ProTaskinator: A Persuasive Mobile Application for Reducing Procrastination in University Students

Smartphones are an inevitable part of our lives. The flashing screen of smartphones serves as a perfect distraction medium, one that facilitates procrastination. With access to multitude of apps, university students often slack in day-to-day activities which in turn affects their personal and professional lives. Mobile health apps that help people reduce procrastination exist, but their efficacy with respect to motivating users to achieve their goals is unknown and they often do not involve the target users in their design. To address this gap, we designed ProTaskinator, a persuasive mobile application to help university students reduce procrastination. We used a user-centered design approach which involves iteratively designing low-fidelity prototype, evaluation, and a high-fidelity prototype implementing various evidence-based persuasive strategies. Forty-four (44) university students evaluated the usability of ProTaskinator. Survey and semi- structured interviews were conducted to assess participants' perceived persuasiveness of the app and implemented strategies. Our results revealed that personalization and self-monitoring were the most effective persuasive strategies, and all the implemented strategies were found to be strongly persuasive. Overall, about 80% (N = 35) of our participants found the app persuasive, easy-to-use, and relevant for reducing procrastination. We also conducted a thematic analysis of participants' qualitative feedback to uncover more insights. The findings from our evaluation show the potential of ProTaskinator in helping university students regulate the often-overlooked challenge of procrastination.