Working Out Just Got Better
PROJECT CONTEXT
During the duration of this project, I worked in a hybrid remote team with 4 other designers due to ongoing COVID-19 precautions. Although we frequently met in person, we also worked together through Zoom and other collaborative software. This project was inspired by the struggles that individuals go through due to isolation during COVID, and particularly the effects of isolation on people’s abilities to go to the gym and work out with other people. Fitness is a large industry and it is estimated that the results of our project has the potential to positively impact at least 50 million people in the US that go to the gym regularly, and additionally more individuals who would like to work out but are unable to go to the gym due to other reasons.
Project Overview
Duration: Feb - May 2022 (3 Months)
Team Members: Irene Yee, Fernando Huertas, Xenia Romero, Marilyn Benavides
My Role: Designer
Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Miro
PROBLEM SUMMARY
Working out can be a chore…
Exercising regularly is key to living a healthy lifestyle. But sometimes, it gets boring and hard to stay motivated when working out alone.
How might we design a workout solution that is fun and fosters community?
SOLUTION SUMMARY
But it’s better with friends.
Our team designed a social fitness app that encourages people to work out by making it a fun social activity that people can do from the comfort of their homes.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Competitors do not have video calling as a social feature
The key competitors in the market for fitness included; Fit On, Nike Training Club, and Better Together. After analysis, we identified a few areas where our competitors lacked and these became our design opportunities.
creating a focused and minimal app
ability to video call with friends
emphasizing fitness as a social activity
USER RESEARCH SUMMARY
Interviewees believed friends would motivate them to work out more often
To better understand our target audience’s pain points, we surveyed 15 individuals aged 16-50 years old about their workout habits, preferences, and motivations to find out what might help them reach their workout goals.
What was your best experience with fitness like?
Do you like working out alone or with friends? Why?
What motivates you to work out?
USER PERSONA
Meet Benjamin, Cassandra, and Adison
The insights gathered from our user interviews helped to form a clearer picture of our target demographics. We created three main user personas for our app.
The College Student
Benjamin is a college student who struggles to keep a balanced lifestyle between his school, work, and friends. He wants to workout regularly and be able to keep track of his progress.
The Working Professional
Cassandra is a working professional in tech who feels burnt out from work. She wants to destress after long work days by exercising with coworkers and friends.
The Multitasking Mom
Adison is a Registered Nurse and mother of two. Her busy lifestyle after having kids led her to gain weight due to stress. She wants to get back into working out so she can have more energy for her family.
USER JOURNEY MAPS
People Versus Product
Mapping out our users’ journeys helped us to empathize with how Benjamin, Cassandra, and Adison might interact with our app and anticipate potential problem areas or ideas for improvement.
60%
40%
of interviewees expressed that being with a friend would motivate them to exercise more
of interviewees said that they liked working out with friends more than working out alone
Design Opportunities
Key Research Questions
After determining our target users and conducting groundwork research, we mapped out a user flow to get an understanding of the scope of the project and how our interactions would be organized
The core loop we wanted to focus on was the process of finding a workout and inviting a friend to join through video call, as well as interacting with friends
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Creating the Flow
PAPER WIREFRAMES
Going Analog
With our flow established, it was time to pull out our pencils and start sketching. We divided up the sections amongst ourselves. The goal was to come together and discuss what we liked and what could be improved in each other's designs.
CHALLENGE #1
Home is Where… A Lot of Things Are
One of the problems we encountered as a group was deciding how the layout of the homepage should be structured. We needed to figure out the most intuitive way to include a user profile shortcut, notifications, hamburger navigation, search bar, and the main app functions without being too distracting or cluttered.
After multiple iterations and voting, we decided on a structure that made sense. We placed the user profile and notifications at the top nav bar, the hamburger menu and search bar below it on the screen, and the rest of the navigation icons on the bottom nav bar. This made the most sense as we realized that users would only be needing to search for workouts on the home page, while everything else would be needed globally throughout the app.
DIGITAL WIREFRAMES
Putting it All Together…
Putting together the sketches, our digital wireframes served as the first working draft off of which we conducted usability testing to gather insights.
LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Does it Make Sense?
With our low-fidelity prototype, we conducted live usability testing on 5 users to gauge the intuitiveness of our designs. Users were tasked with a variety of actions including signing up, searching for workout videos, checking their profile, finding friends, and scheduling a workout with a friend.
USABILITY TESTING
3 Key Insights
Friends: Out of Sight Out of Mind
It’s hard to find friends and users have to first go to their profile, then click on their friends list, then scroll to find who they’re looking for, then see their profile. The social aspect is not integrated very effectively, making the main focus of the app lose clarity.
Progress: Helpful or Harmful?
Within the user’s profile, they have the option to add progress pictures for themselves and others to see. Our intention was to inspire others, but we realized an unforeseen implication of this was that this might lead to comparisons, as well as make users feel self conscious.
Scheduling: Lengthy & Elusive
There is only one way to schedule a workout and send invites to friends, which is only on individual videos. The process is also lengthy and detracts user’s attention from watching a video.
DESIGN ITERATIONS
A New Direction
Friend Feed
Added a friend feed so it’s easy to keep track of what your friends are up to & discover new workouts
More User Control
Added ability to change visibility settings of progress pictures to either just friends or only you
Convenient Scheduling
Added two locations to schedule from and shortened the process from three screens to just one
FINAL DESIGN
New Horizons
With these key changes in mind, these are the final results of what we designed.
