FIT NATION

Many people find it challenging to maintain an active lifestyle, especially during a pandemic. What if an app could motivate you to stay active, connect you with the perfect trainer, and help you save money? Fit Nation does all that and more! Fit Nation is a fitness community app that brings fitness enthusiasts of all levels and experiences together.

My Role • UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer, Interaction Designer

Duration • May - July (3 Months)

Tools • Sketch, InVision, Illustrator, Marvel

🏃🏽‍♀️Background

When the COVID-19 pandemic intensified many people like myself struggled to maintain a fitness routine at home. After my failed attempts at finding a personal trainer online, I wondered if others like myself experienced this problem. 

‼️Hypothesized Problem‼️

People find it difficult to find a personal trainer that meets their needs and goals. 

🔁 The Process

🧐 Market Research

There are opportunities for new products in the fitness industry since there is no personal training company with a large market. Also, many find their trainers through word of mouth; therefore, the fitness industry is not taking advantage of technology and its ability to connect people.

👥 Competitive Analysis

There is a lack of apps connecting people and personal trainers. Based on my analysis, current apps are difficult to navigate, lack aesthetics, and do not provide users with a community feel.

✍🏼 User Survey

Based on 33 responses from fitness enthusiasts, I discovered that 50% of respondents found their trainer through a gym, and 72% of respondents care about price when hiring a personal trainer. Therefore, my survey findings align with my market research.

🗣 User Interviews

After conducting six interviews, I learned that many people are anxious when they go to the gym alone, some find it challenging to stay motivated throughout their fitness journeys, and people do not hire trainers because they are too expensive.

🕵🏼‍♀️ Synthesizing My Findings

Creating an affinity map helped me identify user needs and main pain points. Interviewees expressed a need for a community feel when they workout since it provides motivation and accountability. Many interviewees also stressed the importance of convenience and price when looking for trainers and workout classes.

Yellow = user quotes & main ideas. 

Blue = main categories.

Pink = ideas & images.

👤 User Personas

Because the fitness industry applies to a wide range of people, I decided that 3 user personas would help capture the broad range of potential users.

🏋🏽‍♀️ Redefining The Problem

After extensive market and primary research, I recognized a new problem in the personal training industry. Not only is there a lack of apps that connect people and personal trainers, but people also lack motivation and accountability throughout their fitness journey.

 🤔 How Might We

...we make personal training more accessible while motivating individuals to maintain an active lifestyle?

Based on my research, the fitness world needs a community-driven app where people can go to gain motivation, build connections & achieve their goals. 

🔀 User Flows

To design a successful MVP, I planned detailed user flows to understand how the user would navigate the app and determine the essential screens required for a sufficient flow.

✏️ Wireframes

Based on my findings from the research and ideation phase, I sketched low-fi wireframes. Sketching allowed me to determine each screen's essential components and how the user would navigate the app.

Developed sketches for the main screens of the app. 

Sketched 2 main user flows: create an account and book a trainer.  
 

📱Guerilla Testing

I tested my initial sketches with users to determine if my designs were user friendly and easy to navigate.  To do this, I transferred my sketches to Marvel to create an interactive prototype and tested the designs with 5 people. .

LEARNINGS

💻 Wireframes & Wireflows

Based on the feedback on my initial prototype, I created low-fi wireframes using Sketch. I moved the search feature from the navigation to the top of the screen, re-designed the direct message screen, and changed the title "rewards" to "medals."

Home Screen

Personal Trainer Profile

List of Trainers

Messages

🎨 Branding

My vision for Fit Nation was to design a trustworthy and friendly brand to reflect a personal trainer's attributes. I achieved this through bright gender-neutral colours, rounded corners, and sans-serif fonts.

📱Hi-fi Wireframes + Usability Testing

After completing hi-fi wireframes, I conducted 2 rounds of usability testing with 10 users. Based on user feedback, I made a few significant changes that improved the app's user experience.

✅ The Solution

After 3 months, the final prototype was completed. 

💡Lessons Learned

Validate Assumptions

I approached this project with many biases and assumptions since I consider myself a fitness enthusiast. However, I quickly learned that my ideas and preferences are not always the most suitable for the targeted user. This journey made me recognize the importance of testing my designs at every stage of the process.

Do Not Try To Re-Invent The Wheel

I initially wanted to make the design creative and unique. When conducting user testing, I quickly realized this approach would not lead to a user-friendly and successful product. Users like familiarity; if it's not intuitive, they will become frustrated and stop using the app. The UX is just as important or even more important than the UI.

🪞Reflection

Wearables

A future capability of the app will allow users to connect with their wearables such as the Apple Watch or Fit Bit. This will allow users to track their progress within the app, and share their progress with their trainers and friends

Public Groups

In order to foster a tight-knit fitness community within the app, a future update will allow users to join public messaging groups. This will give users the ability to meet like-minded people, and motivate users to reach their goals.

If you're all the way down here already, thank you for reading! Please email me at amandafarber@rogers.com if you have any questions!