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FITSTEIN was created for true fitness enthusiast, those who want to level up their fitness level. The app's main goal was to find a solution to tackle a current fitness issue through the use of AR technology that has been severely effected since pandemic.
This was a group project that was done during my time in the Interactive Media Practice program at the University of Westminster in 2022.
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While gyms and health centres had become more expensive after the several lockdowns ended, the number of classes offered had sharply reduced because of cost-cutting
All of us have put on ‘pandemic weight’, and was eager to shed some kilos.
Turning to various fitness apps, each of us found different problems, from not being motivated enough, to not knowing whether our exercises were done correctly enough – both problems that were initially being solved by instructors
A workout fitness app (via mobile and Ipad) that provides its users with workout analysis, both during and post-workout, and virtual social elements via the use of AR elements
This app aims to help people exercise much better from the comfort of their own home
Users will be able to choose and ‘try on’ their ideal body types through AR, and accordingly be given guides and prompts letting them know if they are doing something wrong or right, and help push them to achieve better results
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The UK is a fitness hotspot. There are over 7,200 fitness clubs in the UK, with over 10 million combined members.
Interactive Mirrors are the latest type of exercise equipment designed to make it easier to get a full-body workout at home.Fitness mirrors are unique in that they have a reflective display that allows you to stream exercise classes whilekeeping an eye on your posture and form.
Many health clubs have started streaming professionally coached classes to customers through virtual reality glasses and headphones. Additionally, athletes are finding a new way to communicate and share with fans; Floyd Mayweather has developed his own Mayweather at home boxing.
Health is a big concern these days especially due to the pandemic. Although being healthy was generally important to a lot of people, the pandemic has forced us to look at our lives and make crucial changes. With the sudden lifestyle change, the adoption of digital healthcare apps has skyrocketed.
In 2019, only 11% of people thought digital health was the future, as opposed to 76% in 2020! This is a huge mentality shift that is impacting the future of digital innovation adoption.
Competitive analysis was conducted to identify competitor's strengths and weaknesses to inform FITSTEIN's features and information structure. Therefore. we compared the offerings and functionalities of 6 different exercise apps that imbed creative technologies, along with 7 other regular exercise apps.
To find in detail competitive analysis
Click here
Fitstein targets GenZ and Millennials living in major cities in Europe like London, Paris or Milan. Their professions range from lawyers, journalists, engineers, designers, tech folks – people who more open to integrating technology in their workout routine. At an initial stage we targeted only London and can expand after third year.
Following the fremium business model, Fitstein will offer certain basic features to users at no cost, and will charge a premium for advanced features. Relevant paid advertisements such as offering accessories or filters for the profile avatars will be another source of revenue.
To lower the barrier of entry, users will be able to download the app, and experience on workout through AR, before needing to make an account and pay. AR in fitness is still new technology, and it is important to show its value to new users.
We positioned the cost of the app at £4 for all features, , £2 for the Standard Edition and £0 for the Free Edition, which allows users to test out two exercises for free.
From in-app to off-app marketing strategies, we looked at this project beyond just a UX/UI project.It would be ideal to have a website for legitimacy, even if its just a landing page, social media presence and email campaigns, before moving on to more creative strategies such as partnerships and personalised push-notifications.
SWOT Analysis was done at this stage which opens up new doors for brainstorming ideas and a more structured analysis. Our team tried to have a positive attitude and look for more possibilities.
We mapped the response and thought of the users we interviewed to better understand their process and thinking.
Our fitness expert (Chi-Han Lin), who had successfully opened a gym back in China before he came to the UK was able to guide us into digging deeper into our user’s personas, and extract hidden thought processes and dissect responses.
Our IA was based on the 3 goals we identified: real-time for correction, AR Filters to help users choose their ideal body type and building community
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We built an extensive user flow based on Goal 1 and Goal 2. Several different iterations were made before we settled on the one below.
We started off with 10 functionalities (!!), but quickly realised that to make a successful MVP, we need to start small. We cut it down to six that we thought we could accomplish. And once we started actually designing / coding the app, we came down to three. The biggest learning here was the amount of time it takes to build each feature.
Rough sketches were done to get my initial thoughts on paper and brainstorm new ideas for specific UI elements.
Using the feedback and insights gained from research, analysis and sketching, a low fidelity for stage 1 testing and later mid-fidelity wireframes were created to begin usability testing.
STAGE 1:
STAGE 2:
As someone who doesn’t use fitness apps regularly, constantly building iterations and prototyping with our end users helped me define the screens a lot better than I would have imagined.
Many times, when we are doing a university or personal project, we take it on because we as individuals have faced this issue. And we sort of become the target audience ourselves, thereby assuming many solutions. However, in this case, I was constantly showing the screens to different people, our professors and of course, our in-house fitness expert.
Confused between my account and profile of the user.
Quick save option not available, had to specify which list to save to
Emphasis on photos made it difficult to find type of exercise and people's ratings
Use color and icons to differentiate suggestions from a users saved exercises.
Remove multi-step process to find social icons and make immediately visible
Make a solid and detailed onboarding screen asking user their height weight and necessary details required
Inspiration was drawn from gamification apps in which users can feel competitiveness yet keeping functional simplicity. The UI design reflects the user's desire to have a clutter free, curated look and feel.
Integrates all needs into one streamlined experience
Suggests more personalized exercise recommendations
Supports social connection and engagement
Saves favorites for quick reference later
Gives users more flexibility to create specialized lists
Provides a source of reputable reviews from trusted friends and influencers
With the final prototype created my final thought on this project is to create detailed UCD approach on onboarding screens why the app want to collect users gender, body type data, etc., and how will it benefit him/her in order to get a more personalised workout plan / overall experience. I want to create more solid feature screen that was not possible to achieve in a limited time. Also, the AR filter screen need more work and want to create and learn more AR filter creation in our project.
My favourite part in this project was to build this project in a team and have fun with. If I had more time, I would dive deeper in developing some of those nice-to-have features. These features would add more characteristics to the business and increase the competitiveness.
It would have been more interesting if we had done the UI in dark mode.
