Smata is a collaborative study app that helps students stay focused, connected, and motivated. Study Smata and making learning a shared experience!
Overview
Smata is a social study app designed to make studying feel more motivating, collaborative, and rewarding. Students can track study sessions, stay focused with lockdown tools, share their activity with friends, and engage with a community built around productive habits.
I joined an early-stage startup as a contract designer. An initial interface and brand direction had already been mocked up, but it did not reflect the friendly, playful personality the founders of Smata wanted to have.
Over the next nine months, I redesigned the product UI, visual system, and branding while collaborating closely with the founders, developers, and a character artist. Together, we brought Smata from an early concept into beta and ultimately to a fully launched application.
Background and problem
84%
of 45 studies found a negative relationship between smartphone use and university students' academic performance.
84.7%
of university students in a 2025 study reported spending more than 3 hours per day on social media.
55%
of students in one recent study were classified as having problematic levels of smartphone use.
How can we help students stay focused, build healthier study habits, and make progress feel more motivating and social?
Create a study tool that combines focus tools, study tracking, social accountability, progress sharing, and positive reinforcement to help students spend less time distracted and more time investing in their goals.
01 / THE BRANDING
Smata began with an early set of product mockups and branding. However, the founders felt the direction was too dark, serious, and visually generic for the fun, collaborative, and playful experience they wanted to create. They wanted studying to feel more approachable. I asked them what words and vibes did they want their application to give: Friendly. Playful. Collaborative. Approachable. Colorful
However, I had to keep in mind, the product still needed enough structure and clarity to support practical study tools, social activity, statistics, and focus features without becoming visually overwhelming.
Create a product that makes studying feel fun and social while still maintaining a clean, interactive UI.
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
Smata was highly collaborative. I worked with the founders, developers, and character designer through weekly meetings where we constantly reviewed new features, design progress, technical challenges, and visual directions. Because branding decisions can be subjective, I often brought multiple versions of logos, typography, or visual treatments into these reviews. Giving the team tangible alternatives made it easier to identify what felt right and continue moving forward.
One example involved the mascot illustrations. The mascot itself was illustrated by our character designer. I collaborated closely with her by identifying where character artwork was needed, requesting specific expressions or poses, and integrating the illustrations into the larger brand and product system. Early versions of Marty used outlines that no longer matched the cleaner UI we were developing. When removing them became part of the new direction, the design team recommended having the original character artist revise the illustrations herself rather than modifying the artwork through AI tools.
This kept the character work consistent with the artist's original style while allowing it to fit naturally into the evolving interface.
01 / THE Features
The timer is one of Smata's core interactions.
Students can begin a study session, track their study time, and record the activity as part of their broader progress. Throughout the study flow, Marty is integrated into key screens to make the experience feel more encouraging, playful, and supportive rather than purely functional.
Choose distracting apps to block while you study and keep your attention on the work in front of you.
Lockdown Mode supports Smata's goal of encouraging healthier study habits instead of competing for more screen time.
After finishing a session, users can turn their progress into a post by adding photos, captions, titles, and location details.
The feed puts more emphasis on the people and moments behind studying, making progress something friends can celebrate together.
Compare your study activity with friends through Smata's leaderboard.
The leaderboard lets users compare study activity with friends, introducing a layer of friendly competition and accountability. Future versions are intended to extend this concept to broader communities such as campuses.
Use the map to see where friends are studying and discover opportunities to study together in-person.
Location sharing is intended to remain optional, with privacy controls giving users more control over when and with whom their location is visible.
Visual Strategy
The UI went through low, mid, and high-fidelity stages, but the most critical challenges were not addressed by simply polishing the product. Throughout the project, we continuously refined key areas of the experience to reduce friction, strengthen the social experience, and stay aligned with Smata's core mission: helping students build productive study habits.
We simplified the onboarding flow to reduce friction during signup and to identify whether a user was a student. This will help us connect them to their Campus Leaderboard.
What changed
We added a clearer way for users to sign up with student status. We also made the onboarding more visually appealing.
Why
The goal was to reduce friction to get as many users on for testing and to enforce the branding more.
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
We redesigned the feed card to prioritize user photos and the shared study moment instead of the map location
What changed
The photo became the dominant visual element within the feed card element. The map location information became a smaller visual component of the card.
Why
We felt that the documentation of the social aspect should be the primary focus of each post. Since Smata is centered around who students are studying with and the moments they share, we made photos more prominent and moved the map into a supporting role.
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
Beta Insights
We collected about 50 users began testing Smata before launch and asked them to provide feedback so we could get a meaningful look at how people were responding to the product in use.
I reviewed feedback directly from testers as well as feedback collected by the founders. I noticed several themes emerging:
Some testers wanted an easier way to find or invite friends immediately after creating an account.
Some feedback suggested that beginning a study session could be made more visually prominent and easier to discover.
Testers responded positively to this feature while also identifying opportunities around permission clarity, blocked-app messaging, and returning users to their active timer.
Users also suggested deeper reward systems, streaks, achievements, character-based encouragement, and additional ways to visualize progress.
Feedback suggested that the users saw potential for the map to better support nearby studying and community discovery.
A small sample of feedback received during beta testing.
SLSophia L.
Oct 7
“I had to dig around to find how to invite my friends. It would be great to see that right after signing up!”
3 upvotes
JMJason M.
Oct 8
“Starting a session works, but the start button is kind of small. I almost missed it the first few times.”
2 upvotes
AKAisha K.
Oct 9
“Lockdown Mode is super helpful. A couple things though - the permission prompt was confusing, and it was not clear why apps were blocked. Also easy way back to my timer if I exit the app?”
4 upvotes
EREthan R.
Oct 10
“Love the concept! More rewards would be awesome - streaks, achievements, maybe even leveling up Marty or something.”
2 upvotes
Emerging beta themes:
Retrospective grouping of early beta feedback
At this stage, Smata has moved from an early visual concept into a working product with a cohesive interface and design system. The social feed, Lockdown Mode, friend leaderboard, and core study experience are implemented, while broader location sharing, campus-based competition, and monetization features remain future opportunities. The next phase will focus on synthesizing beta feedback and using real product usage to guide the next round of design decisions.
The Outcome
Since joining Smata in November 2025, I have helped move the product from an early visual concept into a cohesive interface and design system now being used in the working beta.
Today: ~50 users have participated in beta testing. The redesigned product has progressed into its August 2026 launch window. The social feed is implemented. Lockdown Mode is fully functional. The current leaderboard supports competition between friends. Beta feedback is actively being collected and reviewed.