Study Cafe

Project Overview

Study Café is a gamified study app designed to help college students overcome common study challenges like procrastination, lack of focus, and poor time management. Inspired by real student behaviors and struggles, the app combines social motivation with structured study practices to help users stay productive, manage deadlines, and develop better academic habits over time.

Problem

College students often struggle to stay focused and motivated while studying due to distractions, a lack of structure, and limited access to social accountability. Despite a variety of tools on the market, none fully address these issues in a cohesive, motivating way. Study Café was designed to fill this gap by offering a more immersive and socially driven study experience.

Solution

We created a gamified study app aimed at increasing users' motivation by finding synchronous virtual companions to study with. This way, college students can build their time management skills and increase productivity while studying.

Research Insights

Through interviews and affinity diagramming, we learned that students often prefer quiet study environments but enjoy ambient noise, like that of a café. Motivation typically came from small rewards and social accountability, yet many found existing tools too rigid, overwhelming, or lacking structure. Most students expressed a need for manageable goals, easy setup, and tools that minimize distractions without sacrificing flexibility. These insights laid the foundation for a design that prioritizes comfort, focus, and encouragement.

Competitive Analysis

We conducted a competitive audit of popular study tools to evaluate how well they addressed students’ needs related to structure, motivation, and focus. The following table summarizes key takeaways:

From this analysis, we saw an opportunity to design a tool that blends structure, social accountability, and intrinsic motivation—wrapped in a more immersive and gamified experience. Below is a more detailed SWOT analysis:

Ideation & Concept Development

Our design process began with the question: “How might we help college students be more motivated, focused, and mindful of their time while studying?” Our team did a wall walk for our first brainstorming session to encourage rapid ideation, which led us to explore the concept of a virtual study café—a cozy, low-pressure environment that encourages productivity through subtle structure and social presence.

We identified three core interaction opportunities to support this vision: the ability to find a study buddy for synchronous focus sessions, a simple and satisfying task tracking system, and a gamified interface that encourages progress through calming visuals and small rewards. Using Miro and Figma, we translated these ideas into early user flows, storyboards, and low-fidelity wireframes. These visual explorations helped us refine key moments such as starting a session, checking off tasks, and maintaining motivation through streaks and ambient feedback.

Throughout ideation, we prioritized and finalized on a clear set of design goals: make it easy to start studying, foster social accountability through presence, not pressure, and deliver just enough structure to keep users engaged without overwhelming them.

Design

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Before diving into visual styling, we created low-fidelity wireframes in Figma to outline the core functionality and flow of Study Café. These early prototypes focused on helping users quickly join a study session, connect with a study buddy, and track their tasks in a lightweight, focused environment. A lot of our designs were inspired by Pokémon Sleep, a popular app that helps people track their sleep better by gamifying the process. We tested several versions of the study timer interface, task list behavior, and matchmaking logic to find the smoothest user journey with minimal distractions. Eventually, these were the frames we believed best represented our vision for this app.

Once the low-fidelity structure was validated, we moved into refining the visual system.

High Fidelity Wireframes

The final visual design of Study Café combines warmth and comfort through a cozy and playful interface. We used soft pink pastels and greens on the more muted side to simulate the same aesthetic and calming atmosphere as Animal Crossing. We also wanted to include rounded corners, light shadows, and playful microinteractions to give the app personality while still supporting productivity. With the visual system now in place, we focused on refining the key features and user flows that would bring the Study Café experience to life.

Home & Quick Start

After players log in or create an account and go through the tutorial, they will land in a cozy, café-themed dashboard with a friendly character ready to greet them. From here, they can quickly jump into a study session, view tasks, or check their progress streaks.

Avatar Customization

Avatars provide a personal touch to the experience! Users can design their avatars and decide if they want them in regular mode or chibi mode. These avatars will be seen when studying.

Creating a Study Session

If users wish to study, they can either join or create a study session. When users create a study session, they can set the amount of time they wish to study for.

In addition, users are able to invite their friends to join the study session. When viewing the list of friends, the are color icons that indicate if a player is online and available for a study session: green means they are online and available, yellow means they are already in a study session, and gray means offline.

Study, Learn, & Capture

During the study session, users will not be able to go on other apps unless they take a break, leave, or end the study session. When a study session ends, users can view the overall stats for that study session. Finally, as a fun way to end the session, players can take a photo with their avatars to capture the moment and share it with their friends.

Results & Takeaways

Designing Study Café gave usa chance to dig deep into the daily frustrations students face when trying to stay focused and productive. By combining real user insights with playful but purposeful interaction design, the app creates a space that feels motivating, calm, and intentional.

Even in early prototype testing, users responded positively to the simplicity and warmth of the experience. They appreciated having a low-pressure way to stay accountable, and many were especially drawn to the idea of being matched with a silent study buddy. Features like the progress tracker and ambient themes were also well-received, with users saying they made the app feel “cozy” and “satisfying to use.”

This project taught me a lot about designing for motivation, especially how small behavioral nudges like streaks, social presence, and low-effort onboarding can make a big difference in whether users return. It also reinforced the importance of keeping things simple: the more lightweight and intuitive the flow, the easier it is to form a habit around it.

Next Steps

If given more time, we would love to conduct deeper usability testing with a broader range of students to refine the flow and explore more ways to personalize the experience. Features like guided reflection prompts, shopping page, or group leaderboard modes could further boost motivation while maintaining the calm, focused tone that defines Study Café.

There is also potential to explore integrations with existing academic platforms or to allow students to share study goals with close friends for added support. These future iterations would help grow Study Café into a sustainable, community-powered study companion.