Making personal training more accessible
The U-Fit app allows users to schedule live 1:1 workouts with a professional personal fitness trainer from the comfort of their home. The app offers flexible scheduling, personalized workout and nutritian plans, and equipment-free, live-video exercises.
My Roles
UX & UI Designer
UX Researcher
Timeframe
4 months
July - October 2022
Project Overview
The Problem
Demand for home workouts has soared since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, manye people find it difficult to maintain motivation.
This is where personal trainers are a great help! They are considered effective, fun and inspiring, but also difficult to get, to compare and therefore often expensive.
The Goal
Designing an app that makes personal training more accessible. It needs to excel in two things:
- Comparing personal trainers according to goals and budget
- Scheduling and performing live one-on-one workouts
Limitations
While the app would provide a two-sided market, this project focused only on the side of users looking for a personal trainer.
Improving the experience for personal trainers would have to be the subject of a separate study.
Research Insights
Setup
I conducted user interviews with 6 potential customers with an interest in:
- Gym memberships
- Home workouts
- Personal training
Two high-level user segments emerged:
- Young to middle-aged adults seeking to improve their physical appearance
- Middle-aged to senior adults seeking to maintain their health
Key Pain Points
Motivation
Difficulty maintaining their workout motivation over time
Location
Not having an affordable gym nearby
Inexperience
Uncertainty about which exercises are best for a given goal
Discomfort
Feeling uncomfortable in front of groups or in a gym setting
Personas
My research had shown that fitness-related products are often seen as "lifestyle products", which are used as expressions of a person's style, preferences and values.
Therefore, each persona was enriched with personality traits and habits.
This informed the ideation of functionalities and was reflected in the visual style and branding.
Problem Statements
For each persona, I defined several problem statements that were actionable, human-centered and user-focused.
This helped me to further define the problems to solve, and provide metrics for success.
Zainab
Zainab suffers from high blood pressure and needs a professional diet and exercise plan , because she wants to improve her health.
Maria
Maria is a sociable student, who needs a workout partner who can keep her motivated to continue exercising.
William
William suffered a heart attack a few years ago and needs to find a cardio expert, because he is determined to maintain his health.
Information Architecture
I defined the minimum core tasks that my product would need to satisfy:
1. Find and compare trainers
2. Book (trial) lessons
3. Schedule bought lessons
I then identified the pages, functionalities and flows for a frictionless completion of these tasks, while incorporating the mental models uncovered through my research.
Design Explorations
I began with paper wireframes and gradually increased the fidelity. I couldn't do user testing at this point, so I continuously audited my designs for the problems to solve and key UX heuristics.
Usability Testing
I conducted a usability test that included 12 tasks and was followed by a System-Usabilty-Scale survey.
Setup
- Moderated (via Zoom)
- 5 participants
- Balanced gender ratio
Main tasks
- Compare trainers
- (Re)schedule sessions
- Message trainers
- Change preferences
User Tasks
82 points on System-Usabilty-Scale
Before & After
The usability test showed that the main flows were clear, but there were opportunities to reduce friction.
On the trainer profile page, the changes focused on improving the hierarchy and prominence of elements based on their importance to users.
Better placement of favourites function
Increased prominence of intro video
Better placement of chat function
Increased prominence of "Specialties" section
Before & After
Some participants hesitated to open the calendar without knowing whether "it is worth it".
They also mentioned expecting to see availability on this page.
To solve this, I designed a compact calendar preview.
Compact calender preview
Takeaway
Learnings
I have learned that users tend to view services as a commodity, and see personal trainers like any other product.
Mental models shaped by e-commerce mean users expect to compare prices and reviews as they would in an online shop, and book a workout like they would add an item to their shopping cart.
Outcome
The usability study showed that I designed an app that makes it easy to find, compare and book personal trainers according to goals and budget.
In this way, I achieved my goal of creating an experience that would make personal training more accessible.
Next Steps
The project defined end users as those wanting to book a workout with a personal trainer.
As this product serves a two-sided market, the logical next step is to analyse and improve the experience for personal trainers.
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