Procrastin...
This visualization presents three common types of procrastinators; perfectionist, worrier and dreamer. Their characteristics, thoughts and emotions and mental model work cycles are shown. Data was collected through literary research and research sessions with three university students.
Procrastination Timeline
This visualization presents the ideal path to complete a project (yellow arrows) and the various pitfalls that are indicative of procrastination behaviors. The information is organized along a time axis on the bottom and an 'abstract to concrete' axis on the right. Through research, we found that procrastinators either stay with abstract theoretical thoughts for too long or get overwhelmed by tiny details.
Process
We began this research project with a survey of readings on procrastination. We learned of various underlying causes and types of procrastination. This helped us to construct a generative research protocol. We asked four participants to help us. Only three showed up. The fourth participant canceled at 4am the morning before his interview citing lack of sleep and time. He said he would get back to us but never did. We suspect that he suffered from the time-challenged variety of procrastination.
First, we asked participants to draw their experience in starting and completing a project. Next, we asked them to visualize their mental model of procrastination. Last, we interviewed them about their habits and view of procrastination.After gathering the collected data, we found themes within each participant. We used Post-It Notes to map their work models.Each team member sketched a conceptual model that accounted for all of the important aspects of procrastination habits that we found. We simplified and combined these sketches to create two models. The first defines the worldview of each participant we spoke with. The second outlines an ideal workflow juxtaposed with procrastination pitfalls.
Meeting with a participant.
Drawing of the flow of a project. Note the focus on the harsh judgement given by teachers and fighting with group members.
Drawings of the mental model of procrastination.
Affinity diagramming collected data.
Sketches of possible representations of data.
Screenshot of work in progress.