[Epic] Remembering to Start/Stop a Timer for an Activity/Task

[nelsonic]

Story

As a person who wants to be more effective with my time/effort
I need to remember track my activities/task
so that I have the data to show how my time is being spent
and determine whether my original estimates for a given task matched the actual time taken.

Context

Remembering to start & stop a timer on an activity might appear to be a simple problem to solve.
If the person using the activity/task tracker is motivated to do the tracking, they will just do it, right?

This is not only an unfair assumption it's actually harmful. If the person does not already have a good "system" for tracking their time spent on activities, "blaming" them for not doing it is "time shaming".

“You do not rise to the level of your goals.
You fall to the level of your systems.”
~ James Clear, Atomic Habits

Relying on "motivation" in a world of constant distractions and existing (ineffective) habits, is a recipe for frustration and feelings of "failure". We need to help people to form the new (good) habit of tracking their time by creating the UX that makes it automatic and effortless.

Telling someone to who is time-ineffective to "just remember" to start/stop the timer is like a Medical Doctor telling obese patients to "just lose weight" or "just eat less and exercise more". How's that working out...? Is worldwide obesity decreasing or accelerating...? data doesn't "lie".
Nobody wants to have unhealthy levels of visceral adipose tissue multiplying their risk of cancer diabetes, stroke and heart disease. https://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/obesity-health-risks 🙄

[Epic] Features

• Display Timer (Count Up, Count Down and Original Estimate) in Browser Tab Register dwyl for VAT hq#37
• Change Browser Tab Favicon when timer exceeds original estimate. Vary Color of Favicon Depending on State of Timer #218
• UX Test what and how much info to include in the Browser Tab Title
  • Just the time elapsed
  • Just the Countdown
  • Elapsed & Countdown
  • Elapsed, Countdown & Estimate
• Send Notification When Timer Exceeds Estimate [Epic] Push Notifications  #220 [Sub Epic]
• Discuss additional UX that will help Guide people into remembering to start/stop timers.

Currently

In our MVP we already display the timer info in the Tab title:

I ("a user") remembered to start the timer but I have no indication from the Browser Tab that the timer should be stopped (e.g: because it has exceeded the original estimate) or if the currently active timer is even relevant to the task that is currently being worked on.

This has been noted by several people and summarised by @RobStallion in dwyl/product-ux-research#34 and RobStallion/chess-elm#6 (comment) ... seeing the active timer in the Browser Tab is a good/useful reminder that the task is active. However it's not "enough".

Viewing the tab in isolation, we can see that there is space for roughly 28 characters in the tab title:

Let's first build the functionality to start|stop a timer: #265