Tracking Nutrition and Building Discipline
UX Case Study — Adding Features to Fitness by Apple
Building Upon a Powerhouse
Problem
Fitness by Apple delivers a comprehensive overview of Activity details, Workout and Mindfulness history, Trends, Awards, on-demand membership, and Sharing with friends & family, all on one convenient app.
Despite the impressive list of features, users still struggle to achieve their goals.
Solution
I integrated a new feature — or two — that would appeal to more users and help them achieve their goals in the hope of increasing user app ratings, retention, and satisfaction.
This was my first case study and conceptual project. Here were my biggest lessons and takeaways: don’t assume, don’t rush, don’t fixate.
Don’t assume
This concept I wanted to integrate was based on 1–2 users' experience; which I thought would be beneficial for all. This left me developing interview scripts that were going to be essentially useless (or so I thought…)
Don’t rush
As I mentioned, this was my first project. I was eager to implement everything I was learning from course readings, YouTube tutorials, and my mentor. This left me with designs and flows that weren’t well thought out, messy, and inconsistent spacing/grid systems.
Don’t fixate
This was the biggest lesson I learned from this project. When analyzing user interviews, I became fixated on one issue that a few participants were experiencing.
It wasn’t until the end of the ideation phase that I chose to revisit the discovery phase. Here I re-evaluated user interviews and — a ha — found the second pain point to design for; one that would cater to all users.
This second feature ended up being my personal favorite of the project, but more importantly, the most favored by the participants.
But first, let’s go back to the beginning…
WEEK 1 — Discover
Our physical health is no linear journey and varies vastly amongst individuals, it’s difficult to zero in on what pain point was the commonality among participants.
When I interviewed participants, I realized this was going to be difficult to condense into one objective as everyone’s goals are unique. From battling unrealistic body standards and social media, to simply lacking discipline — the range is too broad. Click here to view the full interview script and plan.
Analyzing and synthesizing the user interviews, I was overwhelmed with the findings. What the heck was the problem? How would my feature solve for the majority? More importantly, how would this feature solve for each user in a unique and valuable way that was tailored to them?
I know you can’t read any of that above. So here’s the consensus:
The common denominator is that they all utilized Fitness (formerly known as Activity) on iOS. This decided what app I was going to integrate a new feature into.
Why this platform? What makes them all use Fitness? What was the hype? I mean, the app store isn’t doing it any favors with only a 3-star average rating.
I know why I use it, and why I enjoy the platform — but this isn’t about me. Although, I can’t be the only one… right?
I guess we are all more alike than we think…Let’s get back to it.
I wanted this add-on feature to set Fitness apart from the vast competition already on the market, so it was imperative to conduct a competitive analysis. Click here to view the full analysis.
Looking at the user research, the competitors below lack the features that users are seeking.
- No nutrition/diet tracking, overview, or tips
- No accountability-building habits
- Competitive or social sharing platforms/workouts that can lead to unhealthy obsessive patterns
Define
After analyzing and prioritizing all the information and user interviews, I was beginning to narrow the scope of the problem.
- POV #1: People with busy schedules need to find time within their days to squeeze a workout in because it can feel overwhelming and like there’s not enough time in a day
- HMW #1: How might we create a system that generates a workout routine based on individual user schedules?
- POV #2: Users need another way to encourage habit-building to achieve their goals because the Sharing feature is unhealthy for them as they are constantly comparing themselves to others’ progress
HMW #2: How might we motivate people to stay on track without opening the doors for unhealthy comparison and design for boundaries?
This led me to a concluding thought— well, how might we help users develop habits that guide them to be more disciplined?
Ideate
Tackling this project was no easy feat. By the end of this phase, I wasn’t happy with the first feature. I thought, “How will this help the users in the end? Will users even utilize this feature?” More on this later.
Up to this point, I knew several things were definite:
- The feature will be added to the Fitness app
- Users battled with being disciplined to go workout
- Users struggled to find time within their schedules to workout
There are various ways to approach this problem. I utilized the reverse brainstorming exercise to see what ideas and potential solutions would arise.
How did I land on this proposed solution? I decided that integrating Fitness and Calendar would help increase user motivation and discipline to complete a workout.
Research shows that if users can visually see an overview of their daily tasks — they have a clear view of their obligations for the day which equates them to being more productive and accomplishing tasks.
Not only does the feature give them an overview, but it would auto-generate a workout time based on their current calendar; removing the mental effort users struggle with of “Not having the time…”
How can this feature eliminate as much mental effort possible for users to find time within their schedules to exercise? 💡
After completing the wireframes and high-fidelity designs of the key screens, I wasn’t satisfied for a few reasons: lackluster, not innovative, and didn’t envision the product being able to scale and meet objectives.
Questions like, “How is this going to help the users in the end? Will users even utilize this feature? Is this feature going to boost app ratings?” pestered my brain.
I revisited user interview reports and found that half of the participants were already quite disciplined in hitting their weekly exercise goals. So the likelihood of these users utilizing this feature wouldn’t be great. Isn’t this every designer's worst nightmare? Designing with no impact? Or in this case, designing a feature for half of the audience?
Back to the drawing board.
WEEK 2 — Discover 2.0
I was on a timeline, so conducting another round of interviews was not feasible. I had to work with what I already had and could.
Turning nothing into something…?
Revisiting the user interviews a week later, I was grateful to have a fresh pair of eyes and a blank perspective on the problem space. I re-analyzed the affinity map to scan for a unanimous underlying factor.
We are often told to uncover user pain points and design for this. Instead, I looked at their goals.
What are they wanting to achieve? What is their overarching goal of working out anyway?
And every single participant had the same goal.
Participants who are consistently working out and hitting the gym 4–6x a week are struggling to hit or maintain their physique. If being disciplined to move and sweat isn’t working — what will?
…Diet. Nutrition. Macros. Eating habits! After all, industry professionals emphasize that weight loss/toning is 80% diet and 20% exercise.
Secondary research
Since it wasn’t resourceful to re-do user interviews, I turned to secondary research.
In 2015, a survey asked 1,500 Apple Watch consumers how impactful the device was in its contribution to their overall health — 83% stated that the Apple Watch contributes to their overall health and fitness.
Expanding upon the survey:
Define 2.0
Users expressed their frustration when it comes to maintaining physical health; they shy away from certain fitness or nutrition apps because of the unhealthy obsessive habits that can develop from using them.
- Users didn’t want *another* app to download, let alone a subscription-based one
- Users lacked nutritional guidance
- They wanted a system that would guide them but didn’t require a high level of effort to use
This led me to propose key questions before designing:
- How might we guide people to stay on track and require the least mental effort?
- How might we encourage users to develop healthier eating habits?
Ideate 2.0
If we can use gamification to motivate users to hit their daily move, stand, and caloric rings — can we implement the same for their protein, carbs, and fat rings?
What would the ideal journey look like to complete this task feature?
Sketching out the concept and user flow for this idea was done quickly as I wanted to mimic a seamless experience similar to Activity rings.
Design
UI Component Library
I utilized as many resources as I could find that would streamline the design process. While I was able to find the basics, there was a lot that had to be replicated. Below is the UI kit of everything I had to reproduce imitating Apple’s design.
Combining my replicated UI components and utilizing the Apple design system resources, here are a few key screens that would be implemented for round 1 of usability testing.
WEEK 3 — Launch & Test
“Final” designs for testing
After a week of reconfiguring project goals and changing the trajectory of the problem space, I was finally able to test the concepts with the initial users I interviewed.
While the Calendar feature wasn’t my favorite, I decided to prototype and test flows for both features: Calendar integration and Nutrition rings.
Usability Testing Round 1
It is worth mentioning that the usability test was conducted from a laptop despite the prototype device in Figma being a mobile interface. This was noted in the testing results (click here to view full analysis) but made me believe it hindered the success rates; as the mannerisms and interaction on mobile vs laptop are different. I’ll address this in the second round of usability testing here soon.
Here’s what happened in round 1:
I used the IBM feedback grid and analyzed and prioritized the feedback from testers.
Here’s what I learned about the Calendar Integration feature:
Here’s what I learned about the Nutrition feature:
You’ll notice some stickies are faded — these were not addressed in the iteration process. I decided to focus on repetitive ideas, questions, or change requests.
Iteration #1 — Sync Calendar to Activity
Iteration #2 — Adjust workout time
Iteration #3— Change Nutrition goals
Usability Testing Round 2
After taking into account the feedback from round 1 testing, I implemented all the changes and conducted round 2 of testing.
Round 2 testing was conducted on an Apple mobile device. It is worth mentioning that a few participants from Round 1 were also in Round 2.
Nonetheless, several participants did not have previous exposure or knowledge of the features.
All success metrics and tasks remained the same as in Round 1. Here’s what happened:
Final designs & concluding thoughts
What a whirlwind of a case study — we’ve finally reached the end. I am proud of this as it was my first project and case study. I learned a lot from this project and now carry it into all my current processes: grid system, foundations of Apple design system, and so much more.
The next steps would be to build out the Nutrition feature further and build out screens for watch usability. The Nutrition feature would be able to sync data with external apps, like My Fitness Pal, and suggest simple and quick meal reminders to help users close their Nutrition rings throughout the day.
Since users utilize the Fitness app most from their watch, the design must contain the most important tracking metrics.
Although this project was for DesignLab, I would thoroughly enjoy these features if Apple were to miraculously come across these ideas and put them to fruition.
If you made it to the end, thank you so much for reading! Feedback and comments are always appreciated.
Email: wucandace09@gmail.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candaceewu/
