Why we're changing Booost's productivity section

Way back, in the beginning, when Booost was just an idea, the aim was to create something that gave solutions to the main things students were struggling with when it came to getting stuff done. Specifically how to stop procrastinating, how to prioritise work, and how to manage when it all became too overwhelming.

In trying to solve these problems we came up with the Booost your day feature and checklists, but also wanted to underpin those features with something a bit more in-depth. That resulted in us working with colleagues within the sector to develop 40 study and wellbeing guides to provide users with a short account of the main strategies they could employ to tackle the difficulties they were facing. Importantly, these guides were linked to different task and event types so that when the users were working on an assignment or struggling in class, Booost suggested guides that were about working on assignments or struggling in class.

Those 40 guides have been periodically checked and refreshed a little, but we have always been aware that more work was needed. All the guides were text-based only, we couldn’t add images, we couldn’t add links to other resources, or backlinks to other relevant guides. In short, a significant upgrade to the content and the platform was needed for us to feel like we were properly meeting the users’ needs.

We identified 2024 as being the time that we could undertake that work, and kicked off at the beginning of the year with a research stage. This involved talking to current users about their experiences of using Booost and the existing guides, as well as investigating other study advice and wellbeing apps and the study advice and wellbeing sections of the websites of school, college and university.

From this research we identified the gaps within the existing guides and formed a clearer idea of the additional functionality we wanted to add. Adding audio and video to the resources was seen as a priority, as was improving the overall accessibility of the resources. Additionally, we wanted to work with external experts on creating some of the content, and then have a much easier platform to deliver it through to help users find and access the content that they need.

All these things we have been able to deliver:

• The new learning resources section of Booost contains double the content of the previous guides, with 40 new articles added and all the previous guides rewritten and updated.

• Every article has an audio option and we currently have 10 articles with videos, with more being added every week.

• Every article also has a built-in accessibility toolbar which enables the user to adjust the font size, spacing, alignment and style, line spacing, page contrast and saturation, and the cursor size.

• We have teamed up with academics from the University of London, the University of Leeds and King’s College London, plus specialist study skills tutors and mental health mentors from the Learning Support Centre to help create our new content.

• All the resources are available using a new, custom-built platform, organised using four top line topics (Productivity, Study Skills, Wellbeing & Toolkits) with different featured collections such as Starting at University, Mastering Time Management and Exam Season, giving users multiple opportunities to find the information they need.

• Crucially, the platform continues to provide in-context support using Booost’s task and event types, meaning that users will continue to have content suggested based on their current activity or event.

So big changes and big improvements, plus a plan to continually add to and enhance the content based on user feedback and analytics. It all means that, while it has taken a while to get there, we can feel more reassured that we are delivering the level of support and expertise that we envisaged at the very start of this journey to create an app for students who were struggling.