Increases users' willingness to exercise and keeps them engaged
Calics, Mix-and-match, goal-oriented fitness app
Increases users' willingness to exercise and keeps them engaged
Calics, Mix-and-match, goal-oriented fitness app
Role & Team
Me as a UX researcher- UX/UI Designer
1 product manager
1 back-end & 1 front-end engineer
Tools
Google Doc, Google meet, Miro, Figma, and Adobe Illustrator
Problem
What causes people to avoid exercising during the coronavirus spread and what increases users' willingness to exercise regularly?
Outcome
An application that delivers goal-driven, mix-and-match exercise programs so users discover the right exercise for themselves, as well as instructional information about exercises and dos and don'ts to boost users' trust and exercise willingness.
There are various reasons for quitting exercising. According to research, the leading reasons include a lack of motivation, a lack of funds, and a lack of time. Although all the causes play an essential role in quitting exercising, my curiosity led me to search for the reasons behind the lack of motivation and seek to resolve these factors.
So I decided to find out:
What causes people to avoid exercising during the coronavirus spread
What are exercise incentives to exercise regularly?
To identify the factors contributing to people not exercising and to find out exercise incentives, I did a semi-structured user interview with 5 adults who passed screening. The gathered qualitative data was unstructured. Using Thematic Analysis ( Affinity Diagramming techniques), I developed 5 descriptive codes and underlying themes.
Themes gathered from qualitative data
I found that users give up exercising because they can't easily trust exercises and are concerned about the quality and complications of exercises.
Curious to learn more
The insight I got was that...
Exercises don't have proper instructions or informative details about how to do them or what each does or what they are good for, so users are concerned about the quality and are untrusting of them.
Where does this insight come from?
4 of 5 participants talked about how being provided with instructions, or informative details can lead to more trust in the effect of exercises and inhibit the potential damage.
“I don’t know how to do them and don’t know if they hurt my neck or not”
Users give up exercising because they are not sure which exercises they need or what exercises are suitable for them, and they will be satisfied with exercising if they have someone to help them with their exercise plan.
Curious to learn more
The insight I got was that...
There are no effective exercise programs tailored to users' goals, so they have problems finding suitable exercises.
Where does this insight come from?
More than half of the participants wanted a suitable exercise program and felt they needed help finding those exercises.
“I love exercising but have doubts about which exercises to do that be suitable for me”
Finally, I came to these problems that...
Users want proper instructions or informative details about how to do exercises, what each does, and what it is suitable for because they are concerned about the quality and complications of exercises.
Users want an effective exercise program specifically tailored to their goals because they are not sure what exercises they need or what exercises suit them.
To develop creative solutions to the problems, I tried to provide answeres to these questions
View questions
How Might We
Make users feel confident they have all the information they need about exercises.
Increase users' understanding of what each exercise is good for.
Help users feel confident they are doing the exercises in the right way.
Make users feel confident of the competence and correctness of the instruction.
Help users find out which exercises they need.
Help users feel confident they are doing the appropriate exercise.
Make users feel they have goal-oriented exercise programs.
The product could explore only some solutions as each has its own use value and implementation complexity.
So I prioritized and selected only the best (using the impact-effort matrix)
Informative and required explanations about each exercise including purpose and focus - how to perform it correctly - dos and don'ts - and who this exercise is suitable for
Personalized exercise program with mix-up workouts guided by trainers
Related information was grouped and divided into three meaningful sections. About, instruction and dos and don’ts
Design solution
Because there was too much data, tabs were used to divide content into meaningful sections that were logical and clear to users. However, usability tests were conducted to determine whether users find it difficult to navigate with tabs.
Section 1: Workout’s purpose, where it focuses and who it is suitable for
Design solution
Enhancing user awareness through explanations of exercise's focus and purpose.
Based on the research findings, knowing the goal of each workout and for whom it is suitable increased users' confidence in exercises.
Section 2: Doing exercises correctly through step-by-step visual training
Design solution
More detailed tutorials through video-based learning, as videos are engaging, fun, and attention-holding, alleviating user concerns of potential injury from wrong performance.
Detailed workout performance with step-by-step instructions.
Findings revealed that users give up exercising because they feel uncertain about workout performance due to unclear instructions.
Users declared that there were no effective exercise programs tailored to their goals. Therefore, a four-step goal-setting process was used to provide users with the best workout program.
Design solution
Receiving health problems, activity, and dietary restrictions will ensure that no banned activities or food will be included in their program.
While this app is free to download and has no subscription plan, in-app purchases and ads can generate cash. User-centred and business-focused designs are required. Interstitial advertising, which appears during app transitions, can generate revenue. Ads should be served at the proper time to improve the user experience without overexposure.
They can reap future rewards by encouraging users to invest time, money, information, or effort into a product.
According to Nir Eyal's "Hooked," users expect benefits after customizing a product.
Allowing consumers to create their own workout objectives and routines creates a habit loop. They'll get more prizes and be more loyal to this product as they improve in their exercise routine.
Make the process as simple as possible by breaking down large tasks into smaller steps.
Every product interaction compromises users' security. When the user first estimates how long a new task will take, the smaller the commitment, the lesser the threat. So, consumers should find the design process simple.
By breaking down big tasks into smaller steps and minimizing cognitive strain, the filling information process was simplified.
Net Promoter Score = 60%
Task success rate = 4/5
All users were able to build customized workout plans successfully with no errors.
Information was easily found by navigating between tab items for all 5 participants.
The process of seeking advice from trainers was straightforward for all users with only 1 minor error.
Most users had difficulty locating the next day's exercise program because they mistakenly clicked on an unclickable day and were unable to distinguish between workout and non-workout days.
Learn more about the solution success measurement
To measure the success of the solution
To discover issues or opportunities in the user experience, a moderated qualitative usability test was conducted with five representative users. Based on the metrics gathered and the insights gained, solutions to the design issues were then established.
Metrics (KPIs) were defined to measure the design's success rate and the solution's validation.
(Note: As a team, we define what KPIs should be measured and what is considered a success with the product manager.)
To measure success, I tracked:
Task success rate
Number of errors
Net promoter score (NPS)
Before
After
Practising problem-solving over solution-focused thinking
Using user research, I attempted to discover why users stopped exercising. It was a great success in product design for me to understand why people behaved as they did. More importantly, gaining insights from their behaviour, actions, and feelings guided me to more user-friendly solutions to design products that meet their needs.
I learned how to focus and constrain more on one issue
After facing a variety of problems from users, I sought to identify the most pressing ones. An MVP cannot include all the users' pain points since it is too costly and time-consuming. Especially with a limited budget and little time, designers must focus on the biggest problems in an MVP.