a beginner friendly fitness app that helps individuals feel more comfortable stepping into the gym.
role
- ux researcher
- ui designer
- ux designer
scope
- deliver an end to end mobile application
- minimum viable product (mvp) in 80 hours
gym buddy is an app that focuses on helping beginners in the gym feel more comfortable and kickstart their fitness journey.
users are provided a "gym buddy" that helps motivate and encourage them to make healthier habits and feel like they have someone there along their journey.
many fitness app users struggle to maintain motivation and consistency, leading to a high rate of goal abandonment.
addressing this requires understanding user motivations and designing solutions that boost engagement and commitment.
- find important data and tips for a well structured fitness app
- understand the needs of users who will utilize this app
- understand why current fitness tracking apps do not work well
- understand the current behavior of users with products that use gamification
- interviewed 4 participants ranging from ages 18-23
- 2 women, 2 men
- all texas residents
- 2 in person interviews, 2 on a video call
the information collected during the interviews helped me understand the needs and pain points of fitness app users. all users seemed to have similar goals of wanting to keep track of their progress and have either used an app in the past or currently do.
the results have been insightful overall in discovering what pain points users touched on the most. i noticed that many of the users were beginners or felt like there was a lack of better tools for people starting out. someone could try it out, but then feel hesitant and self conscious, immediately falling off of their journey.
all participants exercise regularly and would like to see a fitness app that could log their progress, specific exercises, and track their nutrition.
- participants wanted to see exercises being demonstrated, such as a video or other visuals on how to perform
- participants wanted to be able to track their workouts/split and manage them
- some participants did want good ways of keeping motivation and incentive going to come back to the app, through gamification and rewards
- some users find it hard to stay on track with their goals and end up falling off of their progress
- there is anxiety surrounding starting to go to the gym because people are scared of feeling judged by others around them
- a user felt frustrated by the amount of notifications and reminders their fitness app spammed them with
- there doesn’t seem to be incentive on motivating someone to continue their fitness journey, it has to be discipline, but that gets tough
- users are passionate about health and fitness, it is a staple in their lives
- users love community, want to be able to see progress of their friends and family as well
- being able to have a gamification aspect such as earning badges, rewards, or having a character in the app would be a fun experience
i chose 4 widely well known platforms that are known in the fitness app industry as well as a gamified mental health app, finch.
- myfitnesspal has an extensive food database with great community support, but has limited free features and some accuracy issues with user logged food.
- hevy has tailored workout plans with detailed exercise demonstrations, but there is a limited amount of exercise variety and lack of community interaction.
- strong has a nice and clean interface with customizable workouts, but there is limited nutrition tracking and a lack of advanced features.
- finch like strong, has a user friendly interface, engaging gamification content, and simple starting tasks. however there is a lack of live support and pricing concerns.
after the user interviews, i synthesized my research through affinity mapping to connect all the users pain points, needs and motivations. the main things i would hear users tell me is how much of a struggle it was to be a beginner.
being able to decide to eat healthier, go to the gym and motivate themselves was more easy than actually doing it. a question that would be asked is, "what am i supposed to do?". as someone who also struggled to go to the gym as a beginner and felt lost, i empathized with this pain point the most because it really is hard to not feel self conscious or confused on how to do a certain exercise. it was at this point i felt the most important issue that resonated with users was being able to create a beginner friendly app.
i created two user personas, alex davis and annie liu. i wanted my personas to incorporate big issues i noticed during my user interviews and affinity mapping experience. one main theme i gathered information about was centered around beginner gym goers.
so for this instance, alex davis is someone who is a beginner and needs guidance in the gym, while annie liu is a personal trainer who prioritizes training beginners.
i created this user flow with the idea in mind of creating a simple and straightforward way for a user to create a workout routine. i knew that this would be the one of the biggest features of the app, so i wanted to take a user through the process. i incorporated decision making for if they found the specific exercise they were looking for, if they needed to add another exercise or not, and if they knew how to preform the said exercise.
i knew for my brand design i wanted something that was youthful, bright, energetic but also calming at the same time. after some browsing, i decided on a blue and a red tone for my main colors. i also drew my own logo for gym buddy, because i wanted the theme to be cute, encouraging and inviting. this theme targets a younger audience as i feel like many beginners are those who are younger and want to kickstart their fitness journey.
for the low fidelity wireframes, i followed the user flow which helped me visualize what i wanted for the screens. i wanted to make it easy to follow with a simplistic visual design.
using my brand design and low fidelity wireframes, i set sail for creating my high fidelity wireframes. i kept it simple and easy on the eyes. i used fake repetitive data just to showcase how the cards would look but overall was satisfied with this first iteration.
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the next step, testing, is crucial because it allows me to evaluate how easily users can interact with the product. by doing this, i can see where there are pain points, gather positive/negative feedback and suggestions so i can iterate the prototype.
- minimal time spent on each page
- how quickly users could navigate the flow
- users could navigate to the workout tab
- users could successfully add the exercise and save the routine
i gave the participants 3 tasks to complete during the usability test:
1) creating a workout
imagine you are a user who would like to create a workout for your legs. Where would you go to do that?
2) adding an exercise to the workout routine
after creating the routine, you want to add barbell squats to the routine. where would you go to do that?
3) input information into exercise
after finding and adding the exercise to the routine, you want to input the weight and amount of reps you will be doing for this set. once done, you will save the routine. how would you go about that?
- interviewed 4 participants ranging from ages 19-24
- 3 women, 1 man
- all texas residents
- 2 in person interviews, 2 on a video call
- 100% of users were able to navigate to the workout tab
- 100% of users were able to create a routine
- 100% of users were able to save the routine
- 0 critical errors
- 75% of users commented on the UI and ease of use
the usability test went smoothly. all of the users had no issues with navigating to the workout tab and even creating the routine. i did notice they would pause to read the pages carefully before continuing their next actions. overall, they liked the visual design, but some of them did suggest having an image for the empty states as i suspected.
one user did note that they would have liked to see a notification/modal popup when trying to go back to ask the user if they are okay discarding the created routine while editing it. i did understand where they were coming from and made note to add that extra screen.
another user suggested having something similar to a step by step tutorial when creating the routine since i am targeting beginners for the app. they described having things such as pop up messages and arrows to explain where to go to add certain things. i liked this idea, but i wasn’t sure how sustainable it was with how much time i had for the mvp.
after the feedback from the usability test, i implemented the changes that participants suggested for a smoother experience.
the key screens i added were a keyboard screen for typing in the routine name and a "discard routine" page for when users would like to go back and exit while they were in creation mode. i also added images to the empty state screens so it looked less plain. overall, the changes were helpful in creating a more seamless experience.
being able to create gym buddy was an exciting and thought provoking process. i enjoyed each stage of this process because fitness is important to me, and being able to incorporate that in ux design made me have more of a desire to understand users more. being a beginner in any kind of field is always a struggle. but i know with the proper tools and community, anyone can overcome their fears and anxiety.
that is why i believe this app will help those who seek guidance and comfort within the gym community. i do want to expand on the app in the feature to gamify it more and make it a space for all gym goers to feel welcome.
