Health App Product Design Case Study
We like to find simple solutions to complex challenges.
Here in this case study of the Healthy Women’s Club, I have chosen activity tracking journey to show my entire process that I have followed to design this app.
All of us want to become healthy and fit but we either do not get enough time or lack the motivation to achieve this desire of ours.
The brief
Most girls and women have encountered lie in the second category. In his life encountered the same issues and realized that even the gyms were not very well equipped. Over the years things have changed however many challenges remain the same. There could be many gyms but it’s hard to find good and educated coaches. To solve these issues I envisaged a gym app concept.
I call it Healthy Women’s Club. Hopefully, it will solve a couple of good user problems.
We’ve gone through the market research to understand how great the market is evolving and its gaps.
Fitness apps are all the rage today. According to recent research, 42% of smartphone or tablet owners use at least one fitness app. As wearable devices become more widespread and accessible, an increasing number of consumers are connecting their smart wearable s to apps with the aim of tracking their health and fitness. We recently witnessed an explosion of new products that promise to track steps or count calories to help users become fitter, stronger, and healthier.
Initial steps
My first thoughts were regarding the topic to focus on. I asked some friends and family about some problems they may be going through in their daily routine.
The main challenge for me when starting this project was that I was thinking about a problem and I started ideating about the possible solution and that makes it more difficult to choose a topic.
I began thinking about the following problems:
But I already had solutions in mind about those problems and that makes the process more difficult for me. And that’s what my TA’s, Héctor and Elise told me, they helped me and put me in the right direction.
After the chat with Héctor and Elise, the problems were fitness or video games, two of my hobbies. And I really liked the idea of working on a project about games but I realized that all the problems I could think of were related to fitness and that’s why I decided to focus on Fitness.
This is some problems that came to my mind when thinking about fitness:
Diet
Motivation
Progress & weights
And that’s how I started my research process to see if the people have the same problems as me or not. Let’s make the research process help me with that!
Starting the research
To start with my research process I decided to use the HMW method. HMW or “How Might We” is a method to collect thoughts and questions on sticky notes to work on defining a design challenge. A method that can be used at different points in your challenge and will bring some questions and ideas to your board that can be used to develop and define the upcoming challenge.
Research (1st phase)
During the research phase, I wanted to achieve a few goals:
Find a way to motivate users for regular exercises to stay fit.
Determine users’ biggest frustrations in other fitness apps.
Define why users give up on doing sports.
Understand how to allow people to do workouts without a coach and achieve the best results.
Define people’s behavior while searching for workouts.
Research (2nd phase):
User Personas
The data collected during the first research phase helped me create a few user personas. Understanding the target audience allowed me to find out the main fitness goals and frustrations of users.
Analysis and Synthesis
Most of the users we interviewed were students. They took 30–60 mins to travel to their work location.
They tried eating healthy food and included fruits in their diet. 7 hours of sleep were taken by the user group.
Most users didn’t read anything on the internet, so there was a lack of awareness.
To manage the stress they did whatever made them happy like cooking, listening to music, or playing games.
The most common challenges faced by the users was related to their weight and having low stamina. They ate healthy food and did some sort of physical activity, workout or exercise to tackle these issues faced by them
Most of the users didn’t use any apps. And those who didn’t pay for any services.
Basic Information Architecture
Quick user research gave the realization that if the dashboard is kept as the main feature around which every feature is organized.
CONTEXT → RESEARCH: Hypothesis
All Problem Areas Identified (Divergent Thinking)
Fitness normally pertains to physical appearance.
Fitness goals are generally assumed as weight loss or muscle-up.
Mental ailments like stress/ depression/ anxiety are not taken seriously and sometimes even considered taboo.
Lack of awareness for mental ailments.
Lack of time to track health.
Lack of a one-stop solution.
To view fitness as a wholesome lifestyle result.
People may not be aware of better lifestyle practices.
Problem Statement
“How to help young professionals and students stay healthy while making their lifestyle better!”
Use cases
How can I measure my health details?
How can I be updated on fitness?
How can I remain motivated towards my health?
How can I track my calorie intake?
How can I get healthy recipes?
How can I increase my stamina?
How can I figure out a diet plan?
Task Flow
I worked on the task flow for the FitterME app, it was important that the flow is very simple and easy for users to navigate around using the app.
Information Architecture(IA)
I performed card sorting to understand which feature fits best under which section. Contents were organized based on location and Time.
Low Fidelity wireframe
I performed card sorting to understand which feature fits best under which section.
Mid Fidelity Wireframe or Digital Wireframe
In this journey, I tried to be as detailed as possible, from navigation, icons, touchpoints.
Usability Testing
I conducted usability testing by sharing the prototype link with users and asked them to perform a few tasks.
Selection
We interviewed 9 people in person using the Guerilla Usability Test approaching busy executives at We Work Aldwych House, Central London. A platform for prototype: Adobe XD
The list of tasks was:
1 — Check your today’s task to be completed.
2 — Add an activity to your schedule.
3 — You are going for a morning walk. Start tracking your activity.
4 — Can you point out what are the activities completed.
Based on the testing Usability Analysis & Severity report was generated as in the images below.
Color palette
The color is picked carefully to match the flat aesthetic of the app design
Continuing with the UI, Kept the category page pretty similar to the standard eCommerce layout as not to confuse the user. Keeping a filter for Home try on if the user is focussed is pretty sure to try before buy whatever the item is.
