Process

1. I collaborated with three other designers to design a product following the human centered design approach. The process includes identification of user pain points, product ideation, design, prototyping, and assessment through usability testing and heuristic evaluation.

2. I individually revisited the design of the app, focusing on improving the usability of the experience.

The Problem

Social distancing and lockdown made it challenging to maintain an exercise routine.

This is because:

1. Individuals require social and emotional aspects to keep themselves motivated for regular workouts.

2. Organizing social exercise events or meetups has become difficult due to lockdown restrictions.

3. This change in environment further decreases users’ motivation to exercise regularly.

Regular exercise is extremely important for health, especially during a global health crisis, we decided to dive deeper into this issue to figure out how we can help.

Goal 🚩

To design an app that allows users to allocate their time effectively, stay fit, and socialize.

Research

To better understand the current motivations, practices, challenges, and needs of target users as they maintain an exercise routine during the pandemic, I conducted user interviews with individuals from our target user group, ranging from college students with regular exercise habits to those who lack but wish to maintain a routine.

We created a set of activity notes based on the raw data and session summaries we obtained from the sessions. Using affinity diagramming, we grouped the activity notes based on their relevance and interpreted the clusters toward a set of synthesized themes or insights.

Insights & Takeaways 💡

Our Persona

After carefully synthesizing data from 8 user interviews, we condensed our findings and insights into an archetype.

Designing the Product

Product Requirements

Taking into account the tasks that the users need to perform, we identified key features that we needed to build.

1. Resources for various types of exercises such as weight-training or HIIT program for all levels.

2. Visible results and progress should be available to users to keep themselves motivated.

3. Scheduling feature where users can schedule new workout sessions and follow up their schedule.

Ideation

Each of our teammates sketched out their ideas individually. We categorized our ideas into Before Workout, During Workout, and After Workout, each addressing a part of our persona’s needs. We consolidated our ideas into one single product that solves Emma’s problems.

Initial Task Flow

We sketched out our initial task flow to visualize our ideas and divide the tasks up.

Initial Designs

Within 3 weeks, we worked as a group to create prototypes for usability testing and iterated our designs based on the data, observations, and feedback we obtained from the sessions.

1. Finding a Workout Deck

Initial Version

User navigate through the card decks by utilizing the filter feature within the app. (This is the initial prototype that we used for conducting usability testing via Zoom. )

Major UX Issues

1. The filter feature and its icon did not aid the users’ instinctual discovering behavior. The users were lost when they tried to navigate through the card decks .

2. The variety of colors of choice chips in the filter page can cause bias in selecting the decks.

Iteration

2. Scheduling the Workout

Initial Version

Step-by-step scheduling is designed to narrow down user’s focus on his/her current task.

Major UX Issues

1. In terms of visual design, it was difficult to understand which time was selected in the scrolling interaction.

2. "View Scheduled Game" page is not salient enough. Users mentioned that if they had not seen this button, they would not have known that they had successfully completed the task.

Iterations

3. The Workout Session 💪

Initial Version

Major UX Issues

1. There is no queue to prepare users to turn their phone horizontally before the game begins. This left users confused about when they needed to turn their phone.

2. The users were not aware that they needed to swipe to reveal the next card. They tried clicking multiple times, and were not provided with any feedback for their actions.

Iterations

4. Viewing Progress

Being able to see visible progress is one of our users’ key goals. The View Progress screens provides visualized data(calories burnt, active time during workout, etc.) that highlights our users' performances.