edward EG
Fitness

SugarWod

How might we reimagine an existing fitness application to provide an experience around minimal equipment, investment, and time?

Timeline 2-weeks
My role M.S. User Experience Design Candidate
Deliverables user research, user design

Overview

As part of an interaction design course at Kent State University, my focus was on applying the methods taught in the curriculum to propose critical recommendations.

SugarWOD is a workout app for athletes, coaches, and affiliates. It allows users to connect through commenting, photo sharing, and community scoreboards. The app also improves the workout experience with performance tracking, movement prep videos, and a way for friends to support you when you document a new personal record.

Problem

Outcome

Gyms can be expensive Crowded, limited, and time-consuming if you need to wait for equipment to become available.
Home equipment personalized workouts Visualize an experience where your home equipment informs your workout routine.
Programming becoming digital and tailored Majority require a paid subscription, all apps require a certain amount of equipment to accommodate most fitness programs.
Enhanced subscription management Change membership type from monthly to annual or cancel.

Approach

I conducted competitor analysis across Beyond the Whiteboard, BodySpace, and Garage Gym to generate a list of features currently available.

Methodology

By becoming aware of baseline capabilities, I sought to understand their app value proposition, fitness analytics, community engagement, and fitness tracking capabilities to find opportunities to integrate with SugarWOD.

Key findings
  • All fitness apps assumed equipment availability equivalent to traditional gym environments rather than home gym setups.
  • Fitness community features to promote accountability.
  • Data analytics is standard across three fitness apps assessed as third-party services to independent fitness programs.
  • Fitness apps were all cross-platform browser-based and encouraged installing the mobile apps.
  • PayPal, iOS native app store, and direct card payment are mixed transaction processes for subscription services.
Recommendations
  • Reimagine the existing application to focus on minimal equipment, investment, and time for users.
  • Utilize tags to personalize experiences, keeping users engaged and motivated.
  • Streamline sign-on processes for returning customers.
  • Optimize onboarding for first-time users.
  • Provide clear options for users to opt-in or out of new and existing subscriptions.

User Flow

User Flow

User persona

Paul

""I don't always have access to a gym and look to maintain personalized workouts for maximum results.""

Demographic

25 years old

Wisconsin

Project Manager

About Paul travels for work and is often trying to find ways to stay active and be able to track his fitness. While his primary gym uses SugarWOD to track his workouts, he would like more guidance with finding motivation when traveling.
Goals
  • To have curated workouts based on equipment he actually has.
  • To be able to set a timeframe for which he can workout, perhaps a target heart rate.
  • To not need to use yet another application to track his workouts.
Activities
  • Workouts 4-5 times a week
  • Workouts are a blend of CrossFit and strength body building
  • Travels for work every other week
Frustrations
  • Not being able to modify his workouts with other movements or equipment
  • Not knowing where to go to create custom workouts
  • Not knowing where he needs to improve his strength in benchmarks

Constraint

Description FPO

Critical

Fictional project with no research budget.

Budget impacted research tools and recruiting efforts for participants. Participant recruiting was limited to individuals in my social ecosystem. I worked with free trials of research tools (with limited capabilities) to conduct tree sort and click-tests.

Ideation

Description FPO

Program filtering

How might we integrate advanced filtering options for finding workout programs in the current experience?

Tailored programs

What level of information do we need to capture to populate program options based on fitness users’ criteria?

Workout filter

Search by track, equipment, or available time.

Program Questionnaire

Dynamically capture information based on responses.

Community

Enhance visual style for app and web unification.

Profile dashboard

Activity at a glance.

Manage account

Billing and user preferences.

Subscription

Update subscription preferences.

Takeaways

While this ultimately felt like a great visual design exercise, I couldn’t genuinely solve unmet user problems as I had limited time to conduct formal research.
Lessons learned
  • Understand existing UI kits for native channels like iOS and do not reinvent existing native patterns.
  • Focus on a content strategy for how to inquire specific information regarding available fitness equipment.
  • Maintain existing visual style language to focus more on experience and added functionality.
Some potential next steps
  • Conduct user testing to evaluate information architecture and ease-of-use.
  • Ensure color contrast requirements are being met, especially text over images.
  • Consider wearable technology UI and how that might integate with the app.

More work

View all work