Personal development has become a mainstream cultural priority, yet many struggle to maintain consistency with their self-improvement goals. While most productivity tools organize tasks effectively, they fail to address the emotional & psychological barriers that typically derail progress. Many busy adults lose momentum when juggling life's demands with personal development & will often shelve their goals to avoid burnout, caught between aspirational ambitions & practical limitations.
Gol solves this problem by providing motivational support to users as they plan big goals so they can actually achieve them without the stress.
Designer
5 weeks
UI / UX
Research
Prototyping
01 - Understanding real people's struggles
To gain a deeper understanding of this problem space, I started by remotely interviewing 4 millennial-aged people working full-time to learn how they approached learning new skills & setting goals. I explored how these pursuits fit into their schedules, what obstacles they face, & what might help them stay motivated to achieve their goals.
These conversations revealed something crucial: the problem wasn't about finding the right goals or resources—participants already had those figured out.
02 - The real problem: it's not about planning, it's about persisting
After sorting through 150+ data points from these interview sessions, a clear pattern emerged. My participants already had defined learning goals & resources but struggled to find time for them, especially after draining workdays.
I found participants tend to…
The problem-
03 - Who is this for?
To understand this problem deeply, I created a persona of someone directly experiencing these challenges.
Through interviews I learned my participants had some task management systems in place but still felt overwhelmed by big goals amid daily responsibilities. A product addressing goal-planning & the associated mental/emotional toll would provide a simple yet powerful solution to this common problem.
Annie represents the busy professional who has big dreams but struggles to balance them with an already full life. She's not lacking in ambition or planning skills: she's lacking the right kind of support to stay consistent when things get tough.
04 - Learning from the competition: what's missing in today's tools?
To familiarize myself with the current offering in the task-management space. I conducted a competitive analysis of 3 products- Marvin, TickTick, & Todoist. Key strengths & areas of improvement stood out among each.
What became clear was that existing tools excel at organization but fall short on the human side of goal achievement. They treat goals like tasks to be completed rather than journeys that require ongoing support & encouragement.
05 - Building the foundation: psychology meets practicality
In addition to finding ways to support the emotional & mental roadblocks that could chip away at one's motivation, I also wanted to give users a way to plan & organize their goals that made achieving goals feel feasible & less overwhelming. After reading up on psychology-based methodology around goal-setting, I decided to pursue a framework of breaking goals into smaller steps to encourage consistent action. Beyond the structural approach, I also planned to provide users with a library of motivational exercises to support their journey when willpower alone wasn't enough.
The evolution of my sitemap tells an important story: I initially planned three navigational levels but after referencing competitor patterns & considering my busy, overwhelmed target users, I switched to a flat navigation providing straightforward access to all pages.
This change reflected a key insight: when people are already feeling overwhelmed, the last thing they need is a complex interface adding to their cognitive load.
06 - From concept to creation: sketching the experience
During the sketching phase, I focused on pages users would see when creating a new goal & browsing the Motivation media library.
These early sketches helped me work through the core user journey of feeling overwhelmed by a big goal to feeling confident about taking the next small step.
07 - Crafting the visual identity: calm in the chaos
I developed a custom component, color, & typography system to streamline the design process & maintain visual consistency throughout the experience. The interface draws inspiration from modernist & mid-century design principles, creating a clean, sophisticated aesthetic.
The color palette centers on neutral tones, punctuated by carefully chosen orange & blue accents that bring warmth & approachability to the interface. I prioritized testing the accessibility contrast ratio of the colors & noted results on each swatch in the UI kit.
Thoughtful typography choices prioritize readability & accessibility standards. Every design decision was made with the goal of creating a sense of mental clarity & breathing room for users.
08 - The logo: visualizing the journey
The Gol logo visualizes goal achievement through nested elements: the outer diamond represents the overall goal, the inner ring symbolizes milestones, & the center dot represents individual tasks. The pointed top corner reflects the user's upward progress as they complete each level of their journey.
Creating this logo was about encapsulating the entire philosophy of the app in a single symbol. Goals aren't just destinations; they're layered journeys made up of meaningful steps.



Neutral 900
#353433

Neutral 500
#B5B1B1

Neutral 200
#F7F4F4

Orange 700
#A1280D

Orange 500
#F86341

Orange 300
#FFCBC0

Blue 800
#194E7D

Blue 600
#2580CF

Blue 300
#DEEDFA

Larger letters indicate compliance in larger text; smaller letters indicate compliance in normal text
09 - Bringing it to life: from wireframes to working designs
With solid visual guidelines, I worked to bring wireframes to life. Initial iterations felt messy & unpolished, however through experimentation I landed on a design that had personality without feeling cluttered.
10 - Testing: does this actually work?
To validate design decisions up to this point, I conducted remote usability testing with 5 participants. The objectives were to:
Understand which specific elements make it easy vs difficult for the user to enter & edit a goal
Determine if users understand current terminology of Goals/Milestones/Tasks & the intended hierarchical relationship between them
Validate whether or not the current “Add a Goal” feature flow fits into users’ mental models of other task management products
The flow being tested:

12 - Goals without the overwhelm
The final responsive MVP offers a simple yet effective space to plan & track goals, with supportive content accessible when users' resolve wavers. Beyond basic goal tracking, the app includes a curated library of motivational exercises—from quick mindfulness prompts to goal visualization techniques—that users can access whenever they need an emotional boost or mental reset during their journey. Users can go as broad or granular as they like when logging their goals, while (hypothetical) premium features like Dashboard, Productivity stats, & Reminders support business goals without hiding key functionality behind a paywall.
13 - Hindsight is 20/20
Creating Gol taught me that designing for behavior change requires understanding not just what people want to accomplish, but why they struggle to get there in the first place. And as with any self-directed project, it never feels truly finished. However, looking back there are a few things I would have done differently throughout the process:
1) Early testing: I'd conduct user testing in earlier stages of the process to address larger revisions prior to applying visual design. Getting feedback on core concepts before investing in visual polish could have saved time and led to better solutions.
2) Prototype precision: I'd pay attention to even the smallest details in testing prototypes, as anything visible to participants can influence results.
3) Feature refinement: The "custom goal color" options would be more purposeful if they were associated with user-dictated "Tags" shown on the sidebar menu (things like Work, Personal, Health, etc), instead of being purely a visual customization tool. I'd also give users an option to not assign a color to a goal.
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