Notion - Maximizing productivity for university students
Summary
The People tab and Draw feature aim to enhance collaboration and transform how Notion is used in educational settings.
The People tab makes it easier to discover, connect with, and collaborate with classmates, while Draw Notes adds a personal touch to digital collaboration. Together, these features reimagine Notion as a hub for seamless educational teamwork and community-building.
This case study explores the design process behind these features, including the research, ideation, and implementation phases that helped bring them to life.
Role
Product Designer — Design Competition, Rapid Research, Visual Design
Team
4 designers
Timeline
8 Hours - Dec 2024
Outcome
Won ‘Most Creative Solution’ out of 20 teams
FINAL SOLUTION
Preview
Solution 01. A People’s tab for users to access shared pages.
Solution 02. Handwritten Notes.
Empathizing
Problem Scope
University students face challenges integrating external tools, sharing work with non-Notion users, and collaborating effectively on the Notion platform in real time. As a result, we want to find a way to improve Notion's usability, accessibility, and overall visibility—for students, by students.
Understanding First
Prior to beginning with our design thinking process, it was necessary to break down the problem and understand what should be prioritized. Thus, simplifying the HMW gave us a better direction towards our following phases.
How might we enhance Notion to help university students facilitate more efficient collaboration and sharing of their academic and extracurricular work?
❌
What are the current pain points Notion users face?
👯♀️
How do users currently use Notion to collaborate & share?
📚
In what ways do they use Notion in education?
USER RESEARCH
20 questions, 21 respondents
In the user survey, we asked users how they use Notion, if they use it to collaborate, and what their frustration/s using Notion are, among other supporting questions that guided the design process. The responses gave us a starting point with our ideation and brainstorming phase.
What Notion features do you use the most?
85.6%
of respondents use pages for note-taking, to-do lists, and trackers
14.4%
of respondents use Notion features such as widgets and calendar
What platforms do you usually use to collaborate (sharing academic work or extracurricular work)?
83.1%
of respondents use Notion to collaborate
16.9%
of respondents use Google Drive, Calendar, and Docs to collaborate
On what type of device do you use Notion on?
72.2%
of respondents use Notion on a Laptop device (browser & app)
27.8%
of respondents use Notion on a mobile device
Frustrations Via User Survey
“No text formatting for Notion; Notion is not fast enough for quick notes.”
"Difficulty keeping track of pages that are shared vs in a team space.”
The Message Was Clear
Creating a feature that allows handwritten notes to be embedded in Notion was a big request within Notion users. Above all, it was right thing to do and an opportunity to deliver.
IDEATION
After much iteration, we brainstormed a variety of solutions, and talked about how we could make this new feature different from other competitors while also putting users at the forefront of our solutions. We narrowed our solutions to two that really focus on the sharing and collaboration experience which provided a seamless flow to a large user base.
USER FLOWS
Draw Block
People’s Tab
Current User Flow
The current user flow is unintuitive. You start with looking at your workspaces, then clicking “Settings,” and then clicking the “People” tab. We streamlined the process by creating a tab right when you open up Notion.
You start with looking at your workspaces, then clicking “Settings"
Click the “People” tab
Now, you are able to view your shared workspaces.
This experience suffers because the buttons are hidden between line items, making navigation confusing and inefficient. Since Notion is a platform designed for student collaboration, having quick and easy access to shared pages and workspaces is absolutely essential to delivering a seamless and productive user experience.
Final solution
Reimagined Experience
LASTING THOUGHTS
Learnings and Reflections
Reflections
Working in this design-a-thon taught me that developing one strong, well-founded solution is often more effective than creating multiple fragmented solutions for different frustrations. I also learned that clearly articulating your design decisions and backing up each proposed feature is just as important as the design itself.
Thank You’s
A heartfelt thank you to my amazing teammates for their incredible collaboration and support, to the Notion staff for their time and the opportunity, and to the Berkeley Innovation Club for bridging the gap between students and companies. Because of all of you, this experience has been one of meaningful growth, learning, and designing! 🌟🖌️
Happy to connect,
© 2025 Laura Cai Wu