Group Fit
Role: Conducting research, creating concepts, and constructing the UX/UI
Tools: Figma
Problem: Find a way to keep individuals motivated to exercise and reach their fitness goals.
Overview: Group Fit is an app where users can join live classes led by professional fitness coaches and join supportive fitness forums. It motivates individuals to exercise and continue with their fitness routine through the supportive and encouraging environment that their trainer and classmates provide.
Alyson Desmarais
Group Fit
Role: Conducting research, creating concepts, and constructing the UX/UI
Tools: Figma and Illustrator
Problem: Many individuals want to stay active but find difficulty staying motivated to reach their fitness goals.
Overview: Group Fit is an app where users can purchase and participate in live classes led by professional fitness coaches and join supportive fitness forums. It motivates individuals to exercise and continue with their fitness routine through the supportive and encouraging environment that their trainer and classmates provide.
Surveys
For the first step in the discovery phase of the project, I decided to conduct user surveys to gain a deeper insight into individuals’ relationships with exercising.
- I created surveys through Google Docs that were shared with those within, or who were looking to become a part of, the fitness community.
- Forty surveys were taken from individuals whose ages ranged from 18 to 65+.
- The results showed that many individuals struggled to maintain a fitness routine due to a lack of time, physical discomfort, general exhaustion, and mental health struggles. However, I found that having an instructor and working out with friends was what kept most individuals motivated to exercise.
- Based on these results, I decided to focus on creating an app that would provide individuals the support they needed to stay motivated throughout their fitness journey.
Interviews
After conducting user surveys I began organizing interviews with potential users to gain a better grasp of the problem at hand.
- Just as with the surveys, I was curious to hear why individuals were motivated to exercise and what caused them to potentially lose this motivation.
- For this project, seven potential users were interviewed.
- I found that for users to stick to a fitness routine, they needed other individuals’ emotional support as well as routines that could be completed quickly and from any location.
- With these new details, I wanted to refine the app to focus on the user’s emotions throughout their fitness journey, rather than simply tracking steps or calorie counts.
Personas
Based on the information collected from the surveys and interviews, I created four user personas that were referenced while creating the app. Each persona represented a different age range and specific details on the type of motivational struggles they faced, as per the data.
Competitor Analysis
Before creating the app, I researched both direct and indirect competitors to better understand the market at hand. Note: This project was completed before Peloton expanded its app to include a library of fitness classes.
Wireframes
I started the design process by creating low-fidelity sketches to sort through some of the design concepts I had visualized. After many iterations, these were the final sketches of a few of the most prominent screens in the app.
User testing
Before completing the project, I conducted user testing on high-fidelity prototypes to test the app’s intuitiveness and any usability issues.
- Five potential users tested the app.
- Users were asked to purchase a fitness class, attend a “live class”, and navigate through their profile.
- I found that a few individuals struggled to find the classes they had signed up for.
- To fix this usability issue, I created a more obvious/intuitive pathway for users to locate their classes.
UI
Once I had a basic design on paper, I began to create the design in Figma.
- I wanted to create a bright and inspiring design and used a vibrant accent of orange to emit this feeling. Orange is shown to create feelings of excitement and enthusiasm, which would help motivate individuals to workout.
- After doing market research on other fitness-related companies, I realized many of the designs felt intense and strong. I wanted the UI of this app to feel a bit less intimidating and welcoming to all.
- My goal was to have a modern feeling interface that was sleek and well organized.
- The IOS style guide was followed to create this design.
Conclusion
Overall, this project taught me that you can never assume what users want or what the problem of a project may be.
- The largest struggle when creating this app was creating a concept that varied from what was currently on the market.
- To do this, I focussed on creating a fitness experience where users could constantly be supported by other users and instructors and where the class sizes were small so users never felt lost in the crowd.