Introduction
Meet SARAH
27, Marketing Professional​
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Sarah wants to stay organized at work, track habits like her exercise and meditation, and reflect on personal growth through mood tracking and journaling
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She's overwhelmed by cluttered apps because she prefers simple layouts and intuitive interfaces without complicated tracking systems.
I want something simple that helps me focus on what matters without feeling overwhelmed by too many options.
Meet JAKE
21, College student​
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Jake would like to manage his assignments, track his study habits, and reduce stress through gratitude journaling.
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He wants a single place to track his internship applications.​
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He wants all these features in one app as currently he uses multiple platforms, and it's extremely stressful to keep switching between tools.
Having everything in one place would make my life so much easier, especially during finals.
In today’s fast-paced world, managing tasks, tracking habits, and reflecting on personal growth are critical for maintaining productivity and mental well-being. Traditional paper-based bullet journals have gained immense popularity for their simplicity, creativity, and flexibility. However, they come with limitations such as lack of portability, the inability to integrate with digital calendars, and the effort required to manually update and track information.
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The challenge lies in creating a digital alternative that retains the essence of traditional bullet journaling while addressing these limitations. Many existing productivity and journaling apps fail to meet user expectations, either because they are too complex, too narrowly focused, or lack the personalization users seek. This case study explores the design and development of a digital bullet journal app that combines organization, self-improvement, and customization to help users stay on top of their lives.
The users
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Age Group: 18–40 years old.
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Demographics: Students, professionals, and creatives.
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User Goals: Simplify task management, track habits, and reflect on personal growth.
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Ideating an app
Conducting user research helped me learn some essential facts and figures- studies that show writing down goals increases task completion rates by 42%, people who track their habits are nearly 2.5x more likely to stick to them, and that bullet journaling in itself has over 12 million users globally.​
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I concluded that the intersection of bullet journaling and digital integration was an untapped market with immense potential.
Next, I began to learn pain points with existing apps. I used Notion, Todoist, and Daylio, and made a simple personal pro-con list highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each app.​
Notion had a steep learning curve for beginners, and could be rather overwhelming for users seeking simplicity in my experience. Todoist, while excellent and effective for task management and to set reminders, had limited focus on creative journaling and habit tracking. Daylio had extremely narrow focus on mood tracking, without task and journaling features.
The Solution
I wanted my app to include certain key features that I thought would help set it apart from potential competitors.
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Core Features
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Daily Logs: Rapid logging for tasks, events, and notes.
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Monthly Logs: Calendar-based view for events and goals.
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Future Logs: Yearly planning for long-term goals.
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Habit Tracker: Customizable tracker with streaks and charts.
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Mood Tracker: Emoji-based daily mood logging with trends analysis.
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Advanced Features
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Search and Filters: Quickly find tasks, notes, or tags.
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Reminders and Notifications: Push reminders for deadlines and habits.
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Key Differentiators​​
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Combines task management, habit tracking, and journaling into one app.
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Mimics the rapid logging and migration principles of bullet journaling.
Wireframing
The design principles I kept in mind while wireframing the app.
1. Consistency
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Clean, distraction-free interface with a focus on core features.
2. Accessibility​
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Contrasting color options and large text, combined with alternating text formats to ensure highest visibility.
3. Hierarchy
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Trying to mimic the structure of traditional bullet journals through title and text placement.
I wanted users to be able to keep track of their consistency through tracking their habits as well. and implemented a monthly/yearly progress tracker in both pages so they could study their own personal habits more effectively. The most important feature was the variety of jotting points- tasks can be noted down in daily, monthly or as event cards in the future log, categorised differently, and have reminders set for them depending on their type.
Prototyping
I tried to maintain the same clean UI while prototyping the app on Figma, although I imagined giving each page a dotted background similar to a traditional bullet journal to mimic the experience of note taking.
Key criticism
While most of the users I tested the prototype with appreciated the platform's simple interface and easy logging system, there was one key criticism I received.
"Although the app can keep track of your mood and a user can make 'notes' about it, the app promises a space for journalism, which feels lacking."
The Solution
I considered multiple different approaches to the problem, including simply changing the text on the screen from 'Add notes' to 'Journal here,' and other similar approaches. None of them provided a definitive take on journalism, though. How would users view their old notes? How would they write as though it was a diary, when the space provided barely served as an afterthought?
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I redesigned my habits page, moving the mood trend graph and making it smaller, as it felt less essential to highlight over journal space. I added multiple journal screens in the habits page as well as the daily log, each leading to a separate journal page which would store and list all of their entries, containing a collapsible month and year list. I also added a third link to the journal page on the 'More' list to make it easier to find and access.
Edited Mood screen
New Journal screen
Journal in Daily Log
What's next?
Some other feedback I received on my prototype included:
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A desire for a more visually appealing UI, as aesthetic hand-drawn doodles and graphics are a key feature of bullet journaling along with cute spreads that I initially cut out in reservation of how older users would take the app, if it would isolate some of the target demographic.
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Integrating cloud syncing, to enhance cross-device accessibility. A lot of users wished to see a version for their iPad or desktop depending on their preferred mode of task-noting, and considered this a lack in the app.
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Insights on calming and mood-uplifting strategies, depending on observed mood trends, which could be a potential application for integrating AI into the app.​
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I would consider these the next steps to take in BuJo, post which another round of user testing could be conducted for further analysis and insights. For now, I am focussing on coding the app in React to improve my programming skills.
What I learned
My main takeaway from this project was the importance of accessibility in design. Accessibility is about simply more than including larger fonts, or using contrast to ensure visibility and usability for all, although that is important too. Accessibility is essential to creating an intuitive user interface, something that anyone unfamiliar with technology can look at and still grasp the basics of. Creating the journaling screen and receiving feedback from my testers made me aware that not all of them knew to go to more, then click 'Journal', then view the entries and add more. They needed a better option made easily available for them, and adding the box to multiple screens had an immediate effect on the reaction I got from them. It is essential to prioritise important screens in any user interface by providing multiple access points, and making sure they are highlighted through contrast or hierarchy.
