Flipd
A productivity app redesign focused on building better focus habits.
Team: Qingyuan Qiao, Xuanzi Cao, Siqing Zhong
Year:
2025
Timeframe:
10 Weeks
Role:
Design Manager
Tools:
Figma
Category:
Mobile
Overview
Making focus more intuitive, motivating, and rewarding.
Flipd helps users stay focused through timed sessions, goals, progress tracking, and a community-driven experience. This project explored how its existing features could better support users throughout their focus journey.
Problem
People open a focus app when focusing is already hard.
That makes every extra decision more costly. In Flipd, unclear goals, unlabeled icons and a Library with no clear purpose made people think about the app before they could think about their work.
Research
Why focusing in Flipd took extra effort.
I tested the existing app, interviewed students and compared other focus apps. I also used behavioral principles from Susan Weinschenk's 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People to look beyond usability at motivation and habits.
Goals had no context.
People weren't sure where to set a goal or how it connected to a focus session.
Finishing didn't feel like progress.
When a session ended, it wasn't clear what it added up to or why it mattered.
"A productivity app shouldn't make you work harder to start working."
- Design principle
Solution
Ask less before, during and after focus.
I organized the redesign around one loop: set a goal, focus, see progress, repeat. Each change makes one step of that loop easier.
Goals that give time meaning
Goal setting is easier to find, and the goal stays visible during the session.
Set the goal first
The goal is now easy to find and stays visible while you focus.
Always know if it's focus or break
I redesigned Flipd's existing Pomodoro so focus and break look clearly different, with the time left and what's next always visible.
Progress that means something
The end of a session shows what you completed and how it adds to your progress. Statistics show how your focus is changing over time.
A Library with a clear job
I reorganized the Library, ambient content and social features so each one supports focus and stays secondary to the timer.
Impact
Every change came from a testing or research finding, and none of them added a new feature. Goals, timers, progress and supporting content now work as one connected loop instead of separate screens.
5 → 2
Taps to start a session
1 → 5 of 6
Understood the Library on first look
12s
less to start a focus session
iOS app · goals · timer · pomodoro · statistics · library
