Pivoting during the COVID-19 pandemic to working remotely, my team designed a mobile app that allows users to customize their weekly workout routines, check their progress, and connect to social events and group activities.
Millennials age 24-39 are seeking alternative ways to stay healthy with more of an appetite for adventure. They are digital savvy and prioritize memorable experiences. Research the goals, needs, and frustrations of millennials around health and fitness and carve out a new product market.
Define the UX strategy of the platform, starting from initial research to delivering final MVP specifications via the following deliverables: Wireframes, information architecture and a low- to -medium-fidelity prototype. During this time most of the country was going into lockdown. My team was able to adapt and develop remote collaboration, research and testing techniques that would lay the foundation of a 100% remote design infrastructure.
Getting to know the users
and identifying the problem space through User and Subject Matter Expert Interviews.
How might we motivate and guide fitness minded users in their weekly physical activity so they can experience adventurous, social activities on their anticipated days off?
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Different days, take different ways. Letting users see their progress to help drive their weekly activity.
Users are looking for different ways they might add variety and adventure to their active lifestyle and connect to others along the way.
Fitness doesn't have to be so boring. These users are craving more than just a crowded gym. Our solution provides a healthy mind and body experience through socially driven activities that harness both the spirit and quality of our product.
Adventure is there for anyone who chooses it and an adventurous spirit does not discriminate. Design will place minimal emphasis on the latest and greatest and always prioritize experience over consumption. To this end, the core features of this product will be available and welcoming to all incomes and fitness levels.
Landing on two personas, The Fitness Enthusiast and The Fitness Devotee. Click on the cards to meet our Personas!
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We felt that our Fitness Enthusiast would have more difficulty finding the motivation to get started. Using the empathy map exercise helped us to understand The Fitness Enthusiast on a deeper level.
As a group on Zoom we did 2 rounds of timed 6-8-5 sketch sessions. After each round we presented to the group for feedback and voted on each others strongest concepts
At the end of round 1 the votes (marked in red) indicate that the team really aligned with the concept of "Building a fitness ladder to gain confidence". That became my main focus in the next round of sketching.
Round 2 I explored what some of the "Fitness Ladder" features would look like. Based on the feedback I decided to combine the features from frame 1 with the social progress feature in frame 7.
In my concept iteration I played around with what some of the key screens could look. I'm really starting to get an idea of what this concept is and how it flows.
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Due to the remote work situation we decided to bypass paper prototypes for concept testing and jump right into low-fidelity designs. This decision opened up more possibilities for testing during COVID lockdown by testing over Zoom.
User Task: Build a fitness ladder and join a group activity.
Before jumping into mid-fidelity changes, I created a user flow for the task "Join or Host a Group Activity". I wanted to explore how this might work as it was not the main task that I was expanding on in the mid-fidelity prototype at this time but an integral feature of the concept as a whole.
In then mid-fidelity design. I replaced the form fill in with 3 horizontal scrolling menus. Feedback from the lo-fidelity testing stated that users were confused about what to fill in at the start. This reminded me of our Enthusiast persona, who was overwhelmed with decision making.
User Task: Build a fitness ladder for Cycling, customize you ladder and complete your first exercise routine.
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In then final mid-fidelity design a short intro as added to explain to the user what they are about to experience broken down into three steps Build, Explore and Track.
In the Build section users expressed the preference to see their choices in one view. To fix this the horizontal menus in the Build section were changed to a series of drop down menus.
Based off of information from user testing in the customization section an "Add All" toggle was added as well as some copy to guide the user through the experience.
Looking back the enticing VP of this concept was the social aspect of the app. With more time we would have liked to explore more into the social and progress tracking features of Ascent. That being said I think it would have been hard to get users into the mindset of social activities in the middle of COVID-19 lockdown.
This was the 2nd project and first group project in the Flatiron UX Design Immersive. I learned what it was like to UX design in a group, remote, during a pandemic. I also learned how important it is to be able to articulate and discuss your design decisions and how to give actionable feedback.
A personal breakthrough, I learned how to quiet the perfectionist in me and sketch against the timer. This taught me it's not about the details but getting the ideas out onto paper. This is something that has changed the way I create not only in UX but in all of my creative projects.
