ROUTIN.
Wellness app that helps to turn fitness into habit.
Introduction
I have huge interest in health and wellness, so for my Capstone 2 project I picked a fitness app scenario: a well-established company launched a family and friends health tracking app. Currently, there is no messaging feature within the product. The company would like to integrate messaging into the app.
Stakeholders hypothesis is that if members of the family or group can message individuals or the entire group at any point throughout the experience, engagement and repeat usage metrics will increase.
The Problem
When initial enthusiasm fades, how do people keep making consistent progress with their fitness goals, how do they stay accountable, how do they make fitness a part of their lifestyle all together?
Although the scenario called for messaging features to keep app retention rates high. I decided to create a platform that potentially can help users make fitness a part of their everyday routine.
Exercise may be all about moving the body, but the first step is to move your mind.
The Solution
Just a small change in how you think about exercising can make a big difference when it comes to increasing your motivation.
The key part is to make exercise a priority no matter how busy life gets. I personally struggled with this most of my adult life.
Mind section - to remove mental roadblocks that can help bring in new attitudes, and a renewed motivation to work out.
Body section - various exercises to follow along, option to schedule workouts in advance with reminders.
Social section - to “find workout friends” that you not only can message, but also share favorite workouts with, your achievements, take on offered challenges together.
Activity section - to keep track of users achievements and history of workouts, to increase sense of achievement and motivation.
My Role
User Research, Ideation, Design and Usability testing
Tools and Methods
Figma, User persona, Sitemap, User flows, Sketching, Wire framing, Prototyping, High fidelity mockups, User testing
The Process
Discover
Main goals of this phase were:
Uncover what keeps users motivated to workout
Find out why they drop out of training
Test the hypothesis that messaging/social features are essential to them in their training
Look into current fitness app trends
User survey
I sent out screener survey to 30 people that are currently in different phases in their fitness journey. Some are just starting out to build that relationship and some have been on this journey for awhile.
Turned out that both categories struggle with consistency due to busy schedule and/or lack of motivation as seen in the pie chart.
Some of the surveys questions were addressing stakeholders hypothesis that social features like messaging are important to the users and will potentially motivate them to keep using the app.
According to users answers social interactions and community support features within the app are not in fact that important to them in their fitness journey.
What’s important to them: personalized workouts, challenges, rewards, progress tracking, mindfulness practices.
Secondary Research
Upon conducting Secondary Research, I discovered:
More than 50% of health and fitness app users are aged between 25 and 34 (Source: Statista).
Women are more likely to use health and fitness apps than men, comprising about 75% of the user base (Source: Flurry Analytics).
About 36% of fitness app users are high-income individuals (Source: Business of Apps).
Millennials are the most active generation, representing 41% of the user base for health and fitness apps (Source: Flurry Analytics).
75% of users open their health and fitness app at least two times a week (Source: Flurry Analytics).
Health and Fitness is the 11th most popular category on the App Store (Source: Statista).
Over 40% of people used a health and fitness app more than 10 times a week (Source: Business of Apps).
The average retention rate for fitness apps is around 53% after the first 30 days (Source: Localytics).
According to the research I have done, users weren’t interested in the social aspects of fitness apps, as much as we assumed they would. It went against the hypothesis that messaging features might motivate users to keep using the app in their fitness journey.
Based on my research and what was asked of me as a UI/UX designer for this project, I decided to implement messaging features, but also change some aspects of the app in addition to that.
Define
I started define step by determining who will be using this app by creating user persona.
At first I thought to create two personas.
First one would be a user that is active and already into fitness, but falls out due to busy schedule, burn out or lack of motivation.
Second one is just starting to build a relationship to fitness and healthy habits and needs all kinds of support.
But after analyzing both potential personas, I came to conclusion that both of them will use this app in a similar way. So I created Laurene that you can learn about below.
User Persona
Problem Statements
Using How Might We tool I created a problem statements:
HMW bring variety into Lauren’s fitness training
HMW keep Lauren accountable
HMW help Lauren make fitness a priority
HMW make training more social
Ideate
Based on the research I have done as well as what was asked of me in the scenario.
I envisioned a training app with sections that take care of body, mind and offer social aspect to users that get motivated by that.
Body section with strength training, yoga and pilates, so users won’t get bored with just one type of workout.
Mind section with meditations, journaling/reflections that help to shift users mindset over time towards making fitness part of a daily routine.
Social section allows to follow and communicate with friends through a messaging system. As well as ability to join challenges that would target specific fitness goals.
Activity section has a purpose of keeping track of users achievements and history of workouts to fuel their sense of achievement and motivate them further.
Sitemap
Sitemap was a first step in putting ideas on paper.
At this point I started to doubt my decision to create such a complex app. As I was afraid I won’t be able to meet the timelines of my project plan.
User flows
To visualize the path that a user takes through the app to accomplish specific task I created two user flows:
1. Find and message a friend
2. Find a workout and add it to the calendar
Sketches
Since I had to follow a timeline of this project, I had just enough time to do rough sketches, but they still allowed me to communicate my ideas onto paper.
Design
Wireframes
I initiated design phase by crafting wireframes for my solution.
Test
First round of user testing
Once lo-fidelity prototype was created, I conducted usability tests with five users, to validate my ideas and find aspects of the app that can be improved.
I began by recruiting users and creating test scripts.
User testing was done over zoom.
User test findings
Finding 1.
Questionnaire screen issue:
Original screen had a variety of different activities that are not offered on the app, they were included to get a general idea of users interests within the app and outside of the app. It was misleading to users. Users assumed that all of them are offered on the app.
Recommendations:
Change answer options to what is offered within the app.
Finding 2.
Filter screen issue:
For intensity filtering we had “low/moderate/high”, but on workouts descriptions page we had ”beginner/ intermediate/advanced”.
This is a consistency issue.
Recommendations:
Change wording to “beginner/intermediate/
advanced” to stay consistent.
Implement
High fidelity mockups
I used Figma to create High Fidelity mockups.
Second round of user testing
After creating high fidelity prototype, it was time to test with users again. I conducted 5 remote user tests.
During testing I discovered a few issues that were quite important to solve.
Calendar function issue:
The Calendar on Body/Mind page had no use the way I had it. Users were confused about what it was there for.
At the same time there was no place to look for the routine with all of the workouts and meditations scheduled on a certain day.
Recommendations:
Create a Routin icon on homepage with a Calendar for the users to track their workouts/meditations/challenges they scheduled in advance.
Remove calendar from Body/Mind page.
Outcomes and lessons
Routin fitness app is where I had to use skills I learned during Capstone 1.
This project was very fast paced since I had timelines to keep in mind and certain deliverables. I had to handpick the tools that were most relevant to my process.
The most common reasons we don't exercise - we're too busy, too tired, it's too boring, and on and on. Though this is what we tell ourselves, the real reasons we aren't motivated to work out may be a bit deeper.
For some people, structured exercise is something they've never had to do before. As a result, it becomes easier to set it by the wayside rather than figure out how to start an exercise program.
This is especially true if your schedule is typically packed, leaving you very little energy to learn a new workout routine. You feel like you lack the mental or physical capacity to add one more item to your to-do list, particularly when that item is something totally new to you.
Routin is an app that assists users in making fitness a priority and building it into their routine. It emphasizes the importance of a strong Mind/Body connection. In order to move your body, sometimes you need to move your mind and vice versa.
Overall I am very proud of the results. Huge learning curve and sense of accomplishment.