HSE Task Tracker: one place for assignments, deadlines, and study planning
Designing a task-management experience inside HSE App that brings assignments, deadlines, course materials, progress, and personal tasks into one place.
Project overview
HSE App is HSE University's mobile app for students and instructors. It already includes core academic services such as schedules, search, profiles, and other tools supporting the educational experience.
For this project, I designed a new Task Tracker section that gives students one place to see their current assignments and all related information.
Context
Students receive assignments through multiple channels: some appear in academic services, others arrive in messages from instructors, and more may be shared through files, chats, notes, or informal agreements. Students have to piece together what they need to do, when it is due, where the materials are, and where to submit the finished work.
This creates unnecessary cognitive load. In addition to completing an assignment, students must constantly check whether they have missed a deadline, whether the requirements have changed, or whether anything new has been added.
The challenge was therefore to design more than a to-do list. The product needed to be an academic planning tool embedded in the university experience.
What I did
- Analyzed how students currently plan academic work;
- Surveyed the target audience to understand their habits and challenges;
- Interviewed students to explore their pain points, workflows, and expectations;
- Synthesized key insights and user scenarios;
- Mapped the user flow for Task Tracker and different task types;
- Created wireframes for the key screens and validated the scenario structure;
- Designed the final screens.
Problem
1. Assignments were scattered across channels
Students had to collect assignment details from multiple sources. This made it easy to lose track of an assignment, forget where to submit it, or struggle to find the right file when it was time to begin.
Planning became a separate manual process rather than a natural part of the academic workflow.
2. Priorities and deadlines were hard to assess
Even when students recorded their tasks, it was not always clear what mattered most: which deadline was closest, which assignment contributed more to the final grade, which course already had work in progress, and where they still needed to begin.
Standard to-do lists lacked academic context such as the course, instructor, attachments, subtasks, grade weighting, and due date.
3. Assignment updates were easy to miss
Instructors may revise assignment requirements, move due dates, or add course materials. When the update appears in one service and the task is recorded in another, students may not notice the change in time.
This creates confusion and increases the risk of submitting late or completing the work against outdated requirements.
Research
Survey
I began with a survey of 76 participants.
The findings showed that students did not have a single, consistent planning method. Some used notes, some kept everything in their heads, and dedicated planning apps were not universally adopted—likely because they did not always fit the academic context.
Interviews
After the survey, I interviewed 12 respondents, including HSE students.
I focused on how students learned about assignments, where they recorded deadlines, how they handled larger tasks, how they tracked updates, and what problems they encountered with standard task-management tools.
Key observations:
- Assignments and course materials often lived in different places;
- after completing an assignment, students could forget where to submit it;
- standard task trackers often felt too complex;
- editing tasks could be cumbersome;
- students lacked a visual way to distribute assignments over time;
- updates from instructors were easy to miss.
Key insight
Students did not need another to-do list. They needed one place to understand their entire academic workload: which assignments were due, when the deadlines were, where the materials lived, and what they had already completed.
The solution therefore needed to live inside HSE App. Students would no longer have to switch between services and piece information together because everything they needed would be available in a familiar product.
Design
User stories
- As an HSE student, I want to keep all my assignments in one place, so I do not miss anything.
- As an HSE student, I want to add personal tasks, so I can keep track of work I create for myself.
- As an HSE student, I want to invite other students to a personal task, so we can manage collaborative work more easily.
- As an HSE student, I want to set reminders for deadlines and tasks, so I do not miss anything when I am not using the app.
- As an HSE student, I want to see assignment due dates, so I can plan enough time to complete the work.
- As an HSE student, I want to attach files to personal tasks, so I can keep everything I need in one place.
- As an HSE student, I want to break a task into subtasks and track my progress, so I can manage larger tasks and pick up where I left off.
- As an HSE student, I want to see how each assignment contributes to my course grade, so I can prioritize the work that has a greater impact on my final grade.
User flow
I mapped the complete user flow to understand the student's end-to-end experience with Task Tracker across different scenarios, from first viewing assignments to completing and managing them over time.
Wireframes
Based on the user flow, I created wireframes for the key screens. They helped define the interface structure, align on the set of screens, and validate the scenario logic before developing the final design.
Solution
Task Tracker onboarding
A short onboarding flow introduces the new section and quickly explains the value of Task Tracker the first time a student opens it.
Task Tracker
Task Tracker brings assignments and personal tasks together in one place. Categories separate different types of work, making it easier to navigate and reach the right tasks quickly.
The section also includes a calendar strip for the upcoming week and a task list for the selected day. Each card shows the title, due date, progress, and supporting details, helping students see what to prioritize and which deadlines are approaching.
Task card
Task cards needed to be informative without feeling overloaded, so they surface only the essential details: course, due date, title, short description, progress, and status.
Shared tasks also show participants, while assignments display their contribution to the final grade. This helps students quickly assess each task's priority and current status.
Assignment details
Assignment details open in an overlay above the current section. Students can quickly review the requirements, find the right course materials, or check the due date without losing context or navigating through multiple screens.
The view brings together everything needed to complete the work: the assignment description, course materials, due date, and other important details. Students no longer have to remember where a file was shared or which service contains an instructor's comment because everything is available in one place.
Personal task details
Personal task details use the same overlay pattern, preserving a consistent interaction model and making it easy to return to the task list.
The view helps students organize personal commitments, academic activities, and collaborative project work. They can keep all relevant information together, track progress, add participants, and edit the task when needed.
Task creation
Task creation uses a bottom sheet to make the flow feel lightweight. Students remain in the context of the list and can add a task quickly without navigating to a separate screen.
Students can add a title, description, due date, subtasks, reminders, attachments, and participants.
Editing follows the same pattern, keeping the experience simple and predictable.
Calendar and filters
A calendar helps students navigate their work and assess workload by day, week, or month.
Filters help them focus on the tasks that matter and move from the overall workload to the most relevant set of items.
Home-screen widget
A home-screen widget surfaces current tasks without requiring students to open the app. It provides a quick way to track upcoming deadlines and important assignments throughout the day.
Outcome
The project delivered a new Task Tracker section for HSE App: an academic task-management experience that keeps assignments, deadlines, course materials, and reminders in one place.
The core value of the solution is bringing academic work into a familiar context. Assignments are no longer isolated items in a to-do list, but a clear part of the academic workflow that makes work easier to plan without losing important details.