A water intake tracker redesigned around visual feedback and goal-driven UX, so logging water becomes something people stick with instead of abandoning after week one.
Year:
2024
Tools:
Figma
70–80%
Task completion rate, no assistance needed
8-10 Users
6 weeks
Solo, end-to-end design ownership
Problem
The original app technically worked. Users could log water intake and see a number change. But a number changing isn’t the same as a habit forming. The interface was cluttered, navigation was unintuitive, and progress was buried in raw figures instead of something a person could glance at and immediately understand.
Most habit-tracking apps fail the same way: they treat tracking as the whole product, when tracking is only the first half. The other half is making someone want to come back tomorrow.
Content
Progress had to be visible at a glance. Numeric-only feedback asks users to do mental math just to know if they’re on track.
Habit formation needed a feedback loop, not just a log. A tracker that only records data gives nothing back.
Solo scope, real constraints. Research and validation had to work within what a single designer could realistically run in six weeks.
Terminology had to hold up under casual reading. Clinical language quietly increases cognitive load before a screen is even opened.
The original app was solving “how do we record water intake,” when the real question was “how do we make someone want to record it again tomorrow.” Once the goal shifted from accurate logging to visible momentum, water bottle indicators, streaks, and clear daily goals stopped being decoration and became the actual mechanism the redesign depended on.
Solution
Redesigned the app around a simplified four-section structure: Home, Goals, History, Profile, built on a soft blue colour palette and a card-based layout. The centrepiece is a real-time visual water bottle indicator that fills as the user logs intake, replacing numeric-only progress display. Streaks and goal-setting were layered in as a lightweight feedback loop.
My Role
→ Sole UI/UX Designer, self-initiated university project
→ Owned the full process end to end: research, wireframing, visual design, prototyping, and usability testing
→ Conducted informal interviews with 8–10 participants and ran prototype testing with 6–8 users
→ Designed all wireframes, the interactive prototype, and final high-fidelity UI in Figma
Impact
70–80% of users completed core tasks, logging intake and checking progress, without assistance.
Faster task completion was observed against the original app’s flow in side-by-side prototype testing.
Higher perceived usefulness was reported once goal-setting was introduced, based on post-test interviews.
Key Decisions
Replacing the number with a filling bottle graphic meant users could check progress with a glance instead of a calculation. In testing, this was consistently the first thing users mentioned liking.
Reducing the app to Home, Goals, History, and Profile meant every screen had an obvious reason to exist. Anything that didn’t directly support logging, tracking, or checking progress was cut.
Streaks and goal-setting were treated as core to the brief, not optional extras, because a tracker without momentum is just a form.
Deep Dive
Context
The brief was self-directed: take an existing, functional but underwhelming hydration tracker and rebuild it around habit formation rather than data entry. The original app suffered from a common pattern in early-stage health apps: an outdated interface, weak visual hierarchy, and no mechanism for sustained engagement beyond the act of opening the app and tapping a button.
Problem Statement
“Redesign a water intake tracking app to improve usability and habit formation, replacing numeric tracking with visual, goal-driven feedback that keeps users engaged beyond day one.”
No Motivation to Return
Logging water felt like a chore with no payoff, so usage dropped off quickly after initial installs.
Progress Was Invisible
Numbers required interpretation. Users couldn’t tell at a glance whether they were ahead, behind, or on track.
No Habit Mechanic
Nothing in the original app rewarded consistency. A single missed day felt the same as a ten-day streak.
Research
Phase 01 — User Interviews
Ran informal interviews with 8–10 students and working professionals. The interviews surfaced low motivation, poor progress visibility, no habit-building mechanic, and confusing navigation.
Phase 02 — Competitor Analysis
Reviewed habit and health apps. Visual indicators, lightweight gamification, and minimal card-based UI consistently reduced clutter and increased perceived value.
Phase 03 — Synthesis
The direction became clear: build a strong visual progress metaphor, simplify the core flow, and add a lightweight feedback loop instead of rebuilding every feature.
Design Pillars
Visual Over Numeric
Progress should be readable in under a second.
Four Sections, No More
Home, Goals, History, and Profile cover the full task set.
Momentum Is the Feature
Streaks and goals turn tracking into a habit-forming loop.
Clarity Over Density
Consistent iconography and spacing support quick interaction.
Features
Simplified Four-Tab Navigation — Home, Goals, History, and Profile reduced the original’s sprawling structure to the minimum needed for daily use.
Goal Setting Flow — A lightweight flow for setting and adjusting daily intake targets, identified in testing as a strong driver of perceived usefulness.
Streak-Based Engagement — Lightweight gamification rewards consistency and gives users a reason to return the next day.
Small sample sizes still surface real problems. Eight to ten interviews and six to eight usability testers is a modest sample by any standard, but it was enough to consistently surface the same four pain points and validate the same fixes. The lesson wasn't that more research wouldn't have helped, it's that even a tightly scoped solo project benefits more from talking to a handful of real users early than from polishing screens in isolation.
Visual feedback did more work than any single feature. Of everything shipped, the water bottle indicator had the most outsized impact on how users described the app afterward. It's a reminder that in habit-formation products, the feedback mechanism often matters more than the breadth of features sitting around it.
What I'd test next. The redesign was validated through prototype-based usability testing, not live usage data. The open question is whether the streak mechanic actually sustains engagement past the first two weeks, the point where most habit apps lose users, or whether it only improves the first-session impression. That's the test I'd prioritise if this moved beyond prototype.
