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Our Client
Team Size
Duration

5 People

Flatiron School

1 Month

Role

UX Research

Design Systems

User Testing

Wireframing

Prototyping

Holistic

According to the 2019 Physical Activity Report, over 60% of Millennials are involved in some form of high-intensity activity. At the same time, surveys demonstrate that most millennials believe gym prices are unreasonably high. As a result, the majority of millennials are unwilling to spend their funds on a service they feel is overpriced. 

The client reached out to us with the assumption that millennials are seeking alternative ways to stay active, stating that millennials have more of an appetite for adventure, risk-taking, and specialized fitness experiences. They wanted us to prove that their assumptions were true, and to develop an application based on our findings.

User Research and Design for Phone Application

UX Challenges

UX Goals

My Role

The client shared counterintuitive data about millennial fitness habits with us. Our team needed to verify the accuracy of our client's assumption and based on the results, define the scope of the project. The research we did to assess this information was determined by my team.

Our goal was to explore our client’s assumptions that the Millennial generation were looking for alternative fitness and wellness options. We then needed to create a new application that caters to the needs of this demographic utilizing the following design principles: ​

I collaborated with four UX designers as we researched Millennial fitness habits. Afterwards, we each developed our own applications based on the research. 

While working with this group, I often gravitated towards the role of mediator. It was my responsibility to make sure everyone understood each other's ideas, and that every member of our team was able to share their thoughts. I also worked hard to make sure that our research was comprehensive for the client and anyone else outside of the project.

  • Uniqueness:  Embrace the adventurous side of fitness. Different and thrilling

  • Motivation: Inspire and push to achieve health and fitness goals

  • Community: Strong bonds with fellow exercisers. A sense of connection. A feeling of locality

  • Trustworthy: Users trust the product and its offerings

Kick-off

User Data

Survey Questions:

Survey questions were sent to millennials and focused on: budget, accessibility, technology, and community relating to exercise habits and preferences. Other questions encompassed Millennial priorities on unique experiences, enjoyable activities, and mental health.

Condense: the variety of current fitness/wellness market offerings into succinct data points
Explore: current and future trends related to alternative fitness and self-care offerings, particularly as it relates to tech (apps, web platforms and communities, etc.)
Identify: gaps in the market - figure out the white space and potential areas of growth
Collect: robust quantitative data per the above, but also compile powerful user stories
​Recommend: market position for the client to proceed with the development of a unique product

Exploratory Research

At the start of the project, our team agreed that the first step should be gathering information. We needed to learn about the millennial generation's fitness habits, and see how well they aligned with our client's assumptions. Our primary goals during this research were to:

Following the exploratory research, our team felt it would be valuable to hear about the specific experiences of active millennials. We set out to obtain this information utilizing three different methods:

Subject Matter Expert Interviews:

Each team member met with a health or wellness professional in order to collect information about their area of expertise in relation to the millennial demographic. Our team asked questions about their profession, trendspotting, social media, and self-care. 

User Interviews: 

Our team also scheduled interviews with active millennials in order to learn about their habits and understand why they engage in such behavior. We were also curious to learn about what they knew pertaining to fitness and wellness. The topics we asked about included: lifestyle questions, fitness questions, technology usage questions, and self-care questions.

User Interview

Research Artifacts

After establishing the base of the design process, our team moved towards understanding our target audience. We produced a series of research artifacts that would better place ourselves in the headspace of active millennials. The artifacts produced were two personas and an empathy map for each one.

Empathy Map

To further our understanding of these two individuals we created an empathy map for each persona, consisting of what we expect them to say, do, hear, and think when coping with stress and looking to be active.

Personas

While we knew that our application would be targeted towards active millennials, we also understood that this is still a very broad demographic. In order to get a stronger understanding of who we will be developing the app for, our team created two personas of different archetypes. 

Competitive Analysis

Our competitive analysis presented and compared products in a problem space that helps users manage their physical fitness and well-being, with a specific leaning toward mental health, stress reduction, and a general concept of self-care. We also focused on the presence (or absence) of community engagement, expert/authoritative advice, and reducing technology usage.

6-8-5

The team then proceeded to begin the ideation process for our divergent concepts. To do this our team conducted three rounds of 6-8-5 sketches. The first round was dedicated to creating as many concepts as possible. The second round was dedicated to clarifying any confusion that may have occurred during the first round. In our third round, we focused on our favorite ideas from everyone's concepts and worked towards developing them further.

For my concept, I wanted to create an application that will provide a variety of information pertaining to exercise and mindfulness. It will recommend new activities to the user based on friend and professional activity, as well as activities the user has already partaken in.

Low-Fidelity

Divergence

After completing the ideation section, our team would split up again in order to create our concepts. During this period of individual work, I constructed a mid-fidelity wireframe, a user flow diagram, and a high-fidelity prototype.

We then had users take a navigation test for our prototypes. Users were given a link to our mid-fidelity prototype, where they were given tasks to complete. After concluding each task, users were asked to share their thoughts on the prototype.
 

Test Results:

All tasks were successfully completed by each user. Users most commonly rated each task as “easy” and "satisfying." The most common positive feedback I received was about the natural flow of the application, and how navigation was very easy. The most common negative feedback I received, was a lack of interesting content for each activity page. 

Navigation Prototype Test

These are the final frames for my high-fidelity prototype: The home screen displays recommended activities for both mind and body daily. If users do not wish to do what’s on the home page, they are able to go to the catalog section and find an alternative. The application will teach you about an exercise or mental health practice, then users are able to disconnect from their phone allowing them to perform the activity at their own pace. The user is able to rate an activity upon its completion. From there, the user's friends can see their rating and try the same activity. There is also a section for certified professionals to upload new content to the application and make recommendations for their followers.

Prototype Final

Usability Test Report

With our prototypes created our team reconvened and ran user testing. The process for each test was to present each user with a scenario, then have the user complete a series of tasks for each prototype. Some of the key metrics we measured were: task completion, task time, and task satisfaction. 

Test Results:

My Prototype was rated as "very easy" and "very satisfying" to use. The overall completion rate for my tasks was 100%, with the only cause of confusion being the limitations of a prototype.

Problem

Statement

Based on our key insights, we were able to distinguish the problem we needed to address for our project. The following is the problem statement we generated:


“Millennials are finding themselves inundated with information and constant technology usage in their daily lives which makes them feel overwhelmed and stressed. Health-conscious millennials need a way to integrate their mental wellbeing and physical fitness using holistic resources from a reliable community of trusted peers and verified professionals.”

Design 

Principles

Communal Confidence: Users have stated that they deeply value the insights of fellow peers and professionals, despite not directly engaging in their activities with them. Our application will be sure to connect users with each other so that they have a reliable community that they can learn from. 


Reduce Tech Usage: The active millennial client base has stated that one of their primary goals when being physically active is to disconnect from technology. While it seems paradoxical to produce an application people will use to disconnect from technology, our team still felt it was necessary to incorporate this principle into our final design. 


Transformative Information: Information about physical and mental wellness is valued greatly in the fitness community. However, our users have stated that being told base information is not useful. Instead, millennials would prefer information that changes the way they perceive an activity, in order to approach it in a new way.

After sending out our survey to various sites, we received a total of 62 responses. The most important data was:

Synthesis

Our team began gathering the insights we gained from our user interviews and combined them with the data from our surveys to construct an affinity diagram. After pairing up all of our relevant findings, we were able to generate the following key insights:

  • 86% of respondents self-reported being physically active at least once per week

  • 40% being active at least 4 times per week

  • 60% are either solo most of the time or always

  • 73% are incorporating a group or community element at least sometimes

  • 50% of survey takers did bodyweight or lifting exercises,

  • 50% are on a treadmill regularly

  • 37% run outside

  • 33% engage in yoga activities

Affinity Diagram

  • Millennials are seeking physical activities to deal with their stress 

  • Users are noticing a deeper correlation/connection between their mind and their body

  • The Millennial generation is already open to talking about stress and they want to be a part of that conversation

  • User fitness communities are more than just staying physically healthy

  • Millennials don't know where or who to trust to find those tools to help relieve the stressors​

  • Users are getting tired of technology and would prefer to detox

Our team then reconvened one last time in order to create a converged design concept, and annotated wireframes to go along with them. From my application, we incorporated the catalog section and guided instructions.

Reconvening

Converged Design:

Site Map

Before creating the wireframes for our converged design, we decided to create an agreement method chart that determined the most valuable aspects of everyone's prototype, and a site map to understand what the layout of our application will look like.

Converged Design: Annotated Wireframes

As a team, we brainstormed various aspects of the application we were pursuing. Next, we categorized them and compiled a list of all their various aspects and features. We created an open sort where users can decide the number of categories and the names. We discovered that many users categorized the items similarly into four main categories. App locking, user profile, browsing and audio integration. 

DCU FinTech

User Research & Design

Home Improvement

User Research & Design

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