“Workouts”- A StepSetGo Feature (UI/UX case study)
This was a design challenge. The exercise took me roughly 3 days to finish, including the documentation of this case study.
Problem Statement🤔
People have to use multiple apps to track their fitness activity and do workouts. Since SSG already tracks steps, distance, and calories, the challenge is to provide users with a new feature where they can also use the app to improve and reach their fitness goals. As fitness goals are generally assumed as weight-loss or muscle-up, we want to break this assumption and give them space where they can access different types of workouts which helps them build their strength, improving their flexibility, maintaining a routine, and motivating them to set their own goals and accomplish them.
Understanding SSG
SSG is on a mission to make India fit from the ground up. Every step we take is rewarded with SSG Coins. These SSG Coins can be used to get products/discounts/services in the BAZAAR without spending any ACTUAL MONEY!
Currently the app is not applicable for any other activity except for walking & running/jogging.
To motivate users along the journey of walking as much as possible (and so, earning as much as possible), SSG decided to make StepSetGo a bit of a game.
When users walk outside, they earn more SSG coins per step.
1000 Outdoor steps = 1.25 SSG Coins
The maximum SSG Coins a user can earn in a day (Daily Limit), is based on how much they walk. As they walk more and earn more; you LEVEL UP. When they level up, the Daily Limit increases. However, if they get lazy and stop walking as much, they get levelled down and their Daily Limit decreases.
Understanding the goal🎯
I believe this product is important because almost every person is a potential customer (teens, adults, seniors):-
Exercise is good for us no matter how old we are. It reduces the risk of getting many diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. It also reduces stress, helps us sleep better, and improves mental health.
There is a place for exercise at every stage of a person’s life.
With the current COVID situation more and more people will prefer to exercise effectively within four walls. As a result fitness instructors have been quick to move online, yoga classes have taken to Zoom, and sales of exercise equipment and downloads of fitness apps are all on the rise. Between January and March in the US, for example, sales of fitness equipment shot up 55% as lockdowns began to be activated. Some gyms are even introducing “foster” programs for their equipment during the pandemic — lending out machines to members for a fee.
Competitive analysis
After understanding SSG, I looked for other fitness apps that offer the same/similar products and services at similar price points to satisfy customers’ needs. It seemed to me like a good idea to see how other apps are doing things that I am trying to achieve. It gave me a different perspective on things and helped me to think in multiple directions. Some of the apps that I referred to were, Cure.Fit, Seven, HomeWorkout, and Asana Rebel.
Based on the competitive analysis it is found that:-
- An interactive workout session by a trainer/coach is always an advantage as it improves the user engagement with the product.
- SSG’s gamification feature that provides coins for workout completion is a major motivation factor for users to continue their workouts & complete goals.
- Usually users don’t want to pay even a nominal fee for the services as a result most products lose a certain section of users. But SSG’s free of cost service eliminates the risk of losing potential users.
- A picture can speak a thousand words & choosing the right images can help with brand positioning & connecting with the target audience
Understanding Users
In order to be able to decide what content to provide the users with, it was important for me to understand what content they need. To find that out, I did some googling and came across a lot of information.
After a lot of secondary research (basically googling, in this case), I came across this blog by Jenn Sinrich: The Best Workout for Every Age. She says that exercise can help no matter the age, but your needs change as you get older.
Ultimately the best workout for any age needs to be one that fits your time constraints and that you enjoy.
“If it doesn’t work for your schedule, it’s hard to get to, and if you tend to be all or nothing, you will end up with nothing.”
- The 20s workout — The body is most likely in its peak physical condition and is ready to tackle any challenge you throw its way. Your muscles will recover quickly — more so than they will in future decades — which is why one of the best workouts is cross-training. This is when you combine both anaerobic with aerobic elements. Also yoga is an excellent exercise for the body, mind, and soul no matter the age, it can be especially beneficial when practiced in 20s.
Important exercise: cardio, weight-training challenging all major muscle groups: back, chest, arms, core, shoulders, and legs - The 30s workout — Your body is no longer at its peak, and you might feel it takes longer to recover from workouts. This is particularly an important time for women to start resistance training to offset any potential future complications from osteoporosis or arthritis.
Important exercise: functional lifts like presses, pulls, squats deadlifts & interval-based cardio like spinning. - The 40s workout — With age, bone density tends to decline, as does strength and muscle mass, so now more than ever, strength training exercises are essential to add to your routine.
Important exercise: Create more aerobic challenges and strength in your legs and hips - The 50s workout — Our bodies start to slow down the process of bone and muscle development. This is why the most important exercise here is to continue resistance training, primarily for hips and shoulders
Important exercise: Resistance or strength training (Leg strength) - The 60s workout — 60s are the most important time in your life to exercise. Perform bodyweight exercises like sit-ups, pushups, and wall sits], and attend a Pilates or yoga class one to two days a week. Older women who engaged in strength and resistance training had fewer lesions in the white matter of their brains — a sign that their memory and other mental functions were holding up better.
Important exercise: Strength and Resistance training & Yoga - The 70s workout — In your 70s and beyond, you need to maintain your strength and flexibility. Continue getting aerobic exercise every week, whether it be water aerobics, walking, or dancing. Use resistance bands to keep muscles strong. Balance exercises that work with coordination help both men and women in this age range maintain independence, strength, cognitive awareness and improve mobility
Important exercise: Strength and Resistance training, endurance training (aerobic exercise) & yoga or dancing - The 80s workout — Nearly any activity you do will be good for your mind and body. Resistance training, for one, becomes essential, as it can help maintain your muscle strength. Consider hopping on a strength-training machine at your local gym, such as leg extension or cable pull.
Potential persona
Once I was clear about my ideas and what direction I wanted to take in terms of showing content, I created User Personas which turned out to be really useful while listing out the features for Minimum Viable Product.
Since every person is a potential customer therefore keeping in mind the limited time I had, I decided to focus on only one age-group, i.e. the 70s, from whose perspective I would show the solution.
Solving 💁🏻♂️
As decided above, the solution that I will work on will be targeting the 70’s age group specifically.
It is clear from the desk research that every age group needs different workouts based on their needs. In order to build a relevant product, I started with the assumption that since the user details like gender, age, etc. are already taken at the time of onboarding therefore StepSetGo will display workout sessions based on the age entered by the user. This way SSG will be able to provide services catering to every age group.
Business Goals
1. Making an eye-candy design to maintain User’s Attention through out.
2. Providing SSG Coins to be utilized in the Bazaar & increase revenue.
3. Using Gamification techniques to maintain User’s Retention.
Rough sketching
Next, I did some paper sketching, outlining some possible layouts to imagine the interactions our product needs to support visually.
High-Fidelity Prototype 🌟
It was time to jump onto Figma and start with visual design. Find below the screens I designed along with the design decisions I made.
Prototype
Below are some of the prototypes of the app.
The drawback of this solution😶
SSG gives suggestions based on the age. Users don’t have the liberty to select workouts that does not lie within the range of their age groups. As a result the users are deprived of the various workouts that they could have gone through & maybe opt for if they were given a choice. Since I had limited time for this project therefore I decided to stick to only one use case.
And that’s a wrap. Thank you for reading!
In conclusion, this project was a great learning experience! If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to hit me up and I’d be glad to have a chat!
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