Sesh
As I get older, I noticed that finding time to exercise has become increasingly difficult for me and my peers. I wanted to explore designing something to help people make time for fitness. I created Sesh to provide at-home fitness and mindfulness sessions with a personalized touch.
How personalizing exercise and meditation sessions can increase motivation and lower the barrier into the world of fitness
Role: Sole Product Designer
Timeline: 4 months for Springboard UI/UX Certification
Constraints: Sole Designer
Impact: 10/10 participants found it easy to start exercising and felt that they could incorporate it into their daily routine
Objective
As I get older, I noticed that finding time to exercise has become increasingly difficult for me and my peers. I wanted to explore designing something to help people make time for fitness.
The Challenge
My research found that more than half of Americans are not physically active and this got worse during the pandemic. Lack of physical activity is shown to be a risk factor for health problems like high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, and many more.
Discovery
I conducted primary and secondary research to get a better understanding of people’s relationship with fitness.
I started this project by performing secondary research to understand what the general public struggles with in terms of fitness. This helped me prepare for my primary research, where I sent out screener surveys to find participants to interview. The aim was to find participants who are not physically active but wanted to be.
With the five participants chosen from the surveys, I interviewed them to delve deeper into their relationship with fitness and why they struggle with it.
Synthesis
My research found that people are physically inactive for a number of reasons that are both external and internal.
In order to organize my research, I created an affinity map which highlighted 4 main problems:
“Going to the gym is more tiring, getting the motivation to travel there takes a lot of effort.”
“I was going to work out yesterday, but I got home from work, was too tired, so I just laid down on my bed.”
Since I was the sole designer on this project, I had to narrow down my problem for the MVP. I did some more research and found that the average person needs 150 minutes of exercise per week. This gave me the idea to focus on solving the 'lack of time’ issue, since users could ideally split their workouts into small chunks that add up to this required amount. I felt that this would have the biggest impact as well, because participants are too tired to spend a large amount of time exercising, they could work out in spurts.
The Challenge
How might we help people use their time to work out efficiently?
I created my persona, Zack, to help me focus on the problem and user throughout this project. Zack was particularly helpful during the ideation and design phase when it was easy for me to stray from the main problem that needed to be solved.
Ideation
Since users are beginners in fitness and lack knowledge on the subject, they may want a simple interface that does not overwhlem them.
The ideation process started by sketching out ideas and features that would help users make the most of their available time. After a few sketches and viewing the solutions from Zack’s point of view, it makes sense for users to have personalized workout sessions based on their needs. Since Zack is a beginner, it would be easier for him to be able to input his needs and have a workout generated for him.
The Experience
To meet the user’s needs, they have to be able to express their needs and start a workout session quickly.
I generated potential features that would be pertinent to solving the user’s problem and create a meaningful experience for them. Efficiency and speed are the main factors I want to focus on. Zack’s problems and needs are useful for defining the MVP.
Sketching
I sketched the experience for users to sign up for an account and start and plan a session.
With the features above in mind, I created low fidelity wireframes that walks through the process of signing up for an account, creating a session, and planning a session.
Guerilla Usability Testing
The main finding from the low fidelity test was that users had trouble understanding the concept of the app.
I created an interactive prototype with Figma and conducted guerilla usability tests on five participants. Besides minor issues that were related to phrasing on the notifications screen, the main issue I found was that users had trouble understanding the concept of the application.
2 out of 5 of participants tried to tap on one of the components of the session and did not understand that all 3 illustrations were a sequence of workout and mindfulness practices in the session. I solved this problem by adding numbers next to each illustration so users would understand that it is a sequence.
Design Process
Designing Sesh with clarity in mind, so as to not overwhelm fitness beginners.
While designing the high fidelity screens for Sesh, I kept in mind other fitness apps and found that there was too much information and data that felt overwhelming, especially for fitness beginners. The goal is for users to be able to get on the app and use it efficiently without any fuss.
Testing
Issues discovered with the tutorial screens
I conducted a usability test with 5 participants and one major issue came up with the tutorial screens. My initial design was a screencap of what the screens would look like when planning/starting a session, but this confused participants as they did not understand that it was a tutorial page, and tried to select options.
I switched from screencaps to illustrations, as the app itself is self explanatory and walks users through the process every time they start or plan a session.
A second round of tests were conducted with 10 participants, and 10/10 users understood the tutorial screens and could perform all the tasks for the MVP.
UI Kit
Reflection
Feedback is key. After testing my designs on participants something would always come up. Getting different perspectives, especially that which is not yours, is incredibly important.
Take it one step at a time. Since this is my first project, I would often feel overwhelmed with this huge problem that I had chosen to solve. As I started to focus on each stage of the design process rather than being concerned about the final product, things started to fall into place.
Functional versus flashy. I went through many iterations throughout the visual design process. I was concerned about the home page being too sparse, but flashy designs will only take you so far if the product fails to perform its function.
What’s next?
Based on the research I have conducted throughout this project, future iterations of Sesh would incorporate habit tracking and focus more on planning workouts in order to motivate users and provide them with a sense of accomplishment and encouragement.