Balance
Online platform or personal guide to a healthy lifestyle where users can get their personalized nutrition and workout program.
About Project
My role
Throughout the project, I was the sole designer conducting various UX research, ending with the UI stage.
Challenge
The goal was to design a product in two months that would help users maintain a healthy lifestyle while offering something new.
Problem
After interviewing a huge number of respondents, I discovered key problems involving sedentary individuals that never exercised, participated in sports or kept a healthy diet.
The main problems identified: dissatisfaction with lifestyle, lack of time for sports and cooking, knowledge of healthy diets, poor budgeting and a general lack of motivation.
Solution
I designed an app where users easily get access to personal training and nutrition plans, as well as weekly tips and motivational articles. They can also manage the number of workouts and food preferences.
Home and outdoor workouts were also added since not everyone has the time or money for gym memberships.
A leaderboard and system of achievements was added to help motivate users through gamification, and from a social angle, joint workouts with friends was included.
Process
Domain Research
I have a personal interest in nutrition and exercise and personally know many professional athletes and coaches. Therefore, I had great access to experts, from whom I received many insights and hypotheses, which I later tested.
Competitor Analysis
I analyzed six direct competitors by collecting a wide range of data. I learnt that the health and fitness business is a highly competitive field, nevertheless I identified areas for improvement. The most important was that personal training and nutrition plans from competitors did not take illnesses or injuries into account, which can be dangerous for users.
Survey
At this stage, I compiled a survey that consisted of questions, some of which arose when testing hypotheses with experts, and others when analyzing competitors.
Having collected the answers, I proceeded directly to the analysis, formulating new hypotheses that were tested at the next stages.
User Interviews, JTDB
After conducting several interviews, I studied the user experience of online fitness services, to understand and learn their preferences.
Analyzing the responses for repetitive patterns, I used the Jobs To Be Done framework to better understand what task users are trying to solve and why. This directly identified key features for the product.
Persona
To keep the focus on the users, to know what motivates them to use the product, what tasks the users have and what problems they face, I created Persona.
User Flow
To offer users the best navigation experience, I thought of an efficient way to move between screens. I used the User Flow to identify any issues when using the product.
Customer Journey Map
The next step was to design the CJM to complete the vision for the product and to achieve a holistic understanding of the interaction between the user and the product, taking into account the business requirements.
Diary Study
To understand how the user chooses a trainer and workout in the application; highlight what helps the user understand their current level of fitness; what motivates a user to constantly exercise or why a user skips workouts, I conducted a two week Diary Study with three individuals.
Unfortunately, one participant left the study before its completion.
Card Sorting and Information Architecture
Right after Diary Study, hybrid moderated card sorting was conducted to create an Information Architecture and assign names to categories and navigation elements.
UI
In addition to a UI Kit, full user flows and unique interactions were prototyped for sharing internally and testing with respondents.
Usability Testing
At this stage, I conducted Hallway Testing and Blur Testing. Finally, to understand and analyze the ease of use of my interface, I conducted Usability Testing with real users.
Final Design
The usability testing guided the final changes to the design before it was all finally sewn together!
