challenge (such as a breathing exercise) before the app unlocks once I reach my daily limit, so I can pause and consciously decide whether I actually want to keep using it instead of continuing automatically. (Reach the daily limit for Instagram, tap "Unlock" on the block screen, complete the challenge shown by the app, and gain temporary access to the application.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I have been consistently meeting my daily screen-time goal, want to see my virtual pet grow and receive a streak reward each day I meet my goal, so I can stay motivated to keep reducing my screen time over the long term. (Open the app's home screen, view the virtual pet's current stage next to the streak counter, and receive a notification whenever a new streak milestone is reached.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I frequently check my phone while studying without always realizing it, want to see how often I pick up or check my phone during the day, so I can become more aware of my phone-checking habits. (After granting the required permissions, BreakLoop uses available device sensor data to estimate phone-checking behavior. Juliana can access the Check Counter from the main screen and view her daily and weekly phone-checking frequency.)
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I, as student, given that I spend long periods using my phone for both productive and leisure purposes, want to view how much time I spend on my selected distracting applications, so I can identify which applications contribute most to unnecessary screen time. (The student opens the usage dashboard from the main screen. BreakLoop displays the time spent on his flagged applications during the selected period, allowing him to compare his usage with his personal goals and previous periods)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I have started a Focus Mode session and added specific contacts to my Priority Contacts list, want to continue receiving calls and messages only from those contacts while all other notifications are silenced, so I can stay focused on my work without missing something urgent. (Start a Focus Mode session from the main screen, select or confirm the Priority Contacts list, and receive a summary of all filtered non-urgent notifications once the session ends.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I have flagged Instagram as a distracting application and enabled the Intent Prompt feature, want to be able to briefly select my reason for opening the app (specific task, checking messages, just browsing) before it opens, so I can become more aware of whether I am using it intentionally or out of habit. (Tap the Instagram icon, view the Intent Prompt overlay, select one of the predefined reasons, and proceed to open the app.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I feel anxious about missing something important on social media, want to be able to write down what I think I might be missing before disconnecting, and later compare it with what actually happened, so I can realize that most of what I fear missing is not as significant as I imagined. (Open the FOMO Journal from the main screen before starting a focus or offline period, write a short note about what I expect to miss, and receive a comparison summary once the period ends showing what actually occurred.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I have enabled Delayed Notifications for my non-urgent applications, want incoming notifications to be grouped and delivered at specific scheduled times instead of appearing immediately, so I can reduce the number of times I am tempted to check my phone throughout the day. (Configure the desired delivery times from the notification settings screen, continue using the phone normally, and receive a single grouped notification summary at each scheduled time instead of individual alerts.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I have reached my daily screen-time limit and want to spend my free time away from my phone, want to receive personalized suggestions for offline activities, so I can find an alternative activity instead of returning to distracting applications. (Reach the daily screen-time limit, open the "Offline Activities" section, and view suggested activities based on my available time, interests, and previous activity choices.)
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I, as a student and user of the BreakLoop app, given that I frequently receive notifications while studying, want notifications from distracting applications to be temporarily delayed during my study sessions, so I can avoid being interrupted and maintain my concentration. (Start a study session, allow BreakLoop to activate Delayed Notifications, and receive the accumulated non-essential notifications once the study session ends.)
| Scenario name | Q1 - Quick Activity Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Usability, Performance |
| App Status and context | The app is open on the activity recommendation screen. The user's interests and preferences are already stored, and the device has an active internet connection. |
| System Reaction | When the user selects “Get an Activity,” the system considers the user's preferences and, when relevant, external conditions such as weather to generate suitable non-technology activities. The recommendation should be displayed within 3 seconds and require no more than 3 user interactions to select and start an activity. |
| Scenario name | Q2 - Offline Activity Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Availability, Reliability |
| App Status and context | The app has a locally stored library of non-technology activities categorized by duration, type, and user preferences. The user requests an activity recommendation while the device has no internet connection. |
| System Reaction | When no internet connection is available, the system should detect the offline state and provide suitable recommendations exclusively from the locally stored activity library, without attempting to retrieve external information such as weather. The system should clearly indicate that the recommendation is offline-based, without displaying an error or preventing the user from receiving a recommendation. |
| Scenario name | Q3 - Challenge Gate Integrity |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Security, Reliability |
| App Status and context | The user has reached the daily limit for a flagged application, and the challenge screen is displayed requiring completion before the app unlocks. |
| System Reaction | If the user force-closes BreakLoop or tries to open the flagged application directly through the device's app switcher to skip the challenge, the system should detect, through OS-level usage monitoring, that the flagged app was opened outside the unlock flow and immediately overlay the challenge again, preventing further use of the flagged app until it is completed. |
| Scenario name | Q4 - Streak Data Sync |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Reliability, Availability |
| App Status and context | The user has an active streak from meeting consecutive daily screen-time goals, and has just met today's goal. |
| System Reaction | If the device loses internet connectivity right after the goal is met and before the update reaches the server, the system should store the streak update locally, display the updated streak to the user immediately regardless of connectivity, and automatically sync it once the connection is restored, without losing the day's progress or breaking the streak. |
| Scenario name | Q5 - Grayscale Mode Configuration Change |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Usability, Reliability, GUI Responsiveness |
| App status and context | BreakLoop has an active grayscale intervention configured to reduce visual stimulation when the user reaches a screen-time limit or activates a scheduled focus period. The user is currently using the device with BreakLoop's grayscale mode enabled. |
| Changes in the context | The user manually changes the grayscale setting from the device's accessibility or display settings while BreakLoop's grayscale intervention is still active. |
| System reaction | BreakLoop should detect that the device's display configuration has changed and update the intervention status without causing conflicts with the device settings. The app should clearly reflect the current grayscale status and allow the user to continue using other BreakLoop features without interruption. |
| Scenario name | Q6 - Permission Revocation During Usage Tracking |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Resilience, Availability, Usability |
| App status and context | BreakLoop is actively monitoring the user's screen time and usage of flagged applications using the permissions previously granted by the user. The app is also generating personalized insights based on this information. |
| Changes in the context | The user revokes the required usage-access permission from the device settings while BreakLoop is running or while the app is in the background. |
| System reaction | BreakLoop should detect that the required permission is no longer available and stop attempting to collect unavailable usage data. The app should continue providing features that do not depend on this permission and clearly inform the user which functionality is affected, providing a direct option to restore the permission if the user chooses to do so. |
| Scenario name | Q7 - Interoperability with OS Notification Settings |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Interoperability, Usability |
| App Status and context | The user has configured Delayed Notifications within BreakLoop to group non-urgent alerts, while the device's own operating system also manages notification permissions and Do Not Disturb settings independently. |
| System Reaction | The system should correctly detect and respect OS-level notification settings (e.g., Do Not Disturb, per-app permissions) without conflicting with them, ensure that grouped notifications are still delivered according to BreakLoop's schedule when the OS allows it, and clearly inform the user if an OS-level restriction is preventing a scheduled notification from being delivered. |
| Scenario name | Q8 - Recommendation Accuracy Under Limited Data |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Reliability, Usability |
| App Status and context | A new user has just created their profile and selected their interests, but has not yet generated enough usage history for the recommendation system to have behavioral data to rely on. |
| System Reaction | The system should detect the lack of historical data and fall back to generating offline activity recommendations based solely on the user's stated interests and general context (time of day, duration available), rather than failing, returning empty results, or requiring a minimum data threshold before the feature becomes usable. |
| Scenario name | Q9 - User Data Privacy |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Security, Privacy |
| App Status and context | BreakLoop has collected the user's screen-time data, flagged applications, activity preferences, and behavioral information for personalization. The user is using the app normally and has not explicitly requested to share this information with external services. |
| System Reaction | BreakLoop should store and process personal usage data securely and should not expose the user's screen-time, application usage, or behavioral information to other users or unauthorized services. Any data transmitted to external servers should use secure communication and only contain information necessary for the corresponding feature. |
| Scenario name | Q10 - Usage Tracking Performance |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Performance, Efficiency |
| App Status and context | BreakLoop is running in the background and continuously monitoring the user's screen time and usage of flagged applications. The user is actively using the device for other applications. |
| System Reaction | BreakLoop should collect and process usage information without noticeably affecting the performance of the device or the applications being used. Usage monitoring should have minimal impact on CPU, memory, battery consumption, and application responsiveness while still maintaining sufficiently accurate usage data. |
| Scenario name | Q11 - Recovery After Unexpected Shutdown |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Reliability, Recoverability |
| App Status and context | The user is in the middle of a BreakLoop feature such as a Study Session, Challenge Gate, or Wind-Down Mode, and the device unexpectedly shuts down or BreakLoop is terminated by the operating system. |
| System Reaction | When BreakLoop is launched again, the system should recover the relevant state from before the interruption whenever possible. The system should preserve information such as completed study time, daily screen-time progress, and streak progress, and should not incorrectly reset or duplicate the user's progress. |
| Scenario name | Q12 - Increased Number of Users |
|---|---|
| Quality attributes | Scalability, Performance, Availability |
| App Status and context | A large number of BreakLoop users simultaneously access the application, particularly during common study periods or at the beginning of a new day when daily usage information and streaks are updated. |
| System Reaction | The system should continue providing core features such as usage tracking, activity recommendations, streak updates, and synchronization without significant degradation in response time or availability. Increased simultaneous usage should not cause data loss, incorrect streak information, or failures when synchronizing user data. |