Context & Challenges

Students and early-career professionals struggle to balance structured academic deadlines with personal learning goals. Existing tools like Google Calendar or Notion track deadlines but don’t actively help users build adaptive study plans.

The challenge: how to help students transform diverse resources into actionable, flexible schedules without increasing stress.

My Role & Responsibilities

I was brought in to structure Tidalic research and provide direction for an upcoming conference presentation. My contributions included:

• Synthesizing 10 past interviews into structured insights and personas.
• Designing and conducting 4 new interviews with UK students.
• Defining a problem statement and How Might We questions.
• Delivering a research readout to guide both product roadmap and conference talk.
• Collaborate on report creation to present at EduTech Singapore conference

Research & Insights

Through 15 qualitative interviews, four distinct planning archetypes emerged:

• Structured Strategist → thrives on detailed plans but struggles when disrupted.
• Overloaded Juggler → juggles multiple roles, burns out under stress.
• Agile Improviser → crams last-minute, avoids structured tools.
• Early-Chunk Planner → starts early, breaks work into chunks.

Across archetypes, key pain points were consistent: unpredictable exam schedules, fragmented tool use, and stress from competing priorities.

Design opportunities

Research was translated into opportunities framed as How Might We (HMW) questions:

• HMW help students adapt plans quickly when exam dates shift?
• HMW create a clear overview balancing fixed and flexible time?
• HMW design a load-balancing system that prevents burnout?