The problem
I conducted hallway interviews with college students (5–7 people). All participants confirmed that they use Telegram or WhatsApp chats for their studies, but often do not see messages, do not understand who is doing what, and cannot quickly navigate deadlines and schedules.
Conclusion: students are afraid of unnecessary communication and avoid taking initiative if there is no simple and understandable tool. We need a solution that works instead of communication, not through it.
The goal is to create a native, simple application for collaborative tracking of academic affairs so that students know what classes they have and when, don't miss any changes, and can share notes without chatting.
Project limitations: we have one Swift developer (a part-time student), no full-fledged backend (everything is on Firebase), almost no budget, and an extremely short deadline — we need to finish before the end of the summer break.
Working
I worked according to the classic product design flow: first, I focused on the problem, target audience, and tasks. Then I developed the product architecture, wireframes, assembled the UI kit, and thought through the UX solutions. After that, we started building the MVP and preparing for the public beta and release.
Key decisions
The schedule screen allows you to customize subjects: students choose their own icons, colors, and abbreviations. We use a period system, which is more familiar to American students. All changes are instantly synchronized with the group.
Notes support formatting, are designed for large texts, and allow you to conveniently write long summaries. A stacking system has been added for organization — you can quickly tidy up and find your way around.
Groups work without chats — all updates are made through the schedule and notes. Join via a link, synchronize in real time.
MVP and prioritization
The MVP included groups, schedules, notes, and notifications about changes. We postponed widgets, gamification (a scoreboard showing each student's contribution), and paid features. Everything included in the MVP is the product foundation without which the idea cannot be validated.
pavel@dovnar.ru