Mobile Fitness App
01 Project Brief
Timeline
Nov 2019 - Jun 2020
Overview
Create a solution to enable anyone, anywhere to connect with a health & fitness expert.
Contributors
-Lead UX/UI Designer: Alyse Brown
Responsible for the entire design process which included a competitive analysis, user surveys, interviews, personas, usability and A/B testing, style guide, wireframing, prototyping and more.
My Contribution
02 Design Challenge
Concept
You are unique and your health routine should be too.
TRAIN is a mobile app created to connect you with a health & wellness expert so that together you can create a personalized fitness routine. Fitness is more than exercise, it is about approaching your health from a holistic point of view which is why TRAIN offers experts in nutrition, recovery, exercise and more.
Fitness Industry Gap
Fitness is expensive and there are an overwhelming amount of options.
According to Forbes, it’s a 30 billion dollar industry and growing. The wealth of information out there is overwhelming and people often struggle to find reliable information on the topic. People join their friends and spend exuberant amounts of money on fitness routines that do not fit them. This leads to feelings of discouragement and failing to follow through with fitness goals.
03 Design Process
04 Usability Testing
I conducted a competitive analysis to gain insight into the current fitness app market. I couldn’t find any expert apps directly related to fitness (as of December 2019), so I analyzed the Nike Training Club App and Brain Pick. The Nike Training Club App directly related to the fitness content of TRAIN and Brain Pick provided me with information on how an already existing expert app could work.
Analysis Content:
Competitors’ profile
Market advantage
Marketing profile
SWOT
UX/UI Analysis
A thorough competitive analysis helped me to further define my problem statement with a set of possible solutions. This then led to the development of business requirements, user stories and core features.
05 Surveys, Interviews & Further Research
In an effort to gain a better understanding of my users, I created a survey and interview script based on predefined research goals.
Key Insights:
From the survey, I found that most people exercise 1-2 days a week and spend 20-40 minutes working out per day. This told me that people are spending only a small portion of their week focused on fitness. I delved further into this observation during interviews asking questions such as “What is the hardest part about working out?” This led to some clarity on what is preventing people from working out more than 1-2 days a week such as not having the motivation, time or energy they once did when they were younger. Each interview participant also had some sort of injury or body part that gave them trouble.
The survey data stated that 94.1% of participants spent a small to medium amount of money on fitness supporting TRAIN’s problem statement that people want to keep spending to a minimum.
The survey also confirmed there was a definite market for TRAIN as over 50% of participants responded that they had sought out professional fitness advice in the past.
06 User Personas
After conducting surveys and interviews, I used affinity mapping to refine my potential users’ behaviors & attitudes, needs & goals, frustrations, and quotes & facts.
Based on the results, I created 2 personas to guide design decisions, establish empathy with users and prioritize functionality based on TRAIN’s target audience.
07 Problem Statement
Once I completed initial research and gained a better understanding of what my users needed, I created a problem statement.
— Users need guidance in creating personalized fitness routines that they can stick with over a long period of time. They want to know things like which exercises are best for them and how much time they should spend doing each. Users also want to keep their spending to a minimum. Spending a large amount of money on fitness is unacceptable.
08 User Journeys & Task Flows
With the user personas and problem statement defined, I was able to determine proper functionality of the app and create user journeys and task flows to give a visual directive to TRAIN.
09 Information Architecture
To determine the IA of TRAIN, I conducted a content audit of a health and wellness chat app to explore what type of content to include in my app. Then, I conducted an open card sort to evaluate/generate ideas for organizing that content. Finally, using what I learned from the content audit and card sort, I created a site map outlining the hierarchy of TRAIN.
10 Wireframing
It was time to bring my research to life. Using the Crazy 8s Design Sprint Method and a mobile-first design approach I created low- and mid-fidelity wireframes featuring basic functionality, content and information hierarchy.
11 Usability Testing
It was time to bring my research to life. Using the Crazy 8s Design Sprint Method and a mobile-first design approach I created low- and mid-fidelity wireframes featuring basic functionality, content and information hierarchy.
Usability tests were conducted to assess the functionality of TRAIN and gain user feedback. With a total of 6 participants, 2 in-person and 4 remote, users were given 3 scenarios with associated tasks to complete.
The information from these sessions was collected and analyzed using affinity mapping and the rainbow spreadsheet. Then, the organized feedback along with A/B preference testing was used to make improvements to the application.
01
Issue
50% of participants were unsure how to complete Task 1.
Solution
Users did not understand why they were looking for a “Recovery” category and physical therapist. This made me realize that perhaps the task did not best reflect the purpose of the app, so I went back and studied user personas and initial interviews. I found that people thought experience/background was the most important part of choosing an expert. I got rid of the “Recovery” category and redesigned the “Categories” section into occupation/experience categories: Personal Trainers, Physical Therapists, Nutritionists. Task 1 is now to find a personal trainer.
02
Issue
Unclear about the purpose of the app.
Solution
Included onboarding screens that provided information about the app and added the word “TRAIN” on the first screen as one of my participants pointed out that it was nowhere to be found in the app.
03
Issue
Want more info on expert cards.
Solution
Added occupation onto expert cards. Users can now know right away if this is an expert that would be helpful to them. This reduced the amount of time and clicks users made while finding an expert.
