Fit8 Workout App
By: Armin Barak
Tags: Workout, Case Study, UX, UI, Covid 19

About me

I’m Armin Barak, a product designer having responsibility to find user’s need in using digital products. In this case study , one of the main society problems during this pandemic is analyzed, user needs are found and the problem solving process is described in detail.

Problem

Most of us are experiencing the restrictions for going to gyms to do workout due to the Corona virus pandemic and lock downs, so we can not follow our sport activities and on the other hand employee’s time limitations is more than before , most of us are working from home with zero exercise . So this lack of movement (workout) brings so many mental and physical illnesses.

For understanding and being sure about the real problems , we had to do a deep research and define the process design by using acquired information and data.

Purpose

Due to the explained problem , our final goal is to make doing workout available for all people in this lockdown situations, helping people who have time limitations to go to gyms and making this process more easy by our design.

our qualitative goal is to achieve higher user satisfaction in using our product to do workout and our quantitative goal is to increase the number of these users.

Process

The Design Process

After explaining the main problem and defining the purpose , by doing the design process ( the above picture ) we are going to identity and measure the solutions.

Define

To Have a more accurate user needs discovery, we started by user research. We used some technics such as: interviewing, questionnaire, bench marking and consulting with experts.

One of the most important out-comes was identifying the persona and acquiring a deep knowledge of needs and wants so we could analyze the problem in different aspects, finding suitable solutions and prioritizing them. First of all we used questionnaire to have an overview of needs and purposes.

Some of the important user problems:

Lack of motivation

Lack of time for doing work-out

Having not enough knowledge to exercise alone

Then for more empathy and having a deep understanding of their requirements we need to do interviews, according to the COVID-19 situation we had online interviews.

Then after interviews and having enough data, for better results we used the affinity diagram and due to the results, having not enough motivation, having not enough time to go to gym were the main concerns.

So for having both a deep analysis and prioritizing the needs and concerns we prepared a questionnaire which the result were :

Having no one to exercise with

Having not enough knowledge about exercising alone

were the main ones.

The words of one of the people we interviewed: I always used to go to gym and exercise with my friend, but in this COVID-19 situation all gyms are closed, and we are far apart, so I do not have enough motivation

Ideation

By analyzing the data in the previous stage (exploration), using various methods of ideation (including brainstorming), we came up with solutions that we had to explore. Here is one of the ideas that the majority agreed with:

Finding an online workout partner that fits the user’s physical and timing (planning) situations and preparing a suitable workout program According to the research results, the most important users problem was not having an work-out partner, which reduced their motivation for doing sports activities. By examining similar products and data (benchmark), we considered the flow and information architecture in the product (*application) for the user and designed it, so users can find their desired workout partner according to their favorite sports, their free time and their body analysis. Also the trainings videos are available online according to the chosen workout program in detail.

*We designed the application because it’s more available and easy to use in every where than a website.

Flow and information architecture

Another option is also considered: for both partners is possible to see each other work-out report and they can chat in this application. which will create more motivation. Of course, this requires further evaluation.

Wireframes

Part of wireframes

After ideation and brainstorming, to have a better understanding and identifying the flow, we needed to design the wireframes of the various parts of the app to determine the layout and connection between components more precisely.

High-Fidelity design

After being sure about pages layout and the functionality of the app’s capabilities, it was time to design the interactions and relevant information and documents in details.

We started designing the initial design system in Figma and completed it over time, we used it to implement the final design.

Part of Fit8 UI

Evaluation

It was the time to test the prepared designs to make sure how users feedback and interact.

We performed usability tests, various scenarios were given to users to perform the desired tasks, we find and examined the problems and fixed them in the new version.

For example: users needed more help to find their work-out program, so we improved this problem in redesigning, the re-testing results showed that this bug was fixed ( users were satisfied)

Usability test with Maze

Using this app would be free but we have practical suggestions for premium and product improvement in the future, which will be reviewed according to the priorities and users needs. This cycle and design process does not end here and will continue.

Result and effectiveness

we expect the following results:

1- Increasing the number of application users

2- users could find their suitable workout partner for their favorite sports activities easy and fast

3- Increasing the motivation and engagement of users for sports activities and more interaction with their training partner.

Challenges

Doing this project had challenges for our team, including:

Corona restrictions for user research as well as interaction with design team members, the team members patience and the using various online platforms facilitated these challenges.

Finally, I would like to thank the our design team for their support and empathy.

What you read above was a small brief of the way we used to design this application.

Thank you for reading this post!