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Case Study - Sporty
Mobile App
Sporty is a platform for beginners in the field of fitness and workout.
People will be able to post questions that fitness experts answer, build workout plans or book personal video training for a fee.
My Role
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Research
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UX Design
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Usability Testing
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UI Design
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Interaction Design
Tools
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Adobe XD
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Balsamiq
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Usability Hub
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Optimal Workshop
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Google Forms
Final Product - Video Presentation
The Design Process
Understand
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Business Goals
The main risk is to be mistaken for a “yet another workout app” the market already has thousands of. People may not be aware of the personalized workout plans and expert service we offer.
On the other hand, we face an opportunity to become a focal point for fitness enthusiasts who look for a personal approach that so far does not exist in other apps, and for trainers who look for a better way to communicate with their clients and gain more clients from all over the world.
Conclusion
We believe we can offer a new experience in fitness and workout.
As long we can get a decent number of professional experts, users will join, enjoy the professional support, gain real value and tell their friends and family about us.
Problem Statement
Beginners to workout, who lack the experience and knowledge, need a way to get reliable and accurate support from training professionals because due to the vast amount of information out there, it is hard to find good and personalized help that will be right for each individual.
User Interviews
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To better understand the users and define the challenges I conducted user interviews with potential users.
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Have they used workout apps before? have they used a personal trainer before? how do they search for information? do they find it reliable? useful?
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During the interviews I took notes, and organized them into 4 sections:
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Behaviors and Attitudes
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Needs and Goals
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Frustrations
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Quotes and Facts
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Click on any of the images for a larger version
Affinity Mapping
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Next, I sorted my notes according to common themes. The themes that came up were:
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Exercises
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Workout plans
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Trainers
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Videos
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Payments
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The information source
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Miscellaneous app-related issue
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Two types of users emerged from the notes.
Beginners, who need a more personalized guidance, and advanced users, who need help on specific pain points.
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This way I was able to find issues that are important to all interviewees commonly, and thus create personas.
Click on any of the images for a larger version
User Survey
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I conducted a survey and got quantitative data on which I performed statistical analyzes and refined my conclusions from the interviews.
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I divided the results into four age and gender based groups.
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This way, I was able to better understand my target audience, and discovered to my surprise that the differences in goals, needs and challenges between the generations are not as big as I first thought they would be, but the differences between the sexes were noticeable.
Survey Findings
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Alone people tend to give up earlier. When working out with a
trainer people work out for longer periods of time
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People feel better when the app/trainer knows their limits and disabilities before starting the process.
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People prefer their trainer to be someone they can relate to.
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When working out to recorded videos, people prefer the videos to be short and “straight to the point”.
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People are willing to pay for an app only after they are positive it will be helpful and provide real value.
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The most important issues for women are health, weight loss and general feeling.
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The most important issues for men are health and muscle gain.
Click here for the full survey results
Personas
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The data derived from the user research helped me shape two main personas.
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Arielle, who has the behaviors, needs and pain points of the beginners, together with the attributes of the female survey respondents.
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And Nate, who has the behaviors, needs and pain points of the advanced users, together with the attributes of the male survey respondents.
Arielle McDonald, 26
Frankfurt am Main, Germany Psychology Student Single
Behaviors
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New to working out and not always sure what to do
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Reads a lot on livestrong.com
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Gets fitness tips from her friends
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Works out in the evenings, with her phone next to her.
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Works out to YouTube videos with the most views without a set plan.
Needs & Goals
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Wants to have a healthier lifestyle
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Wants to improve general feeling and confidence
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Needs short comprehensible video examples of the exercises
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A way to plan long-term workout plans and keep track of them
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Wants a way to track her progress to the desired goal
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A trainer of the same age, not too energetic and knowing her limits
Frustrations
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Feels frustrated when she’s trying to do an exercise she saw on YouTube, just to find out it was way above her level
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Sometimes she feels too lazy to work out, and then feels bad about it.
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Feels frustrated when apps have a lot of commercials in them
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Feels frustrated about the fact she reads a lot of information but then forgets it all
Quotes
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“I don’t like feeling judged”
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“How do I know the source is reliable? If it feels reliable to me. For example, it has no spelling errors”
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“Training online with a trainer? Well, it depends on the price”
Nate Huffman, 31
Berlin, Germany Software Developer Divorced
Behaviors
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Familiar with the basic exercises
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Trains with music on
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Works out to YouTube to keep track of the timing
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Meditates every morning
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Tried kickboxing and yoga
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Tried paid apps to get a larger variety of exercises and plans
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Tries to eat healthily, but can’t find the time to cook
Needs & Goals
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Wants to gain muscles
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Prefers complex exercises
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Looks for other forms of physical activities
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Needs someone to motivate him
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Wants to keep track of calories
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Looks for advice on a healthier lifestyle
Frustrations
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Could do much more, but he doesn’t know how
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Not being challenged enough
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Takes him long to find exercises for his back and knee pains
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Can’t keep good habits
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Skips workouts due to his busy schedule.
Quotes
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“A good trainer knows how to encourage and elaborate”
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“When you work with another person you feel committed to him”
User Flows - Arielle
Arielle McDonald, 26
Arielle wants to improve her general feeling and live a healthier lifestyle, but she doesn't know how.
Arielle reads a lot of information online, but all confuses her, so she loses motivation. She needs a trainer to accompany her and take her “hand in hand” on the road to success.
Phase 1
Trainer Search
Phase 2
Choose a Trainer
Phase 3
Book a Training
Navigates to the trainers page in the app.
Searches the right trainer for her.
Checks the trainers profiles on the results page.
Selects a trainer by experience, age, gender, language and rating.
Sees the trainer’s profile.
Checks the trainer’s availability and books a free training trail.
“Sometimes I feel lazy to get up, tie my shoes and get going, but I know it is important to me, body and sole”
“It motivates me when there's someone accountable to me and I make a commitment to him”
“What if it gets too hard? And what if the trainer isn’t right for me? I hate feeling judged!”
Arielle is hopeful because she has decided to change her lifestyle.
Arielle is excited to see the many options for trainers.
Arielle is a little worried about her first training with the trainer.
Opportunity
Create filters through which Arielle
can look for her ideal trainer.
Opportunity
Create a profile page for each trainer. Trainers write a sentence or upload a short video about themselves, so Arielle gets to know the trainer's personality.
Opportunity
Trainers have a calendar with their availability.
User Flows - Nate
Nate Huffman, 31
Summer is approaching, and Nate wants to improve his appearance for the beach.
Due to his new job, he’s too busy for the gym. He is familiar with basic exercises such as push-ups and crunches, but feels they don’t challenge him enough, and he looks for more advanced and varied exercises to set up on a weekly workout plan
Phase 1
Search Exercises
Phase 2
Build a Workout Plan
Phase 3
Start Working Out
Navigates to workout planner.
Looks for appropriate Plan.
Decides to create one of his own.
Goes through a series of questions that define his goals and starting level.
Selects days he is available on.
The exercises are automatically planned via an algorithm.
He sets reminders and starts working out.
“I have no time for the gym and exercising alone at home is not challenging and boring”
“It's good to have one app that can be used as a knowledge point for a wide variety of training.”
“With a weekly schedule, I can efficiently diversify the exercises I do”
Nate is frustrated that he doesn’t know what interesting exercises he can do alone at home
Nate feels safe and gains trust in the app, because he feels it does an effort to adjust the plan to his needs
Nate is thrilled that he finally has an organized schedule of diverse workouts that can truly challenge him
Opportunity
Create a plan according to personal physical characteristics, goals and physical limitations.
Opportunity
Nate can select the equipment he has at home to help him do better exercises.
Opportunity
Nate can print out the schedule.
Nate can set reminders for the trainings.
Card Sort
A total of 7 participants took part in my card sort.
Based on the results I noticed 5 major content groups in the similarity matrix, which helped me lay out the sitemap.
Payments
Questions
My Trainings
Exercise
My data
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Prototyping
UI Design
Usability Testing
The study focused on testing the usefulness of the three key functions, which are:
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Booking an online training session with a trainer
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Asking questions and browsing through previously replied questions
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Creating an automated personalized workout plan
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The complete Test Script can be found here
Rainbow Spreadsheet
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Affinity Mapping
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Key Issues
High Severity
3 participants didn‘t understand the purple star and thought it was favorite
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Answered question text became bolder, the purple star changed to red point
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Notification alert on the profile image
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Bell icons with notification alerts
High Severity
2 participants didn’t understand they should tap on “Start” to begin the training
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Changed the CTA text
Medium Severity
One participant didn‘t notice the tabs in the questions screen
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Made the tabs more noticeable
A/B Preference Testing
37%
63%
65%
35%
VS
VS
Chose the regular circle shape
Chose the bright mode
VS
I changed the font which some participants suggested was hard to read
71%
29%